Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 1).djvu/555

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CANOT
CAPERS
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neighboring tribes, but studiously maintained peace with the whites, and at last (19 April, 1644) he made a formal treaty acknowledging the sovereignty of Britain. The influence of his wise counsels lasted for many years after his death, and the Narragansett tribe maintained peaceful relations with the English until Philip's war in 1675, when they became hostile, and were exterminated.


CANOT, Theodore, adventurer, b. in Florence, Italy, about 1807. He was the son of a captain and paymaster in the French army. After an or- dinary school education he shipped as a seaman in the American ship " Galatea," of Boston, from Leg- horn to Calcutta. He made several voyages from Boston, was wrecked near Ostend, and again on the coast of Cuba, where he was captured by pirates. One of these claimed to be his uncle, and sent him to an Italian grocer near Havana, who was secretly engaged in the slave-trade. At Ha- vana he shipped on a slaver, and made his first voyage to Africa in 1826, landing at the slave factory of Bangalang, on the river Pongo. Senegam- bia. After quelling a mutiny on board, and aid- ing to stow away 108 slaves in a hold twenty-two inches high, he entered the service of the owner of the factory. In 1827 a friend in Havana consigned to him a slave schooner, which he loaded with 217 negroes, receiving $5,565 commission, \vhile the Cuban owners realized a clear profit of $41,438. Canot then established a slave-station at Kambia, near Bangalang. He became a favorite with the native chiefs, and by their aid soon collected a stock of slaves. Another vessel was sent out to him from Cuba ; but, the captain dying, he took command and sailed for Regla, but was soon cap- tured by two British cruisers after a severe fight. He made his escape in a small boat, with one com- panion, and reached the river Pongo. After the destruction of his factory and goods by fire in May, 1828, he purchased a vessel at Sierra Leone, in which, with a cargo of slaves, he sailed to Cuba. Three more expeditions soon followed ; in the first he lost 300 slaves by small-pox ; in the last he was taken by the French, and condemned to ten years' confinement in the prison of Brest, but a year after he was pardoned by Louis Philippe. He returned to Africa, and was the pioneer of the slave traffic at New Sestros, and in 1840 shipped 749 slaves from there to Cuba. He established in 1841 a trading and farming settlement, under the name of New Florence, at Cape Mount, where he had ob- tained a grant of land ; but in March, 1847, New Florence was destroyed by the British, who sus- pected it to be a slave-station, and Canot removed to South America, where he engaged in commerce. He resided for some time in Baltimore, and finally received from Napoleon III. an office in one of the French colonies in Oceania. A narrative of his adventures, compiled by Brantz Mayer from his own notes, and entitled " Captain Canot, or Twenty Years of an African Slaver," has been published (New York, 1854).


CAONABO (cah-o-na'-bo), one of the principal caciques who ruled at Hispaniola (now Santo Do- mingo) when Columbus discovered and took pos- session of that island ; d. at sea in 1494. He was a brother of the famous Indian queen Anacaona, and determined to drive out the invaders. He at- tacked a small fort, that of La Natividad, erected by Columbus when he first landed on the island, overpowered those who defended it under the command of Diego de Arana, and slaughtered the whole garrison. Soon afterward he was taken pris- oner by Alonso de Ojeda, and sent to Spain, but died during the voyage.


CAPEN, Elmer Hewitt, educator, b. in Stough- ton, Norfolk co., Mass., 5 April, 1838. He was graduated at Tufts in 1860. and elected to the legislature in 1859, while still in college. After spending a year in the Harvard law-school he was admitted to the Suffolk co. bar in 1863. practising for a short time in Stoughton, Mass., when he be- gan the study of theology. He was ordained in Gloucester, Mass., in 1865, as pastor of the inde- pendent Christian church, and remained there till 1869. After preaching a year in St. Paul, Minn., he became in 1870 pastor of the 1st Universalist church of Providence, R. I. He was chosen presi- dent of Tufts college in 1875.


CAPEN, Nahum, author, b. in Canton, Mass., 1 April, 1804; d. in Dorchester, Mass., in 1886. At the age of twenty-one he entered the publish- ing business in Boston as a member of the firm of Marsh, Capen & Lyon. From 1847 till 1851 he edited the '• Massachusetts State Record." He was among the first to memorialize congress on the subject of international copyright, and a letter of his, published by the U. S. senate, led to the organ- ization of the Census board at Washington. From 1857 till 1861 he was postmaster of Boston, and established the custom of collecting letters from street-boxes. He wrote many articles for the press, and published " The Republic of the United States," having special reference to the Mexican war (New York, 1848), and " Reminiscences of Spurzheim and Combe " (1881). For many years he had been en- gaged upon a " History of Democracy," which at the time of his death was nearly completed.


CAPERS, William, M. E. bishop, b. in St. Thomas parish, S. C, 26 Jan., 1790 ; d. in Anderson, S. C, 29 Jan., 1855. His father, who was of Huguenot descent, served with distinction in the revolutionary army as a captain under Gen. Marion. After attending Dr. Roberts's academy in Statesburg, Sumter district, from 1801 till 1805, young Capers entered South Carolina college as a sophomore, but in 1808 he left college and began the study of law with Judge Richardson. He joined the Methodist church in August, 1808, and soon afterward, through the influence of William Gassoway, an itinerant preacher, decided to accompany him on his rounds. His scruples against preaching without preparatory study were overcome by his friend, and he was licensed on 25 Nov., 1808. After filling A'arious appointments he settled on a farm in December, 1814, but continued to preach every week, and in 1816 opened a school in Georgetown, S. C. He returned to active ministerial duties in 1818, and in 1819 was stationed at Savannah, Ga., appointed missionary to the Creek Indians in 1821, travelled extensively among them, and superintended the mission until 1825, when he removed to Charleston, and edited there the " Wesleyan Journal " till it was merged in the New York "Christian Advocate" in 1826. He was presiding elder of the Charleston district from 1827 till 1831, and in 1828 visited England as the representative of his church at the British conference. He became in 1829 superintendent of the missions to the plantation slaves, and in November of that year declined the chair of moral philosophy in Franklin college, Georgia. He subsequently declined the presidency of three different southern colleges, and also, in 1835. the chair of evidences of Christianity in South Carolina college. He was chosen by the general conference in May, 1836, to edit a new paper called the " Southern Christian Advocate," the first number of which was issued in June, 1837. He was secretary of the southern missionary district from 1840 till 1844.