Raiders and Rebels

by Frank Sherry

  One way or another Africa marked those engaged in raping her.

  Yet so great were the potential profits from trade along the Guinea Coast that hundreds of white men braved its hazards and miseries to man the trading posts of the Royal African Company and to funnel into the ships of Europe and the Americas the sons and daughters of the continent whose dark interior still defied all efforts by civilized man to penetrate it.

  In addition to danger, disease, loneliness, and oppressive climate, the white traders who clung to their encampments on the fringe of Africa were also burdened by an inexpressible—but profound—sense of menace. Not only was Africa cruel, she was mysterious, and therefore dangerous and threatening. Only a few miles beyond the strip of sand, surf, and jungle where the white traders lived and labored, began the real Africa, the “heart of darkness” that might contain any nightmare, that might erupt at any moment into any madness.

  Tales about the deep invisible Africa that lay within the jungles circulated among all who lived on the coast. It was said, for example, that Prester John, the great Christian king of a nation of warriors, lived in splendor in the center of the continent—and that herds of unicorns ran wild on the vast open plains of his kingdom. Farther to the south, they said, was the land of Monomotapa where gold lay on the earth like shells on a beach. At the headwaters of the Niger lived elephants who knew how to use fire and who carried torches in their trunks. There were giant birds in the interior too, so big they could carry off elephants. There was a nation of Pygmies only six inches high. There were giant warriors who rode into battle on the backs of wild beasts. There were the Mountains of the Moon, and the Fountains of the Nile.

  A land that contained such marvels, the white traders sensed, must contain horrors as well. The blacks knew it, too. That was why they propitiated their gods with blood and fearful rites. They knew the horror was there. And who was to say that the horror would not, one day, come roaring from the black heart of Africa to take vengeance upon the strangers who were robbing the continent of her children? It was a weighty, unarticulated burden, this sense of Africa’s strangeness and concealed menace—and it added greatly to the already difficult job of everyday life on the Guinea Coast.

  For in this place even the mundane tasks connected with the business of trading—such as loading and unloading goods from ships and looking after cargo—presented the white traders with peculiar hardships.

  For example, since there were no harbors to speak of, ships had to anchor well offshore, beyond the surge of surf and the danger of submerged rocks. Cargo, including human cargo, had to be ferried by canoe to and from the beach. In rough water goods were often lost in the sea. Helpless, but valuable, slaves—chained together to prevent their escape—were often drowned in the surf, or taken by sharks before they could be pulled from the sea.

  Slave ships often had to lie at anchor offshore for weeks while their holds were slowly filled with slaves purchased ashore in small consignments. Meanwhile, their groaning human cargoes, chained belowdecks under the broiling sun, lay in their own excrement. The smell of the slave ships filled the air—and could be detected many miles out at sea, long before the coast itself was visible.

  There was the humiliation of haggling and trading with black slavers who were, more often than not, thieves and cheats who would not keep their word.

  Another trial for the white traders along the coast—those of the Royal African Company at any rate—were the English and American interlopers, independent merchants who refused to acknowledge the Royal African Company’s monopoly. Trading when and where they could, in defiance of the “official” traders, the interlopers were a constant thorn in the side of the company. They were often able to offer better deals for slaves or other merchandise, and the black chiefs were not the least bit hesitant about breaking their agreements with the company when an interloper’s proposition seemed more attractive.

  Starting around the year 1719, the white traders on the Guinea Coast began to encounter still another serious problem: pirates.

  Although freebooters had occasionally been reported off the Guinea Coast since the early days of the trade there, it was only after Woodes Rogers shut down the pirates’ nest of Nassau that sea raiders in any significant numbers began to operate off the coast. But when the outlaws discovered how vulnerable the trading posts of the region actually were, their ranks swelled dramatically until they became, for the first time, a genuine menace to commerce.

  Although pirates preyed on all types of merchant vessels, they particularly sought to seize slavers. As a general rule, pirates who captured a slave ship permitted her owner or her captain to ransom the vessel and cargo for a reasonable sum, usually £1,000. So valuable were the human cargoes of slave ships that most owners paid the ransom without much protest, regarding such payments as just another hazard of the trade.

  It is a peculiar fact that although personal freedom was a fundamental value in pirate life, and pirates usually welcomed escaped slaves into their crews, they exhibited little sympathy for the wretched human cargo carried in the holds of the slave ships they captured. It is possible that to the pirates, the terrified captive blacks, jammed belowdecks, naked and primitive-appearing, and jabbering in an “uncivilized” tongue, seemed not quite human. In any case, they differed greatly from the English-speaking blacks in pirate crews—almost always savvy and violent men who had escaped from their masters to be free, who would fight madly to maintain their liberty.

  Even though, as products of their time, pirates had little sympathy for the human cargoes of the slave-ships they captured, very few actually engaged in the slave trade themselves, preferring to sell captured ships back to their masters rather than attempting to dispose of their contents. But when pirates took a merchant vessel other than a slaver, they would plunder her cargo—and then seek out a free-lance merchant or an interloper along the seaboard to sell their stolen goods for the best price they could get.

  Defoe—in one of his colorful passages—depicts how the outlaw merchants who traded with pirates lived and operated on the coast. He describes a secret trading settlement hidden deep in the delta of the Sierra Leone River where approximately thirty “English-speaking men,” most of them ex-privateers and ex-pirates, conducted their illegal business in defiance of the Royal African Company. Characterizing these dealers in contraband as men who “still retain and love the Riots, and Humours” common to the pirate’s life, Defoe goes on to say that these English free-lance traders had become very friendly with the natives, many of whom had become their servants.

  “The [native] Men are faithful, and the Women so obedient,” Defoe reports, “that they are very ready to prostitute themselves to whomsoever their Masters shall command them.” Noting that the Royal African Company fort in the region is too far away to threaten the free-lance trading settlement, Defoe continues: “Here lives at this Place an old Fellow, who goes by the Name of Crackers (his true Name he thinks fit to conceal,) who was formerly a noted Buccanneer, and [who] had robb’d and murdered many a Man; he keeps the best House in the Place, has two or three Guns before his Door, with which he Salutes his Friends, the Pyrates, when they put in, and lives a jovial Life with them, all the while they are there.

  “Here follows a List, of the rest of those lawless Merchants, and their Servants, who carry on a private Trade with the Interlopers, to the great Prejudice of the Royal African Company….”

  Defoe then gives the names of all thirty of the traders who made their headquarters in the swampy delta. He concludes his description of the settlement by pointing out that in addition to the pirates, “honest” merchant vessels also called at the settlement to exchange cargoes of beer, cider, and strong liquor for slaves and ivory—commodities the honest merchants would have had to purchase at much higher prices from the Royal African Company.

  By selling their plunder to traders like old Crackers, and by utilizing such concealed bases to refit, rest, and hide out from the authorities, a considerab
le number of pirates began to find prosperity on the Guinea Coast starting around 1719. One of these was a devil-may-care Welshman named Howell Davis, whose daring exploits made him famous from Senegal to Angola.

  Davis, a handsome, cocky man with dark hair, blue eyes, a ready smile, and a charming manner, seems to have become a pirate more by force of circumstance than by design—and to have pursued piracy more as a glorious game than as a grim vocation.

  Davis’s story begins in 1718 when he was serving as the mate of the ill-starred Bristol merchantman—the Cadagon—captured by Captain Edward England in the Gulf of Guinea.

  During the looting of the Cadagon, Davis apparently charmed his pirate captors with his light-hearted manner, for England offered to take the smiling Welshman as mate aboard his own ship Fancy. Davis demurred. Whereupon England promptly made him a present of the captured Cadagon and sailed away.

  The crew of the Cadagon, however, refused to recognize the validity of England’s gift to the mate. Instead, they clapped Davis into irons and continued on course to their original destination, Barbados. Here the authorities wondered whether the affable Davis had been in league with the notorious Captain England to take the Cadagon. To check out this possibility, they put Davis in prison, releasing him after three months when it was decided no overt act of piracy could be proved against him.

  But despite the fact that Davis had not been convicted—or even charged with—any act of piracy, the incident of the Cadagon hung around his neck like an albatross. Honest masters were loath to sign on a man who was so friendly with his pirate captors that they ended up giving him their prize. They were also deeply, if unfairly, suspicious of Davis’s possible role in the vengeance slaying of the Cadagon’s captain.

  Unable to obtain a berth in honest service, Davis now drifted from Barbados to the Bahamas, fetching up at Nassau, apparently in the desperate belief that he might find a pirate berth there.

  However, the feisty Woodes Rogers had already arrived and was in the process of cleaning up the port. Pirate vessels still engaged in the sweet trade had already departed for waters where the hunting was better.

  But in Nassau, Davis found his past record was near immaculate when compared with those of other seafarers in the port. Consequently, the master of the sloop Buck, which sailed in company with another sloop called Mumvil Trader, was glad to sign Davis aboard his vessel as an ordinary seaman.

  For several weeks Davis worked diligently as a member of the crew of the Buck. He was a model sailor on the outside. But in his heart Davis had become a pirate. He had decided that since he would always be suspected of piracy because of the Cadagon incident, he might as well become a pirate in fact.

  Accordingly, while the Buck and the Mumvil Trader were anchored at Martinique one night, Davis and a handful of accomplices whom he had talked into joining him seized the Buck before her surprised master knew what was afoot. Then, moving swiftly in the darkness, Davis and his men surprised the Mumvil Trader, transferring most of her cargo to the Buck. Davis put aboard the Mumvil Trader any men from the two crews who did not wish to go pirating with him. He then sailed away northward with the Buck and made a clean getaway. It was Davis’s first act of piracy and it had gone off without a hitch, greatly enhancing his confidence in his piratical abilities.

  On the day after his capture of the Buck, Davis called a council of war at which he was unanimously elected captain. “As soon as he was possessed of his Command,” Defoe says, “he drew up Articles, which were signed and sworn to by himself and the rest, then he made a short speech, the substance of which was a Declaration of War against the Whole World.”

  Now, with his little vessel hardly larger than a fishing boat, and his crew of thirty, Davis set sail for the waters around Hispaniola and Cuba. Here he took a couple of French prizes, transferring their stores and equipment to the Buck.

  It was now late in 1718. Blackbeard had been killed. Woodes Rogers was clearly in command in Nassau. The Caribbean was becoming a bad place for pirates. Davis had no trouble persuading his men that their future lay to the east, on the Guinea Coast.

  The Buck arrived at the Portuguese-held island of São Nicolau, in the Cape Verdes off the coast of Africa, early in 1719. Flying the English flag, the smiling, clever Davis now posed as a merchant who had come to the island to trade. The Portuguese of São Nicolau were happy to exchange their wine and other local products for the goods Davis had aboard the Buck—which was, in fact, loot from his French prizes. Davis’s easygoing manner earned him an invitation to the home of the island’s Portuguese governor, where Davis was treated with almost royal hospitality.

  After conducting business at São Nicolau for five weeks, Davis and his men sailed away to the island of Maio, also in the Cape Verde group.

  Here Davis made no attempt to disguise his piratical intentions. Finding a number of vessels anchored in the harbor, he boarded and plundered each of them without encountering serious opposition. He then seized one of these ships for his own use. Renaming the chosen vessel King James, he mounted twenty cannon in her and transferred his crew and his plunder to her, abandoning his little sloop Buck.

  Then, after recruiting additional men from the ships he had just plundered, Davis and his crew—now expanded to seventy men—set sail in their formidable new vessel for the nearby island of São Tiago where Davis intended to obtain a supply of fresh water.

  As he entered the harbor and anchored, he was again posing as an inoffensive merchant. But when Davis went ashore to introduce himself to the island’s governor, that gentleman made no secret of his suspicion that the smiling Welshman was something other than he seemed. Davis, pretending to be affronted by the governor’s doubts about his honesty, went back to his ship with a great show of indignation.

  Late that night, when the island was dark and silent, Davis and his men stealthily rowed ashore. They crept to within a few yards of the well-armed fort. Then, upon Davis’s signal, they stormed the walls. But the fort was empty. Davis realized at once that the distrustful governor, anticipating Davis’s nocturnal attack, had probably withdrawn the fort’s garrison to his own stout house situated on a nearby hill. From this vantage point the soldiers of the garrison, no doubt well barricaded, would be able to lay down a murderous fire on any attackers.

  Nevertheless, Davis led his seventy men in an attempt to storm the governor’s house—and as he had expected, he and his men were met with a wicked barrage of muskets and pistols that killed three of Davis’s men.

  The clever pirate knew when he was beaten. He called off the attack but only after he had managed to toss several grenades into the governor’s house, causing a number of casualties and a considerable amount of damage to the governor’s furnishings. Davis and his men then looted the fort of whatever they could find. When dawn came, Davis spiked the island’s guns and sailed off to visit the Guinea Coast.

  Davis, whose knowledge of the region was considerable as a result of his years of honest service in the merchant trade, set the King James on a course for Gambia, where the Royal African Company maintained one of its strongest and richest trading posts.

  All things considered, Davis had concluded that stratagem would be more effective than force in obtaining what he wanted from the Royal African Company fort. By now he and his men had their merchant-vessel act down pat. Accordingly, when King James approached the roadstead under the guns of the Gambia fort, the proper English ensigns were fluttering from her masts and only a few crewmen—the number that would be employed aboard an honest vessel—were visible on deck. The rest were hidden below. Captain Davis, his mate, and the ship’s doctor, however, were all out on deck in full view of those who might be watching from the shore. Moreover, they wore the clothing of gentlemen—as the master and officers of any honest merchant vessel would, preparatory to going ashore at a Royal African Company installation.

  After anchoring, Davis and his two officers were immediately rowed to the beach by a crew of hearty, honest-looking seafarers.r />
  Ashore, Davis, smiling and confident, requested an audience with the governor. Taken before that gentleman, Davis told a plausible story. He was, he said, a merchant and he had been bound from Liverpool to the Senegal River to trade iron and other metal plate for ivory and gum. But a pair of French warships had chased him illegally, apparently to seize his cargo. He had barely outrun the Frenchmen. He had put in to Gambia, Davis said, his handsome face clouded with honest indignation, because it was the nearest English refuge. He went on to tell the sympathetic governor that now that he and his associates had learned they were not welcome in Senegal, he would be happy to trade his metals here in Gambia for a cargo of slaves—if the governor could provide them. The governor readily agreed and inquired if Davis might have any European liquor available. Smiling, Davis assured the governor that although his supply was short, he would certainly spare him a few bottles. At this the governor invited Davis and his two colleagues to stay ashore and have dinner with him and his staff. Davis agreed. First, however, he had to return to King James to make sure that she was properly anchored. But he would return shortly—and he would be certain to bring with him the governor’s liquor. During his long pleasant talk with the governor, the clever Davis had been carefully noting the positions of the sentries, the number of guards, the locations of guns and arms in the fort, and had concluded that with daring and the right plan, the fort could be taken.

  Returning to King James, Davis explained the plan he had devised while conversing with the governor. First, he and his officers would return to the fort with a dozen picked men who would each have concealed under his clothing two pairs of pistols. While Davis and his two officers were dining with the governor, these twelve men would casually fall into conversation with the soldiers on duty in the fort’s guardroom. When they heard Davis’s signal—a pistol fired from the governor’s window—they were to draw their pistols, capture the soldiers in the guardroom, and open the gates of the fort. Meanwhile, the rest of the crew, fully armed and waiting aboard King James, were upon Davis’s signal to come rapidly ashore in the ship’s boats and storm into the fort. If all went well, it would all be over in a half hour.