1 An Account of the Life, 22-24. For the voyage of the Loyal George, see TSTD, #16490.
2 William D. Piersen, “White Cannibals, Black Martyrs: Fear, Depression, and Religious Faith as Causes of Suicide Among New Slaves,” Journal of Negro History 62 (1977), 147-59.
3 Sidney W. Mintz and Richard Price, The Birth of African-American Culture: An Anthropological Perspective (orig. publ. 1976; rpt. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992); Michael A. Gomez, Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998); Stephanie E. Smallwood, Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006).
4 Testimony of George Millar, 1790, HCSP, 73:394; Testimony of William Littleton, 1789, HCSP, 68:299; Samuel Robinson, A Sailor Boy’s Experience aboard a Slave Ship in the Beginning of the Present Century (orig. publ. Hamilton, Scotland: William Naismith, 1867; rpt. Wigtown, Scotland: G.C. Book Publishers Ltd., 1996), 55; John Atkins, A Voyage to Guinea, Brasil, and the West Indies; In His Majesty’s Ships, the Swallow and Weymouth (London, 1735; rpt. London: Frank Cass & Co., 1970), 180.
5 Three Years Adventures, 84; John Matthews, A Voyage to the River Sierra Leone, on the Coast of Africa, containing an Account of the Trade and Productions of the Country, and of the Civil and Religious Customs and Manners of the People; in a Series of Letters to a Friend in England (London: B. White and Son, 1788), 151-52.
6 Testimony of Thomas Poplett, 1789, HCSP, 69:26; Robinson, A Sailor Boy’s Experience, 78; Testimony of Thomas King, 1789, HCSP, 68:333; Captain William Snelgrave, A New Account of Some Parts of Guinea and the Slave Trade (London, 1734; rpt. London: Frank Cass & Co., 1971), 171-72; Three Years Adventures, 95-96, 125; Testimony of James Fraser, 1790, HCSP, 71:34. See also Alan J. Rice, Radical Narratives of the Black Atlantic (London: Continuum, 2003), 120-46.
7 Snelgrave, A New Account, 163; Testimony of Fraser, 1790, HCSP, 71:34.
8 Reverend John Riland, Memoirs of a West-India Planter, Published from an Original MS. With a Preface and Additional Details (London: Hamilton, Adams & Co., 1827), 20- 24; Testimony of Ecroyde Claxton, 1791, HCSP, 82:34. Slave trader John Fountain testified in 1789, “It depends upon what nations they are of.—Duncoes are never put in irons—they supply a great number of the Slaves.—Fantees are always put in irons—the Ashantees and other nations as it may be necessary, and according to the offence they have committed.” See HCSP, 69:269.
9 Roderick Terry, “Some Old Papers Relating to the Newport Slave Trade,” Newport Historical Society, Bulletin 62 (1927), 23.
10 “Medical Log of Slaver the ‘Lord Stanley,’ 1792, by Christopher Bowes, MS. 129. d.27., Royal College of Surgeons, London. On the reduction of bodies to numbers, see Smallwood, Saltwater Slavery, 178.
11 Journal of the Ship Mary, 1795-96, in Donnan III, 375. See also Three Years Adventures, 39; Memoirs of Crow, 38, 40; Testimony of Fraser, 1790, HCSP, 71:45; Testimony of Alexander Falconbridge, 1790, HCSP, 72:294.
12 Boston Weekly News-Letter, September 1, 1737; Boston Gazette, November 22, 1762; Mungo Park, Travels into the Interior of Africa, Performed under the Direction and Patronage of the African Association, in the Years 1795, 1796, and 1797, ed. Kate Ferguson Marsters (orig. publ. 1799; rpt. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2000), 305.
13 Pennsylvania Gazette, July 30, 1741; Royal Georgia Gazette, June 14, 1781; Testimony of Peter Whitfield Branker, in HLSP, 3:190. See also the testimony of Captains Richard Pearson and John Olderman, in ibid., 121, 151. For other instances of the enslaved fighting against privateers, see Boston Weekly News-Letter, July 31, 1760; Massachusetts Spy: Or, the Worcester Gazette, April 4, 1798; Commercial Advertiser, July 19, 1805; American Mercury, October 2, 1806; Testimony of James Penny, 1789, HCSP, 69:117; Memoirs of Crow, 102.
14 Enquirer, September 26, 1804; Robert Barker, The Unfortunate Shipwright, or, Cruel Captain, being a Faithful Narrative of the Unparalleled Sufferings of Robert Barker, Late Carpenter on board the Thetis Snow of Bristol; on a Voyage from thence to the Coast of Guinea and Antigua (orig. publ. 1760; new edition, London, “printed for the SUFFERER for his own Benefit; and by no one else,” 1775), 20; Testimony of John Olderman, HLSP, 3:150; Captain James Penny to Miles Barber, July 24, 1784, Baillie v. Hartley, exhibits regarding the Slave Ship Comte du Nord and Slave Trade; schedule, correspondence, accounts, E 219/377, NA; Newport Mercury, November 18, 1765.
15 “Barque Eliza’s Journal, Robert Hall, Commander, from Liverpool to Cruize 31 Days & then to Africa & to Demarary; mounts 14 Nine & Six Pounders, with 31 Men & boys,” Royal African Company Records, T70/1220, NA; Testimony of Peter Whitfield Branker, HLSP, 2:119; Testimony of John Ashley Hall, HCSP, 72:233, 273.
16 Testimony of Falconbridge, 1790, in HCSP, 72:303; Testimony of Fraser, 1790, HCSP, 71:28.
17 Three Years Adventures, 116-17; Testimony of John Ashley Hall, 1790, HCSP, 72:230.
18 Falconbridge, An Account of the Slave Trade, 26.
19 Testimony of James Bowen, 1789, HCSP, 69:125; Testimony of John Knox, 1789, HCSP, 68:158.
20 Captain John Adams, Sketches taken during Ten Voyages to Africa, Between the Years 1786 and 1800; including Observations on the Country between Cape Palmas and the River Congo; and Cursory Remarks on the Physical and Moral Character of the Inhabitants (London, 1823; rpt. New York: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1970), 9.
21 “Voyage to Guinea, Antego, Bay of Campeachy, Cuba, Barbadoes, &c.” (1714- 1723), Add. Ms. 39946, ff. 9-10, BL; Mouser, ed., The Log of the Sandown, 103; “The Slave Trade at Calabar, 1700-1705,” in Donnan II, 15; Information of James Towne, in Substance, 236.
22 Falconbridge, An Account of the Slave Trade, 28; Examination of Rice Harris (1733), HCA 1/56, ff. 73-74; Testimony of James Arnold, 1789, HCSP, 69:126.
23 T. Aubrey, The Sea-Surgeon, or the Guinea Man’s Vade Mecum. In which is laid down, The Method of curing such Diseases as usually happen Abroad, especially on the Coast of Guinea: with the best way of treating Negroes, both in Health and in Sickness. Written for the Use of young Sea-Surgeons (London, 1729), 129-32; Atkins, A Voyage to Guinea, 60; Testimony of Trotter, 1790, HCSP, 73: 84-85. The many meanings of death in the Black Atlantic will be explored with great insight by Vincent Brown, The Reaper’s Garden: Death and Power in the World of Atlantic Slavery (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, forthcoming). Essential background here is Kenneth F. Kiple, The Caribbean Slave: A Biological History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 1-75. A useful summary of the extensive research on mortality in the slave trade is Herbert S. Klein, The Atlantic Slave Trade (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 130-42.
24 Testimony of Fraser, 1790, HCSP, 71:58; Falconbridge, An Account of the Slave Trade, 32; Testimony of Falconbridge, 1790, HCSP, 72:303.
25 “Extracts of such Journals of the Surgeons employed in Ships trading to the Coast of Africa, since the first of August 1788, as have been transmitted to the Custom House in London, and which relate to the State of the Slaves during the Time they were on Board the Ships,” Slave Trade Papers, 3 May 1792, HL/PO/JO/10/7/920; “Log-books, etc. of slave ships, 1791-7,” Main Papers, 17-19 June 1799, HL/PO/JO/10/7/1104; “Certificates of Slaves Taken Aboard Ships,” 1794, HL/PO/JO/10/7/982, all in the HLRO. It should be noted that not all surgeons listed causes of death; therefore these archives contain more than the eighty-six journals analyzed here. Some of these journals (though not all) formed the empirical base of a study by Richard H. Steckel and Richard A. Jensen, “New Evidence on the Causes of Slave and Crew Mortality in the Atlantic Slave Trade,” Journal of Economic History 46 (1986), 57-77.
26 Thomas Trotter, Observations on the Scurvy, with a Review of the Theories lately advanced on that Disease; and the Theories of Dr. Milman refuted from Practice (London, 1785; Philadelphia, 1793), 14; Captain James Penny to Miles Barber, July 1, 1784, Baillie v. Hartley, E 219/377, NA; Case of the Mermaid, July 10, 1739,
Donnan III, 51-52; J. Philmore, Two Dialogues on the Man-Trade (London, 1760), 34-35; Zachary B. Friedenberg, Medicine Under Sail (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2002). For a medical log in which a ship’s surgeon, Christopher Bowes, tended to the sickness of the enslaved aboard the Lord Stanley in 1792, see “Medical Log of Slaver the ‘Lord Stanley,’ 1792.” Bowes treated 33 people: 24 men, 3 “man-boys,” 3 women, and 3 girls for a variety of ailments—diarrhea, tremors, dysentery, fever, pain (bowels, chest, knee, ankle, head)—of whom 16 died, 3 on the coast and 13 in the Middle Passage (of the 392 on board). This ship had a comparatively low death rate of just over 4 percent. See TSTD, #82365.
27 “Anonymous Account,” Add. Ms. 59777B, f. 39v; Nicholas Owen, Journal of a Slave-Dealer: A View of Some Remarkable Axedents in the Life of Nics. Owen on the Coast of Africa and America from the Year 1746 to the Year 1757, ed. Eveline Martin (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1930), 90; Thomas Winterbottom, An Account of the Native Africans in the Neighbourhood of Sierra Leone, to which is added An Account of the Present State of Medicine among them (London, 1803; rpt. London: Frank Cass & Co., 1969), vol. I, 236. See also Atkins, A Voyage to Guinea, 79, 101; Matthews, A Voyage to the River Sierra Leone, 123; Philip Curtin, “Epidemiology and the Slave Trade,” Political Science Quarterly 83 (1968), 190-216; Kenneth Kiple and Brian Higgins, “Mortality Caused by Dehydration during the Middle Passage,” in Joseph Inikori and Stanley Engerman, eds., The Atlantic Slave Trade: Effects on Economies, Societies, and Peoples in Africa, the Americas, and Europe (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1992), 322-31; Richard B. Sheridan, “The Guinea Surgeons on the Middle Passage: The Provision of Medical Services in the British Slave Trade,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 14 (1981), 601-25; Sharla Fett, Working Cures: Healing, Health, and Power on Southern Slave Plantations (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002).
28 “Richard Simsons Voyage to the Straits of Magellan & S. Seas in the Year 1689,” Sloane 86, BL, f. 57; William Smith, A New Voyage to Guinea: Describing the Customs, Manners, Soil, Climate, Habits, Buildings, Education, Manual Arts, Agriculture, Trade, Employments, Languages, Ranks of Distinction, Habitations, Diversions, Marriages, and whatever else is memorable among the Inhabitants (London, 1744; rpt. London: Frank Cass & Co., 1967), 28; Snelgrave, A New Account, 187-88; Atkins, A Voyage to Guinea, 72. John Adams also used the “Tower of Babel” analogy when discussing the variety of West African languages. See Adams, Sketches taken during Ten Voyages to Africa, 64. See also John Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992; 2nd edition, 1998), 19-20, 183-205.
29 Snelgrave, A New Account, 177-80; Testimony of Claxton, HCSP, 82:36; Testimony of Fraser, HCSP, 71:13; Testimony of Falconbridge, HCSP, 69:48.
30 [Thomas Thompson], Memoirs of an English Missionary to the Coast of Guinea (London, 1788), 28-29.
31 Testimony of James Rigby, 1799, HSLP, 3:88; [Thompson], Memoirs, 28-29; Testimony of William McIntosh, 1789, HCSP, 68:194; Winterbottom, An Account of the Native Africans, 1:11; Thornton, Africa and Africans, ch. 7. See also Okon Edet Uya, “The Middle Passage and Personality Change Among Diaspora Africans,” in Joseph E. Harris, ed., Global Dimensions of the African Diaspora (Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1993, 2nd edition), 87.
32 Falconbridge, HCSP, 72:294; Peter Linebaugh, “All the Atlantic Mountains Shook,” Labour/Le Travail 10 (1982), 87-121.
33 Robinson, A Sailor Boy’s Experience, 78; Three Years Adventures, 136. See also Testimony of Olderman, HLSP, 3:175; Matthews, A Voyage to the River Sierra Leone, 99; Testimony of Trotter, HCSP, 73:84.
34 Three Years Adventures, 111-12, 120, 93-94.
35 Testimony of Robert Norris, 1789, HCSP, 68:7.
36 Interview of Mr. Janverin, Substance, 249.
37 Testimony of Arnold, HCSP, 69:126; Testimony of Claxton, HCSP, 82:36.
38 Snelgrave, A New Account, introduction; Three Years Adventures, 131-32; Testimony of Robert Heatley, 1789, HCSP, 69:123.
39 Riland, Memoirs of a West-India Planter, 58-59; Thomas Clarkson to Comte de Mirabeau, November 8, 1789, ff. 1-2, Papers of Thomas Clarkson, Huntington Library, San Marino, California. See also Falconbridge, An Account of the Slave Trade, 30; Testimony of Falconbridge, 1790, HCSP, 72:307; Testimony of Ellison, HCSP, 73:376; Testimony of James Towne, 1791, HCSP, 82:22; Testimony of Claxton, HCSP, 82:36.
40 Testimony of David Henderson, 1789, HCSP, 69:139 ; Testimony of Arnold, HCSP, 69:127.
41 Antonio T. Bly, “Crossing the Lake of Fire: Slave Resistance During the Middle Passage, 1720-1842,” Journal of Negro History 83 (1998), 178-86; Richard Rathbone, “Resistance to Enslavement in West Africa,” in De la traite a l’esclavage: actes du colloque international sur la traite des noirs, ed. Serge Daget (Nantes, 1988), 173-84.
42 Riland, Memoirs of a West-India Planter, 52; Testimony of James Morley, 1790, HCSP, 73:160-61.
43 Testimony of Isaac Parker, 1790, HCSP, 73:124-25, 130; TSTD, #91135.
44 Edward Fentiman v. James Kettle (1730), HCA 24/136; TSTD, #76618. For other evidence that the enslaved would stop eating if they were mistreated, see Testimony of James Towne, 1791, HCSP, 82:21. For an instance in which the enslaved resorted to a collective—and successful—hunger strike in support of a mistreated African translator aboard their ship, see “The Deposition of John Dawson, Mate of the Snow Rainbow,” 1758, in Donnan IV, 371-72.
45 Aubrey, The Sea-Surgeon, 128. For another judgment that violence did not work against the will of the enslaved, see Interview of Janverin, Substance, 249.
46 Snelgrave, A New Account, 190; “Anecdote IX” (author unnamed), in Substance, 315-16; Jones v. Small, Law Report, the Times, July 1, 1785.
47 “Voyage to Guinea,” Add. Ms. 39946, f. 8 (TSTD, #75489); Memoirs of Crow, 44; James Hogg to Humphry Morice, March 6, 1732, Humphry Morice Papers, Bank of England Archives, London.
48 Connecticut Journal, February 2, 1786; Testimony of Falconbridge, 1790, HCSP, 72:307-8; “Extract from a Letter on Board the Prince of Orange,” April 7, 1737, Boston News-Letter, September 15, 1737.
49 Testimony of Isaac Wilson, 1790, HCSP, 72:281; Testimony of Claxton, HCSP, 82:35-36; Pennsylvania Gazette, May 21, 1788 (article by Gandy, but not identified as such). Clarkson retold his story in a letter to Mirabeau, December 9, 1789, Papers of Clarkson, Huntington Library. On the Zong, see Granville Sharp to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, London, July 2, 1783, “Documents Related to the Case of the Zong of 1783,” Manuscripts Department, REC/19, f. 96, NMM.
50 Testimony of Wilson and Falconbridge, both in HCSP, 72:279, 300; Log of the Brig Ranger, Captain John Corran, Master, 1789-1790, 387 MD 56, LRO; [John Wells], “Journal of a Voyage to the Coast of Guinea, 1802,” Add. Ms. 3,871, f. 15, Cambridge University Library; Testimony of Mr. Thompson, Substance, 207.
51 Extract of a letter to Mr. Thomas Gatherer, in Lombard Street; dated Fort-James, River Gambia, April 12, 1773, Newport Mercury, December 27, 1773; Independent Journal, April 29, 1786. For an example of a similar explosion on a French slave ship, see Newport Mercury, March 3, 1792. For other examples of mass suicides after failed insurrections, see Newport Mercury, November 25, 1765; Connecticut Journal, January 1, 1768; “The Log of the Unity, 1769-1771,” Earle Family Papers, D/EARLE/1/4, MMM; Providence Gazette; and Country Journal, September 10, 1791.
52 See citations in note 25 above.
53 For the legal ruling, see Jones v. Small, Law Report, the Times, July 1, 1785. Like other forms of resistance, the action of jumping overboard circulated from the Atlantic back to the metropolis, where various writers immortalized the decision of death before dishonorable slavery in poetry. A well-known abolitionist poem, “The Negroe’s Complaint,” jointly but anonymously written by Liverpool patricians William Roscoe and Dr. James Currie, said of African protagonist Maratan, “Tomorrow the white-man in vain / Shall proudly account me his slave! / My shackles, I plunge in the main—/ And ru
sh to the realms of the brave.” See Dr. James Currie to Admiral Sir Graham Moore, 16 March 1788, 920 CUR 106, Papers of Dr. James Currie, LRO. The poem was originally published in the World and was later republished in the United States. See the Federal Gazette, and Philadelphia Evening Post, April 8, 1790. The same conceit appears in Roscoe’s The Wrongs of Africa (London, 1788). See James G. Basker, Amazing Grace: An Anthology of Poems About Slavery, 1660-1810 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2002).
54 Testimony of Ellison, HCSP, 73:374. The classic article on this subject is Lorenzo Greene, “Mutiny on the Slave Ships,” Phylon 5 (1944), 346-54. See also the valuable work by Eric Robert Taylor, If We Must Die: Shipboard Insurrections in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006).
55 Testimony of Arnold, HCSP, 69:130. Snelgrave (A New Account, 167) was surprised to learn that a mere twenty men had made an insurrection aboard the Eagle Galley in 1704. Indeed the number was sometimes smaller. The rebels also wagered wrong in some instances, as others did not join them once the insurrection was under way.
56 The Times, July 1, 1785; “Log of the Unity,” Earle Family Papers, D/EARLE/1/4; Connecticut Journal, February 2,1786; Testimony of Robert Hume, 1799, HLSP, 3:110; Testimony of Trotter, HCSP, 73:87; Atkins, A Voyage to Guinea, 72-73. For boys, see Extract of a letter to Mr. Thomas Gatherer, April 12, 1773, Newport Mercury, December 27, 1773. See also Uya, “The Middle Passage and Personality Change,” 91.
57 Three Years Adventures, 96; Snelgrave, A New Account, 77; Testimony of Fountain, HCSP, 68:273; Thornton, Warfare in Atlantic Africa, 140.
58 Pennsylvania Gazette, May 16, 1754. For other instances in which the enslaved used European weapons in the course of insurrection, see Lieutenant Governor Thomas Handasyd to the Board of Trade and Plantations, from Jamaica, October 5, 1703, Donnan II, 4; Boston News-Letter, May 6, 1731 (also Boston Gazette, April 26, 1731); Bath Journal, December 18, 1749; Boston Gazette, October 4, 1756; Pennsylvania Gazette, May 31, 1764; New London Gazette, December 18, 1772; Newport Mercury, December 27, 1773; William Fairfield to Rebecca Fairfield, Cayenne, April 23, 1789, Donnan III: 83; Providence Gazette; and Country Journal, September 10, 1791; Massachusetts Spy: Or, the Worcester Gazette, April 4, 1798; Federal Gazette & Baltimore Daily Advertiser, July 30, 1800; Newburyport Herald, March 22, 1808. Inikori estimates that 150,000 to 200,000 guns were imported per year into West Africa between 1750 and 1807, while Richards puts the number at 283,000 to 394,000. See Inikori, “The Import of Firearms into West Africa 1750-1807,” 348, and Richards, “The Import of Firearms into West Africa in the Eighteenth Century,” 43-44.
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