Abstract of the evidence for the abolition of the slave-trade (1791)/Chapter 2
The Moors (says Mr. Keirnan) have always a strong inducement to go to war with the negroes, most of the European goods they obtain, being got in exchange for slaves. Hence desolation and waste.
Mr. Town observes, that the intercourse of the Africans with the Europeans, has improved them in roguery, to plunder and steal, and pick up one another to sell.
Dr. Trotter asking a black trader, what they made of their slaves when the French and English were at war, was answered, that when ships ceased to come, slaves ceased to be taken.
Mr. Isaac Parker says, that the king of Old Calabar was certainly not at war with the people up that river, nor had they made any attack on him. It happened that slaves were very slack in the back country at this time, and were wanted when he went on the expeditions, described in a former page (p. 16)
Mr. Wadstrom says, that king Barbesin, while he, Mr. Wadstrom, was at Joal, was unwilling to pillage his subjects, but he was excited to it by means of a constant intoxication, kept up by the French and Mulattoes of the embassy, who generally agreed every morning on taking this method to effect their purpose. When sober, he always expressed a resistance to harrass his people. Mr. Wadstrom also heard the king hold the same language on different days, and yet he afterwards ordered the pillage to be executed. Mr. Wadstrom has no doubt, but that he also pillages in other parts of his dominions, since it is the custom of the mulatto merchants (as both they and the French officers declare) when they want slaves, to go to the kings, and excite them to pillages, which are usually practised on all that part of the coast.
The French Senegal company also, in order to obtain their compliment of slaves, had recourse to their usual method on similar occasions, namely, of bribing the Moors, and supplying them with arms and ammunition, to seize king Dalmammy's subjects. By January 12th, 1788, when Mr. Wadstrom arrived at Senegal, fifty had been taken, whom the king desired to ransom, but they had been all dispatched to Cayenne. Some were brought in every day afterwards, and put in the company's slave-hold, in a miserable state, the greater part being badly wounded by sabres and musket balls. The director of the company conducted Mr. Wadstrom there, with Dr. Spaarman, whom he consulted as a medical man in their behalf. Mr. Wadstrom particularly remembers one lying in his blood, which flowed from a wound made by a ball in his shoulder.
Mr. Dalrymple understood it common for European traders to advance goods to Chiefs, to induce them to seize their subjects or neighbours. Not one of the Mulatto traders at Goree ever thought of denying it.
Mr. Bowman having settled at the head of Scassus river, informed the king, and others, that he was come to reside as a trader, and that his orders were, to supply them with powder and ball, and to encourage them to go to war. They answered, they would go to war in two or three days. By this time they came to the factory, said they were going to war, and wanted powder, ball, rum and tobacco. When these were given them, they went off to the number of from twenty-five to thirty, and in six or seven days, a part of them returned with three slaves.
In 1769, (says Lieut. Storey) Captain Paterson, of a Liverpool ship, lying off Bristol town, set two villages at variance, and bought prisoners, near a dozen, from both sides.
Mr. Morley owns, with shame, that he has made the natives drunk, in order to buy a good man or woman slave, to whom he found them attached. He has seen this done by others. Captain Hildebrand, commanding a sloop of Mr. Brue's, bought one of the wives of a man, whom he had previously made drunk, and who wished to redeem her, when sober next day, as did the person he (Mr. Morley) bought the man of, but neither of them was given up. He supposes they would have given a third more than the price paid, to have redeemed them.
Sir George Young says, that when at Annamaboe, at Mr. Brue's, (a very great merchant there) Mr. Brue had two hostages, kings sons, for payment for arms, and all kinds of military stores, which he had supplied to the two kings, who were at war with each other, to procure slaves for at least six or seven ships, then lying in the road. The prisoners on both sides were brought down to Mr. Brue, and sent to the ships.
Mr. J. Parker has known presents made by the Captains, to the black traders, to induce them to bring slaves. Captain Colley in particular gave them some pieces of cannon, which he himself saw landed.
On the subject of Europeans attempting to carry off the natives, General Rooke says, that it was proposed to him by three captains of English slave ships, lying under the fort of Goree, to kidnap a hundred, or a hundred and fifty, men, women and children, king Damel's subjects, who had come to Goree in consequence of the friendly intercourse between him and Damel. He refused, and was much shocked by the proposition. They said such things had been done by a former Governor, but the chief Maraboo at Rusisk did not recollect any such event.
Mr. Wadstrom was informed at Goree, by Captain Wignie, from Rochelle, who was just arrived from the river Gambia, that a little before his departure from that river, three English vessels were cut off by the natives, owing to the captain of one of them, who had his cargo, being tempted by a fair wind, to sail away with several of the free negroes, then drinking with the crew. Soon afterwards the wind changed, and he was driven back, seized, and killed, with all his crew, and those of the two other vessels. Mr. Wadstrom has, by accident, met with the insurer of two of these vessels in London, who [1] confirmed the above facts.
Captain Hills says a man at Gambia, who called himself a prince's brother, had been carried off to the West Indies, by an English ship, but making his case known to the governor, was sent by him to Europe. Captain Hills was advised not to go on shore at Gambia, by the merchants there, for fear of being taken by the natives, who owed the English a grudge for some injuries received.
Mr. John Bowman says, that when a mate under Captain Strangeways, the ship then lying in the river S. Leon, at White Man's Bay, ready to sail, he was sent on shore to invite two traders on board. They came and were shewn into the cabin. Mean time people were employed in setting the sails, it being almost night, and the land breeze making down the river. When they had weighed anchor, and got out to sea, Mr. Bowman was called down by the captain, who, pointing to the sail-case, desired him to look into it and see what a fine prize he had got. To his surprize, he saw lying fast asleep, the two men who had come on board with him, the captain having made them drunk, and concealed them there. When they awoke they were sent upon deck, ironed, and put forward among the other slaves. On arriving at Antigua they were sold.
The Rev. Mr. Newton has known ships and boats cut off at Sherbro, usually in retaliation.
Once when he was on shore, the traders suddenly put him into his long-boat, telling him that a ship just passed had carried off two people. Had it been known in the town, he would have been detained. He has known many other such instances, but after thirty-six years, he cannot specify them. It was a general opinion, founded on repeated and indisputable facts, that depredations of this sort were frequently committed by the Europeans.
Mr. Newton has sometimes found all trade stopped, and the depredations of European traders have been assigned by the natives as the cause, and he has more than once or twice made up breaches of this kind between the ships and the natives.
He believes several captains of slave ships were honest humane men; but he has good reason to think, they were not all so. The taking off slaves by force has been thought most frequent in the last voyages of captains. He has often heard masters and officers express this opinion. Depredations and reprisals made to get them were so frequent that the Europeans and Africans were in a spirit of mutual distrust: he does not mean that there were no depredations except in their last voyages. He has known Liverpool and Bristol ships materially injured from the conduct of some ships, from the same ports, that had left the coast. It is a fact that some captains have committed depredations in their last voyages who have not been known to have done it before.
Mr. Towne was once present with part of the crew of his ship the Sally, at an expedition undertaken by the whites for seizing negroes, and joined by other boats to receive those they could catch. To prevent all alarm, they bound the mouths of the captives, with oakum and handkerchiefs. One woman shrieked and the natives turned out in defence. He had then five of them tied in the boat, and the other boats were in readiness to take in what more they could get. All his party were armed, and the men of the town pursued them with first a scattering, and at length a general fire, and several of the men belonging to the boats, he has reason to believe, were killed, wounded, or taken, as he never heard of them afterwards. He was wounded himself. The slaves he had taken were sold at Charlestown, South Carolina. The natives had not previously committed any hostilities against any of the ships, whose boats were concerned in this transaction. They owed goods to the captain, for which he resolved to obtain slaves at any rate. He has had several ship-mates, who have themselves told him, they have been concerned in similar transactions, and have made a boast of it, and who have been wounded also.
Mr. Falconbridge was informed by Captain Gould of the Alert, that he had carried off a man from Little Cape Mount.
Mr. Storey believes the natives of the Windward Coast are often fraudulently carried off by the Europeans. He has been told by them, that they had lost their friends at different times, and supposed them taken by European ships going along the coast. He has himself taken up canoes at sea, which were challenged by the natives, who supposed the men in them had been taken off the day before by a Dutchman.
When once at an anchor, in his boat, between the river Sestus and Settra Crue, he prevented the crew of a long-boat, belonging to a Dutchman then lying off shore, from being cut off by the natives, who gave as a reason for their intentions, that a ship of that country some days before had taken off four men belonging to the place.
Afterwards, in 1768, being in a boat, with two other white persons, the natives attacked them. Both the former were killed, and he himself, covered with blood and wounds, was only suffered to escape, by consenting to give up boat and cargo, and to go to Gaboon. The The reason the natives gave for this procedure was, that a ship from Liverpool (one Captain Lambert) had, some time before, taken a canoe full of their townsmen, and carried her away. He heard the same thing confirmed afterwards at Gaboon.
Mr. Douglas states, that near Cape Coast the natives make smoke as a signal for trade. On board his ship (the Warwick Castle) they saw the smoke and stood in shore, which brought off many canoes. Pipes, tobacco, and brandy, were got on deck, to entice the people in them on board. The gratings were unlaid, the slave-room cleared, and every preparation made to seize them; two only could be prevailed on to come up the ship's side, who stood in the main chains, but on the seamen approaching them they jumped off, and the canoes all made for shore.
The Gregson's people, while at Bonny, informed Mr. Douglas, that in running down the coast, they had kidnapped thirty-two of the natives. He saw slaves on board that ship when she came in, and it is not customary for ships bound to Bonny, to stop and trade by the way.
Mr. How says, that abreast of Cape La Hou, several canoes came alongside of his Majesty's ship Grampus, and on coming on board informed the captain, that an English Guinea-trader a fortnight before had taken off six canoes with men, who had gone off to them with provisions for trade. On coming to Appolonia he was also told by Mr. Buchanan, the resident there, that a Guinea-man, belonging to one Griffith, an Englishman, and a notorious trader and kidnapper, between Cape La Hou and Appolonia, was then in that latitude.
Captain Hall was told by Capt. Jeremiah Smith, that in 1771, a Captain Fox had taken off some people from the Windward Coast.
He says also, that the boat's crew of the Venus, Captain Smith, which had been sent to Fernandipo for yams from Calabar, enticed a canoe to come alongside that had about ten men in her. As soon as she got near, the boat's crew fired into her, on which they jumped overboard: some were wounded, and one was taken out of the water, and died in less than an hour in the boat: two others were taken up unhurt, and carried to Old Calabar to the ship. Captain Smith was angry at the officer for this procedure, and sent back the two men to the bay, from whence they had been taken. Immediately after the boat had committed this depredation, Captain Hall happened to go into the same bay in his own ship's long-boat, and sending on shore two men to fill water, they were surrounded by the natives, who drove three spears into one of the men, and wounded the other with a large stick, in consequence of taking away the two men just mentioned. It was said that the crew had disputed with the natives on shore when trading with them for yams, but the former had not done any of the boat's crew any injury.
Mr. Ellison knew two slaves taken from the island of Fernandipo by the Dobson's boat of Liverpool, and carried to Old Calabar, where the ship lay. He went to the same island for yams, a few days after the transaction, and fired, as the usual signal, for the natives to bring them. Seeing some of them peep through the bushes, he wondered why they would not come to the boat. He accordingly swam on shore, when some of the islanders came round him: an old man shewed, by signs, that a ship's boat had stolen a man and woman. He was then soon surrounded by numbers, who presented darts to him, signifying they would kill him, if the man and woman were not brought back. Upon this, the people in the boat fired some shot, when they all ran into the woods. Mr. Ellison went to Calabar, and told Captain Briggs he could get no yams, in consequence of the two people being stolen; upon which Captain Briggs told the captain of the Dobson, there would be no more trade if he did not deliver up the people, which he at length did. As soon as the natives saw their countrymen, they loaded the boat with yams, goats, fowls, honey, and palm-wine: and they would take nothing for them. They had the man and woman delivered to them, whom they carried away in their arms. The Dobson did not stay above eight, ten, or twelve days. This was the last trip her boat was to make, when they carried off the two slaves.
Mr. Morley says, that when off Taboo, two men came in a canoe, along-side his vessel. One of them came up, and sat on the netting, but would not come into the ship. The captain at length, inticing him, intoxicated him so with brandy and laudanum, that he fell in upon deck. The captain then ordered him to be put into the men's room, with a centry over him. The other man in the canoe, after calling in vain for his companion, paddled off fast towards the shore. The captain fired several musket balls after him, which did not hit him. About three or four leagues farther down, two men came on board from another canoe. While they were on board, a drum was kept beating near the man who had been seized, to prevent his hearing them, or they him.
He says again, in speaking of another part of the coast, that Captain Briggs's chief mate, in Old Calabar River, lying in ambush to stop the natives coming down the creek, pursued Oruk Robin John, who, jumping on shore, shot the mate through the head.
He says also, of another part of the coast, that a Mr. Walker, master of a sloop, was on board the Jolly Prince, Captain Lambert, when the king of Nazareth stabbed the captain at his own table, and took the vessel, putting all the whites to death, except the cook, a boy, and, he believes, one man. Captain Walker, being asked why the king of Nazareth took this step, said, it was on account of the people, whom Matthews had carried off from Gaboon and Cape Lopez the voyage before. Walker escaped, by knowing the language of the country.
Mr. Morley sailed afterwards with the same Captain Matthews to Gaboon River, where the Chiefs sons came on board him to demand what he had done with their sons, and the boys he had carried off, (the same as Walker alluded to) and told him, that if he dared to come on shore, they would have his head.
As a farther corroboration, that such practices as the above take place, it appears in evidence, that the natives of the coast and islands are found constantly hovering in their canoes, at a distance, about such vessels as are passing by, shy of coming on board, for fear of being taken off, [Hall, Falconbridge, Claxton, Bowman, &c.] But if they can discover that such vessels are not in the slave trade, but are men of war, they come on board readily, [Sir George Young] or without any hesitation, which they would not otherwise have done, [Mr. Howe] and in numbers, [Lieutenant Simpson] and traverse the ships with as much confidence as if they had been on shore, [Captain Wilson.]
Mr. Ellison says, when he was lying at Yanamaroo, in the Gambia, slaves were brought down. The traders raised the price. The captains would not give it, but thought to compel them by firing upon the town. They fired red hot shot from the ship, and set several houses on fire. All the ships, seven or eight, fired.
Mr. Falconbridge heard Captain Vicars, of a Bristol ship, say at Bonny, when his traders were slack, he fired a gun into or over the town, to freshen their way. Captain Vicars told this to him and other people there at the time, but he has seen no instance of it himself.
Lieutenant Storey says, that Captain Jeremiah Smith, in the London, in 1766, having a dispute with the natives of New Town Old Calabar, concerning the stated price which he was to give for slaves, for several days stopped every canoe coming down the Creek from New Town, and also fired several guns indiscriminately over the woods into the town, till he brought them to his own terms.
Captain Hall says, in Old Calabar River there are two towns. Old Town and New Town. A rivalship in trade produced a jealousy between the towns; so that through fear of each other, for a considerable time, no canoe would leave their towns to go up the river for slaves. This happened in 1767. In this year seven ships, of which five were the following — Duke of York, Bevan, — Edgar, Lace, — Indian Queen, Lewis, — Nancy, Maxwell — and Canterbury, Sparkes, — lay off the point which separates the towns. Six of the captains invited the people of both towns on board on a certain day, as if to reconcile them: at the same time they agreed with the people of New Town to cut off all the Old Town people who should remain on board the next morning. The Old Town people persuaded of the sincerity of the captains proposal, went onboard in great numbers. Next morning, at eight o'clock, one of the ships fired a gun, as a signal to commence hostilities. Some of the traders were secured on board, some were killed in resisting, and some got overboard, and were fired upon. When the firing began, the New Town people, who were in ambush behind the Point, came forward, and picked up the people of Old Town, who were swimming, and had escaped the firing. After the firing was over, the captains of five of the ships delivered their prisoners (persons of consequence) to the New Town canoes, two of whom were beheaded alongside the ships. The inferior prisoners were carried to the West Indies. One of the captains, who had secured three of the king's brothers, delivered one of them to the chief man of New Town, who was one of the two beheaded alongside; the other brothers he kept on board, promising, when the ship was slaved, to deliver them to the chief man of New Town. His ship was soon slaved on account of his promise, and the number of prisoners made that day; but he refused to deliver the king's two brothers, according to his promise, and carried them to the West Indies, and sold them. It happened in process of time, that they escaped to Virginia, and from thence, after three years, to Bristol, where the captain who brought them, fearing he had done wrong, meditated carrying, or sending them back, but Mr. Jones of Bristol, who had ships trading to Old Calabar, and hearing who they were, had them taken from the ship, (where they were in irons) by Habeas Corpus. After inquiry how they were brought from Africa, they were liberated, and put in one of Mr. Jones's ships for Old Calabar, where Captain Hall was, when they arrived in the ship Cato, Langdon.
So satisfied were the people of Old Town, in 1767, of the sincerity of the captains who invited them, and of the New Town people, towards a reconciliation, that the night before the massacre, the chief man of Old Town gave to the chief man of New Town, one of his favourite women as a wife. It was said that from three to four hundred persons were killed that day, in the ships, in the water, or carried off the coast.
The king escaped from the ship he was in, by killing two of the crew, who attempted to seize him. He then got into a one-man canoe, and paddled to the shore. A six pounder from one of the ships struck the canoe to pieces; he then swam on shore to the woods near the ships, and reached his own town, though closely pursued. It was said he received eleven wounds from musket shot.
Captain Hall, in his first voyage on board the Neptune, had this account from the boatswain, Thomas Rutter, who, in 1767, had been boatswain to the Canterbury, Captain Sparkes, of London, and concerned in the said massacre. Rutter told him the story exactly as related, and never varied in it. He had it also from the kings two brothers, who agreed exactly with Rutter.
Captain Hall also saw at Calabar, in the possession of the king's two brothers, their depositions taken at Bristol, and of Mr. Floyd, who was mate of one of the ships when the transaction happened, but he took no copy.
Mr. Millar says, that a quarrel happened between the people of Old and New Town, which prevented the ships lying in Calabar river from being slaved. He believes in June 1767, Captain S. Sparkes, (captain of his ship, the Canterbury) came one evening to him, and told him that the two towns, so quarrelling, would meet on board the different ships, and ordered him to hand up some swords.
The next day several canoes, as Sparkes had before advertised him, came from both of the towns, on board the Canterbury, Mr. Millar's own ship, and one of the persons so coming on board, brought a letter, which he gave Sparkes, immediately on the receipt of which, he, Sparkes, took a hanger, and attacked one of the Old Town people then on board, cutting him immediately on the arms, head, and body. The man fled, ran down the steps leading to the cabin, and Sparkes still following him with the hanger, darted into the boys room. Mr. Millar is sure this circumstance can never be effaced from his memory. From this room he was however brought up by means of a rope, when Sparkes renewed his attack as before, on him, who, making for the entering port, leaped overboard.
This being concluded, Sparkes left his own ship to go on board some of the other ships, then lying in the river. Soon after he was gone, a boy belonging to Mr. Millar's ship, came and informed him, Mr. Millar, that he had discovered a man concealed behind the medicine chest. Mr. Millar went and found the man. He was the person before-mentioned to have brought a letter on board. On being discovered by Mr. Miliar, he begged for mercy, intreating that he might not be delivered up to the people of New Town. He was brought on the quarter-deck, where were some of the New Town people, who would have killed him, had they not been prevented. The man was then ironed, and conducted into the room of the men slaves.
Soon after this transaction, the captain returned, and brought with him a New Town trader, named Willy Honesty. On coming on board, he was informed of what had happened in his absence, and Mr. Millar believes, in the hearing of Willy Honesty, who immediately exclaimed, "Captain, if you will give me that man, to cut off his head, I will give you the best man in my canoe, and you shall be slaved the first ship." The captain upon this looked into Willy Honesty's canoe, picked his man, and delivered the other in his stead, when his head was immediately struck off in Mr. Millar's sight.
Mr. Millar believes, that some other cruelties, besides this particular act, were done, because he saw blood on the starboard side of the mizen-mast, though he does not recollect seeing any bodies from whence the blood might come; and others in other ships, because he heard several muskets or pistols fired from them at the same time. This affair might last ten minutes. He remembers a four-pounder fired at a canoe, but knows not if any damage was done.
As to other acts of injustice on the part of the Europeans, some consider frauds, (says Mr. Newton) as a necessary branch of the slave trade. They put false heads into powder casks; cut off two or three yards from the middle of a piece of cloth; adulterate their spirits, and steal back articles given. Besides these, there are others who pay in bottles, which contain but half the contents of the samples shewn (Wadstrom), use false steelyards and weights, (Bowman) and sell such guns as burst on firing, so that many of the natives of the Windward coast, are without their fingers and thumbs on this account, (Lieut. Storey) and it has become a saying, " That these guns kill more out of the butt than the muzzle," (Falconbridge).
Mr. Dalrymple, while at Goree, remembers a ship attempting to sail out of the bay with a number of slaves, without paying for them, but she was stopped by the guns of the fort.
- ↑ The editor saw, in the month of April, 1791, in St. Thomas's hospital, a young lad, the only one of the three crews that was suffered to escape upon this occasion. After having been for months in confinement up the country, he was brought off by accident, by an English ship.