by Ben Hughes
Despite such precautions, slave revolts were relatively commonplace. “I have twice met with this Misfortune,” Bosman related.
The first . . . proved very unlucky to me, I not in the least suspecting it; but the Up roar was timely smashed by the Master of the Ship and my self, by causing the Abettor to be shot through the Head. . . . The second time it fell heavier on another ship, and that chiefly by the carelessness of the Master, who having fished up the Anchor of a departing English Ship, had laid it in the Hold where the Male slaves were lodged; who, unknown to any of the . . . Crew, possessed themselves of a Hammer; with which, in a short time, they broke all their Fetters in pieces upon the Anchor . . . came above Deck and fell upon our Men; some of whom they grievously wounded, and would certainly have mastered the Ship, if a French and English Ship . . . who perceiving by our firing a Distressed-Gun, that something was in disorder on Board, [had not] immediately came to our assistance . . . and drove the Slaves under Deck: Notwithstanding which before all was appeased about twenty of the . . . [slaves] were killed.84
The ships of the Royal African Company had also experienced several uprisings. In 1686 Captain Latton, commander of the Charlton sloop, was killed along with his entire crew.85 The following year on the Lomax, several slaves were killed in a botched uprising and the crew regained control.86 The Hannah was not to share these ships’ fate. As the coast slipped out of sight, Zebbett and his crew no doubt breathed a sigh of relief. Not only was the chance of rebellion diminished, but also, as the ship left the malarial mosquitoes behind, the risk of falling prey to disease also fell significantly.87
For the Africans, losing sight of the shore had the opposite effect. Many gave up hope. Preferring death to confinement, some would refuse to eat. In such situations slavers typically force-fed their charges, either whipping them or breaking their teeth to push their rations down. “On my refusing to eat,” Olaudah Equiano recorded, “one of [the crew] . . . held me fast by the hands, and laid me across . . . .the windlass, and tied my feet, while . . . [an]other flogged me severely.”88 Other slaves “escaped” by throwing themselves into the sea. “This afternoon,” Captain Blake of the James recorded in his log on April 17, 1676, “I had a stout man slave leaped overboard . . . I hoysted out my pinnace and sent her after him, and just as they came upp with him hee sunke down. . . . My cockswaine runn downe his oare betweene his armes, but he would not take hould of it and soe drowned.”89 Those who did manage to kill themselves had their bodies burned or mutilated: one account speaks of heads being cut off and limbs scattered “about ye deck.” This was done as a warning to the rest: it was commonly believed that West Africans thought that their souls would only return to their homelands after death if their bodies remained intact.90
Conditions on slave ships were appalling. Stripped naked and separated by gender to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, the adults were chained below decks. Wanting to maximize their profits, the crew packed them as tightly as possible. “The stench,” Equiano recalled, “became absolutely pestilential. The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us. This produced copious perspirations, so the air soon became unfit for respiration, from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought on many a sickness among the slaves of which many died. . . . The wretched situation . . . aggravated by the galling of the chains . . . became insupportable; and the filth of the necessary tubs, into which the children often fell, and were almost suffocated. The shrieks of the women and the groans of the dying, rendered the whole a scene of horror almost inconceivable.”91 Another survivor, a young boy called Louis Asa-Asa from the country of “Bycla” who was shipped on board a French slaver named the Pearl, left the following description of his confinement. “The slaves . . . were chained together by the legs below deck, so close they could not move. They were flogged very cruelly: I saw one of them flogged till he died; we could not tell what for. . . . The place they were confined in . . . was so hot and nasty I could not bear to be in it. A great many of the slaves were ill, but they were not attended to. They used to flog me very bad.”92
Mahommah Baquaqua’s voyage to the Americas was equally horrendous: “The only food we had . . . was corn soaked and boiled . . . [and] we suffered very much for want of water,” he recalled. “A pint a day was all that was allowed . . . and a great many slaves died upon the passage. There was one poor fellow became so very desperate . . . that he attempted to snatch a knife from the white man who brought in the water. . . . He was taken up on deck and I never knew what became of him. I supposed he was thrown overboard. When any one of us became refractory,” Baquaqua continued, “his flesh was cut with a knife, and pepper or vinegar was rubbed in to make him peaceable. I suffered, and so did the rest of us, very much from sea sickness at first, but that did not cause our brutal owners trouble. Our sufferings were our own, we had no one to share our troubles, none to care for us, or even to speak a word of comfort to. . . . Some were thrown overboard before breath was out of their bodies; when it was thought any would not live, they were got rid of in that way.”93
The deaths on board the Hannah were recorded by Zebbett on the final page of the vessel’s account book. One male died on March 9, before the Hannah had even left Ouidah. No more perished for the next three weeks, but from March 24, they began to die with alarming regularity. On March 25, another expired and on March 26, two more died. One perished the following day and another died on the last of the month.94 Smallpox, dry belly ache, measles, scurvy, yaws (a sexually transmitted disease similar to syphilis), gonorrhea, and the bloody flux, overcrowding, suffocation, heat exhaustion, lack of water, and starvation all proved fatal during the so-called Middle Passage. One crew member recorded seeing “steam coming through the gratings, like a furnace” from those confined below. All fatalities were flung overboard without ceremony. Sharks, which commonly trailed slave ships across the Atlantic, made the most of the free meals.95
The majority of Europeans involved in the slave trade seemed to have little or no sympathy for their charges. Most regarded the Africans as “barbarians,” “heathens,” or “savages.” The slavers justified their cruelty by labeling the Africans practitioners of cannibalism, infanticide, and witchcraft, incapable of human emotion and therefore not to be pitied. Phillips’s rantings, written toward the latter part of his voyage to Barbados during which 334 of the 700 slaves he had shipped on board died, show such a dizzying lack of empathy that they have to be read to be believed. “After all our pains and care to give [the slaves] . . . their messes in due order and season,” he wrote, “keeping their lodges as clean and sweet as possible, and enduring so much misery and stench so long among a parcel of creatures nastier than swine; and after all our expectations to be defeated by their mortality. . . . No gold-finders can endure so much noisome slavery as they do who carry negroes; for those have some respite and satisfaction, but we endure twice the misery; and yet by their mortality our voyages are ruin’d, and we pine and fret ourselves to death, to think that we should undergo such misery, and to take so much pains to so little purpose.”96
Occasionally, some contemporary Europeans were able to empathize. Aphra Behn, the author of what is regarded as the first English novel, Oroonoko, or the Royal Slave, a True History, was one example. Written shortly before her death in 1689, the book is a romance which recounts the tale of the eponymous hero’s capture on the Gold Coast along with his beloved, their subsequent shipment to Suriname, and their attempts to gain their freedom which end with Oroonoko’s execution after he leads a failed rebellion against the planters. Notably, Behn is full of praise and admiration for her lead character and, one hundred years after its publication, the book was used by abolitionists to promote their cause. On a closer reading of the novel, however, it is apparent that Behn’s feelings about slavery were somewhat ambiguous. Her sympathy for Oroonoko was not born out of an abhorrence of
the institution of slavery, nor from a belief in racial equality, but rather grew from the fact that Oroonoko was a prince in his native West Africa and therefore not fit to be enslaved. Nevertheless, the fact that she chose to make her lead character an African was certainly significant and a radical decision for the time. Oroonoko is portrayed as an intelligent human being and his fate and that of Imoinda, his beloved, perhaps spurred feelings of sympathy among Behn’s readers and even outrage against such a barbaric institution.97
Among slavers such feelings are harder to identify. The journal of William Chancellor, a surgeon from Philadelphia who sailed on the Wolf to West Africa in 1749, reveals him as a man capable of some empathy. “These sort of vessels are terrible things to have Slaves in,” he wrote, “especially so great a number. Sick, & none but myself to look after them.” On August 8, while the Wolf lay off Cape Coast Castle, Chancellor continued: “To my mortification died this morning a Boy Slave, of the Dropsy. . . . These misfortunes are I think sufficient to make me repent my coming to Africa.”98 One of Olaudah Equiano’s jailers also briefly showed a human side: “During our passage . . . I first saw the use of the quadrant,” Equiano explained, “and I could not think what it meant. The [sailors] . . . at last took notice of my surprise; and one of them, willing to increase it, as well as to gratify my curiosity, made me one day look through it. The clouds appeared to me to be land, which disappeared as they passed along. This heightened my wonder: and I was now more persuaded than ever that I was in another world, and that every thing about me was magic.”99
Other slavers allowed their charges to come up to the deck in shifts and encouraged them to grind their own corn upon “cancy stones” they provided for the purpose. Although this principally reflected a concern for lost profits rather than for the wellbeing of their cargo, it perhaps briefly served to alleviate the slaves’ suffering. Women and children, believed to be the least likely to attempt to escape, were commonly the recipients of such benefits, although the men were also brought up occasionally for exercise and fresh air. On the Hannibal, Captain Phillips allowed the men to eat on the main deck and forecastle. The women ate on the quarter deck with the crew, while the children used the poop. The slaves were sometimes given a little salt, palm oil, and malagueta pepper to season the ubiquitous ground corn mash known as dabbadabb which provided the bulk of their meager rations. Others were occasionally provided with horse beans (a smaller, harder variety of the broad bean) or fish.100 One general order issued by the Royal African Company stated that “to prevent the mortality of the negroes you must observe frequently to wash the decks [with] vinegar and divert them as much as you can with some sorts of musick & play.”101 Phillips’s journal provides more detail. “We often at sea in the evenings would let the slaves come up into the sun to air themselves,” he wrote, “and make them jump and dance for an hour or two to our bag-pipes, harp, and fiddle, by which exercise to preserve them in health.”102
THE Hannah reached the Portuguese island colony of St. Thomas on April 5.103 Having secured all the “negroes” in irons below, Zebbett anchored in the roads of the capital, São Tomé, which was dominated by twenty old guns mounted in a castle. The boats were sent ashore to purchase provisions and wood and to fill the Hannah’s water butts. According to Phillips, St. Thomas was a majestic-looking place. “Full of high mountains” whose peaks were obscured by an ever-present cap of cloud, the island was covered by dense tropical rainforest and alive with the squawks of abundant parakeets. Farms planted with lime and orange trees, yams, plantains, and fields of Indian corn and expansive sugar plantations surrounded the town, which boasted some two hundred “large and well-built” houses with “galleries and great open windows about them, for conveniency of air.”104 Besides the usual purchases of provisions, water, and wood, another possible reason for Zebbett’s calling in at St. Thomas may have been Captain Danvers’s increasingly serious condition. If this was the case, any medical treatment the captain may have received failed to revive him. The next time the slaves were mustered on April 7, Zebbett recorded in the account book that he was “Captain John Zebbett, Commander of the Hannah.” Danvers had died. By this stage at least three other crew members had also succumbed, their bodies thrown overboard surreptitiously at night so the slaves would not realize that the strength of their tormentors was diminishing. Having restocked, Zebbett left St. Thomas at the end of April on the final leg of the voyage.105
As the Hannah cut its way across the Atlantic, the slaves continued to perish. Three men and three women died in April. The muster of May 5 recorded that just 257 of the former and 128 of the latter remained alive, revealing a total loss of sixteen men and two women. By May 27, when the Hannah reached Bridgetown, Barbados, another eleven had died. The crew were also in “a very sickly condition.” Many had perished and, as Edwin Stede, the Royal African Company’s resident factor, noted, only eight remained fit enough “to stand on ye deck.” Zebbett remained in port “for 17 or 18 days.” Stede provided fresh provisions “for ye negroes to ye value of 12 l. 12s 6d” at the company’s expense, while Zebbett managed to recruit several new seamen to replace the hands that had died. By mid-May, with the ship’s muster complete once more, Zebbett gave the signal to depart.106
Zebbett reached Jamaica on June 14, 1690. Of the 399 slaves who had boarded at Ouidah, 246 males and 115 females remained alive. Compared to the Royal African Company’s average mortality rate in the period of 23.5 percent, the Hannah’s rate of just under 10 percent was remarkably low, especially considering the number of deaths among the crew. As he guided the ship into Port Royal harbor, Zebbett was no doubt rather pleased with himself. Not only had he earned somewhere in the region of £36 for the voyage so far, but he would also be paid a large commission when the slaves were auctioned as well as rising to the rank of commander. Furthermore, Zebbett had timed his arrival to perfection. The sugar harvest, which began in January, was reaching its conclusion. Finding a return cargo would be relatively easy and, as the planters had an excess in their warehouses, sugar prices would be comparatively low, making it likely that the Hannah would make a handsome profit on the return leg of its journey.107 For those below decks, the arrival was just another ordeal in a voyage of confusing and frightening events. “[When] we came in sight of [our destination],” Equiano related, “the whites . . . gave a great shout, and made many signs of joy. . . . We did not know what to think of this; but as the vessel drew nearer we plainly saw the harbour, and other ships of different kinds and sizes; and we soon anchored amongst them.”108 Equiano and his companions were right to be afraid. Conditions at the English sugar plantations of the Caribbean were among the worst in the entire history of slavery. The planters ruled with unprecedented savagery. Only the very strongest or most fortunate would survive.109
CHAPTER 4
Plantation Slavery in the New World
AN AUCTION, THE ASIENTO, SUTTON’S PLANTATION, AND CUDJOE’S REVOLT
June–August 1690
We are bought and sold like apes or monkeys, to be the sport of women, fools, and cowards, and the support of rogues.
—Aphra Behn, Oroonoko, or the Royal Slave, 1689
NEWS OF THE Hannah’s arrival soon spread around Jamaica. Riders, dispatched by Walter Ruding and Charles Penhallow, Port Royal’s resident Royal African Company factors, departed on the track leading down the Pallisadoes to alert the planters of St. Andrew’s, St. David’s, and St. Thomas’ to the east. Others took wherry boats across the bay to Passage Fort then rode to the western parishes of St. Catherine’s, St. Dorothy’s, Clarendon, and Vere. Back at Port Royal, Ruding and Penhallow had gone aboard the Hannah. Their first duty was to ensure Master Zebbett had not smuggled any slaves ashore. Seeking to do a little business on the side, many captains bought slaves off the books in Africa for private sale on arrival in the West Indies. Such were the profits to be had, that it was even known for rank-and-file sailors to engage in such contraband, regardless of the risk of being fined or imprisoned
for daring to break the Royal African Company’s monopoly.1 Also on board the Hannah that morning was Reginald Wilson, the port captain of Port Royal. Charged with ensuring all ship arrivals were recorded, Wilson noted that the Hannah was carrying twenty-six crew, 359 slaves, and 4,000 elephant’s teeth from Ouidah on the Slave Coast of West Africa.2
Ruding and Penhallow’s next task was to revise Zebbett’s account books. They checked that the sales and purchase figures added up, tallied the mortality rates, and had the slaves mustered on deck.3 At least two were unable to comply. One of the females died a few hours after the ship’s arrival, while a male was so sick that he would succumb the following day.4 The rest were inspected to ascertain their quality and divided into lots or “parcels” of equal numbers, each of which was to be sold as a single item to ensure that buyers could not select the best individuals and discard the remainder.5 “They . . . examined us attentively,” recalled Olaudah Equiano of the moment he arrived at Barbados. “They . . . made us jump and pointed to the land, signifying we were to go there.”6 Thomas Thistlewood, an eighteenth-century Jamaican overseer and diarist, noted that the best slaves should have “a good Calf to their Leg and a small or moderate Sized Foot.”7 Agents also assessed the slaves’ ages, inspected their teeth, felt the plumpness of their muscles, and checked their genitalia for signs of sexually transmitted disease—a major cause of mortality during the Middle Passage. Another sought-after sign was callused hands—an indicator that a slave was used to physical work and could therefore stand up to the grueling routine of plantation life. Such examinations were terrifying for the slaves. “We thought by this we should be eaten by these ugly men,” Equiano recalled. “Soon after, we were all put down under the deck again, there was much dread and trembling among us, and nothing but bitter cries to be heard all the night.”8
