RECAPTURED AFRICANS
RECAPTURED AFRICANS
Surviving Slave Ships, Detention, and Dislocation
in the
Final Years of the Slave Trade
SHARLA M. FETT
The University of North Carolina Press
CHAPEL HILL
This book was published with the assistance of the John Hope Franklin Fund of the University of North Carolina Press.
© 2017 The University of North Carolina Press. All rights reserved.
Designed and set in Merlo by Rebecca Evans.
Manufactured in the United States of America The University of North Carolina Press has been a member of the Green Press Initiative since 2003.
Cover image: Recaptive boys of the slave ship Zeldina in Jamaica.
Illustrated London News engraving, 20 June 1857.
Courtesy of the Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
Yvette Christiansë, “When All Else Fails” and “What the Girl Who Was a Cabin Boy Heard or Said—Which Is Not Clear,” from Yvette Christiansë, Castaway, 63– and 56–.
© 1999, Duke University Press. All rights reserved. Republished by permission of the copyright holder. www.dukeupress.edu.
“Children Crying,” by The Congos, from Heart of the Congos. Reprinted by permission of the copyright holder. VP Records.
Portions of Chapters 3 and 5 appeared previously in somewhat different form in Sharla M. Fett, “Middle Passages and Forced Migrations: Liberated Africans in Nineteenth-Century U.S. Camps and Ships,” Slavery and Abolition 31, no. 1 (2010): 75–98. Reprinted by permission of www.tandfonline.com.
Portions of Chapter 4 appeared previously in somewhat different form in Sharla M. Fett, “‘The Ship of Slavery’: Atlantic Slave Trade Suppression, Liberated Africans, and Black Abolition Politics in Antebellum New York,” in Paths of the Atlantic Slave Trade: Interactions, Identities, and Images, ed. Ana Lucia Araujo (New York: Cambria, 2011), 131–60. Reprinted with permission.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Fett, Sharla M., author.
Title: Recaptured Africans : surviving slave ships, detention, and dislocation in the final years of the slave trade / by Sharla M. Fett.
Description: Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016024828| ISBN 9781469630021 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781469630038 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Slaves—United States—Social conditions—19th century. | Slaves—United States—History—19th century. | Slave trade—United States—History—19th century.
Classification: LCC E453.F48 2016 | DDC 306.3/620973—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016024828
TO ELLA & JACOB
A better and more beautiful world
from Chronicles of the Hull
WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS
And now, be kind
stars, gods, be kind
whatever names you go by
in our many prayers
and thanksgivings
be kind
when our fingers break
against the wood that
holds us
be kind
when we hear our voices
fall flat out of the
childhood we lose
be kind
in the darkness,
be kind
when they wash us
heavily and feed us
with rough concessions
be kind
to our yesterdays, our
back theres, the generations
we shed as we squat
in place among strangers.
To our hands, be kind,
To our ankles, our eyes
be kind
to our memories
even
our forgetting.
∼Yvette Christiansë, Castaway
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1: Recaptives of a Slaveholding Republic
2: Proslavery Waters
3: Suffering and Spectacle
4: A Human Rights Counterpoint
5: Surviving Recaptive Transport
6: Becoming Liberian “Congoes”
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
FIGURES & MAP
Figures
1.1 Title page from Captain Canot 34
2.1 Steamboat excursion advertisement 65
2.2 Charleston Mercury advertisement 67
3.1 “The Princess Madia,” engraving 75
3.2 Sketch of 1860 Key West “African Depot” 82
3.3 Recaptive boys, Zeldina, 1857 91
3.4 Zeldina recaptives at Fort Augusta, Jamaica, 1857 92
3.5 William shipmates disembarking at Key West 93
3.6 “The Barracoon at Key West,” engraving 94
3.7 “The Africans of the Slave Bark ‘Wildfire,’” engraving 95
3.8 “An African,” engraving 97
3.9 “The Only Baby among the Africans,” engraving 98
4.1 James W. C. Pennington portrait 102
5.1 William Proby Young self-portrait 129
5.2 Castilian recaptive shipmates roster, by age and gender 145
6.1 American Colonization Society map of Liberia, West Africa 158
6.2 Congo Town near Mesurado River in Liberia, map detail 183
Map
Atlantic Routes of Echo, Wildfire, William, and Bogota Recaptive Shipmates 2
TABLES
1 Dual Voyages of Recaptive Shipmates in U.S. Custody, 1858 and 1860 128
2 Recaptive Death and Survival in Circuits of Slave Trade Suppression, 1858 and 1860 140
3 Percentage Mortality on Slave Ships, in U.S. Camps, and on Transport Ships to Liberia 141
4 Daily Mortality Rates by Phase of Voyages 142
5 Recaptive Arrivals in Liberia, 1858–1861 167
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book has been long in the making. I could never have written it without the insight and support of many colleagues, friends, and family members. Many years ago at the Virginia Historical Society, Lee Shepard and Frances Pollard introduced me to the history of recaptive journeys by suggesting that I look at William Proby Young’s ship log. The Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA provided an incubating space in which to begin thinking about how to tell the story of West Central African youth in the immediate wake of slave ship captivity. As the project picked up speed, a critical long-term Mellon Fellowship at the Huntington Library afforded the luxury of a year’s research in a rich intellectual climate. I am also indebted to Occidental College’s faculty sabbatical program and the Faculty Enrichment Grants that enabled research, travel, and precious time to think and write. My thanks as well to the many archivists and librarians who answered my queries at the South Carolina Historical Society, the South Caroliniana Library, the American Antiquarian Society, the West Virginia and Regional History Center, the Monroe County Public Library in Key West, and the National Archives and Records Administration. Thanks to Brooke Guthrie at Duke University’s David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library for her quick response to a key archival finding.
On my long and humbling journey to becoming an Atlantic historian, I learned from many generous colleagues. My fellow Occidental College historians Jem Axelrod, Sasha Day, Lynn Dumenil, Michael Gasper, Nina Gelbart, Jane Hong, Maryanne Horowitz, Paul Nam, Alexandra Puerto, Lisa Sousa, and Marla Stone have been a front line of support, offering insights from their own fields of research. Carol Siu and John De La Fontaine went the extra mile to assist with interlibrary loans
and database access. From my year at the Huntington Library, I’m grateful for conversations with Nancy Bercaw, Roy Ritchie, LeeAnn Whites, and especially Kevin Dawson, who generously shared sources and insights in subsequent years. Ariela Gross and Judith Jackson Fossett hosted an interdisciplinary slavery studies working group at the University of Southern California that introduced me to profound scholarship on issues of legacy and redress. Elsa Barkley Brown, Adam Rothman, and Jessica Marie Johnson, along with other participants in the African American Political Culture Workshop at the University of Maryland, College Park, offered just the right critiques at a key point in my thinking about Atlantic child trafficking and recaptivity. Sandra Gunning and participants in the Neoslaveries in the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World Symposium at the University of Michigan helped me to think comparatively about the era’s many forced migrations. I’m grateful to Carla Pestana, Robin Derby, and Andrew Apter for involving me in the UCLA Atlantic History Speaker Series and to Alex Borucki for opportunities to share work with UC Irvine’s History Department and Medical Humanities Initiative. Corey Malcom, director of archaeology at the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum, took time to give me a historical tour of Key West and shared his own extensive research on recaptives of the Wildfire, William, and Bogota. Gabrielle Foreman gave me smart writing advice and shared her passion for the broad agenda of nineteenth-century black activism. In our regular breakfast meetings, Brenda Stevenson offered warm encouragement and invigorated my comparative slavery studies with her deep knowledge. For letters of support, conference collaborations, research suggestions, and generously sharing their work in progress, I’m indebted to Rosanne Adderley, Karen Anderson, Ana Lucia Araujo, Herman Bennett, Henry Drewal, Pablo Gómez, Evelynn Hammonds, John Harris, Svend Holsoe, Tera Hunter, Walter Johnson, Suzanne Lebsock, Henry Lovejoy, Leo Marques, Joseph Miller, Jennifer Morgan, Marcus Rediker, Ellen Samuels, Marni Sandweiss, David Sartorius, Rebecca Scott, James Sidbury, Stephanie Smallwood, Steven Stowe, Lynn Thomas, Marie Tyler-McGraw, Sifu Earl White, Peter Wood, Lisa Yun, Rafia Zafar, and Michael Zeuske. Each one of these scholars has expanded my geographic and intellectual horizons and deepened my gratitude to be part of this moment of Atlantic World and Black Atlantic historiography. Any remaining errors or oversights are my own responsibility, of course.
To my longtime writing group, words cannot express my gratitude. Emily Abel, Carla Bittel, Janet Brodie, Lisa Cody, Lynn Sacco, Terri Snyder, Devra Weber, and Alice Wexler read many drafts. Over wine and delicious dinners, they listened, counseled, critiqued, and inspired. One could not ask for better or wiser writing comrades. Suchi Branfman shone a light with her art and practice. The late Stephanie M. H. Camp deserves singular mention. She extended herself in extraordinary ways, sharing resources, giving astute advice (“punch up the introduction!”), and collaborating on presentations, as we both moved into our second book projects. Her spirit and memory remain with all who loved and learned from her.
I am deeply grateful to those whose close and critical readings offered essential guidance in each phase of revision. Walter Hawthorne and a second anonymous reader at UNC Press pushed me to make a better book with their close and expert reading. I learned a great deal in responding to their suggestions. Several other colleagues read one or more manuscript chapters, and I thank the following for both frank criticism and generous encouragement: Jeannine DeLombard, Gabrielle Foreman, Lisa Lindsay, Andy Pearson, Manisha Sinha, Brenda Stevenson, Randy Sparks, and Jean Wyatt. Lynn Dumenil heroically read the entire manuscript twice. Kristin Oberiano, an outstanding senior history major, saved the day by editing notes and bibliography for the final manuscript. At UNC Press, Kate Torrey encouraged the project’s early formation, and Chuck Grench patiently guided the manuscript through to production. Thanks to Jad Adkins and Kim Bryant for helpful communication and work with illustrations. I’m truly indebted to Stephanie Wenzel, who has now edited two of my book manuscripts and taught me more about writing each time.
My extended family reminds me who I am and keeps academic life in perspective. My sisters Sheryl Fett-Mekaru, Debby Desmond, and Christine Sprunger provided unwavering love and support in the midst of their own busy lives and many accomplishments. The memory of my mother, Betty Marie Dalton Fett, continues to guide me always. I thank my father, James Fett, for conversations about Congo in the 1960s and ‘70s; both he and Therese Sprunger have offered steady support and inspiring examples of medical compassion. To three generations of the Los Angeles Rogers family, thank you for joyous, chaotic gatherings and for knowing when to take interest and when not to ask about the progress of “the book.” My beloved children, Jacob Rogers-Fett and Ella Rogers-Fett, have grown up over the course of this endeavor. Their creativity, intelligence, and commitments inspire hope and provoke new thinking. Finally, with deep love and respect, I thank John Rogers, for endless patience, superb critical advice, and many years of daily partnership that have made this book—and much more—possible.
RECAPTURED AFRICANS
Atlantic Routes of Echo, Wildfire, William, and Bogota Recaptive Shipmates. Based on David Eltis and David Richardson, Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), p. 281, map 184. Courtesy of Yale University Press.
Introduction
Speaking in Poughkeepsie, New York, on 2 August 1858, for the anniversary of British West Indian emancipation, Frederick Douglass condemned the hypocrisy of an American “slaveholding and slave-trading nation” that failed to consistently enforce slave trade abolition. At issue were both the expansion of U.S. domestic slavery and the continuation of an illegal transatlantic slave trade that forcibly carried off almost 1.3 million Africans even after every major slaving nation in Europe and the Americas had criminalized the traffic.1 Douglass charged that despite the U.S. transatlantic slave trade ban signed into law in 1807, the federal government showed its true colors by refusing to allow Britain to board and inspect suspicious ships flying the American flag. Justifications for this refusal based on principles of national sovereignty could only be understood as a “refuge of lies,” he insisted, when the true cause of American inconsistency resided in a fundamental contradiction between U.S. domestic and foreign policy. As Douglass eloquently put it, “A slaveholding Government cannot consistently oppose the Slave-trade; it is the logical and legitimate deduction of Slavery—and the one is as hateful as the other. They are twin monsters, both hatched in the same polluted nest.”2 The United States could not effectively prosecute slavers at sea, Douglass warned, while reinforcing the rights of slaveholders at home. Nor could the United States claim to enforce abolition in international waters while defending a domestic commerce in human beings.
For almost two-thirds of the nineteenth century, Douglass’s description of the U.S. government remained apt: a slaveholding republic that criminalized international slavers while sanctioning the daily business of U.S. slave markets and overlooking American complicity in the contraband transatlantic trade. That apparent contradiction also created the conditions under which “recaptured Africans” temporarily sojourned in the United States. In the following pages, I examine the odyssey of roughly 1,800 African children, men, and women seized by the U.S. Navy from illegal slave ships headed for Cuban markets and brought temporarily into the United States. Originating in the regions of present-day Nigeria, Benin, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Angola, these former slave ship captives remained for weeks in federal detention in Charleston harbor in 1858 and Key West in 1860, before officials sent survivors on to Liberia. This book explores how African recaptives journeyed through the aftermath of slave ship bondage and how contending political constituencies responded to their presence. By reintroducing the term “recaptive” to historical studies of U.S. slavery, Recaptured Africans offers a new perspective on struggles for emancipation in the mid-nineteenth-century Atlantic World.
The state of recaptivity, a distinctive variant of slave trade captivity expressed as both social experience
and racial representation, is the concern of this book. Across the globe from 1807 to 1867, naval intervention resulted in the seizure of at least 181,000 African men, women, and children. Those who survived their ordeal became known as “liberated Africans,” emancipados, africanos livres, and “recaptured Africans” in Sierra Leone, the Caribbean, Cape Colony, the South Atlantic island of St. Helena, Cuba, Brazil, and Liberia.3 In contrast to several studies of the long-term creation of communities of “liberated Africans,” Recaptured Africans focuses instead on the immediate aftermath for African recaptives aboard four illegal slavers seized by U.S. authorities: the Echo, in 1858, and the Wildfire, William, and Bogota, in 1860.4 The story is thus told, for the most part, in weeks, months, and years rather than in decades and centuries. Furthermore, the terminology employed—“recaptured” rather than “liberated”—signals my interest in the liminal zones between enslavement and emancipation in the nineteenth-century Atlantic World. In comparison with “liberated Africans,” a term often applied by scholars to recaptives in British colonies, I use “recaptives” to emphasize the constraints of death and suffering, containment and racialization, that African shipmates endured in the course of U.S. federal detention and transportation to Liberia. “Recaptive” serves both as a more accurate descriptor of the social experience of slave ship rescue and as a useful metaphor for the conflicting representational claims made on the bodies of slave ship refugees.
Even after the U.S. Congress banned the transatlantic slave trade, the legal status of the victims of that trade remained a subject of contention. In a young republic whose Constitution protected the human property claims of slaveowners, the question of emancipation for illegally trafficked Africans inevitably hit a political nerve.5 How would U.S. law define the status of recaptive men, women, and children who inhabited the murky realm between potential commodity and quasi-person? At first, federal lawmakers sidestepped the question by granting jurisdiction to state authorities over “any negro, mulatto, or person of colour” found aboard intercepted slavers.6 By delegating jurisdiction to the state level and effectively permitting the sale of intercepted captives for southern state treasuries, federal law continued to treat illegally trafficked Africans as fungible commodities. In the early years of slave trade suppression, recaptured men, women, and children exited slave ships only to find themselves auctioned by state officials into the expanding cotton economies of the U.S. South.
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