The American Slave Trade (Spears)/Chapter 1
CHAPTER I
THE TRADE IN THE EARLIEST DAYS
On a hot day late in the month of August, 1619, while the people of the little British settlement called Jamestown, in what is now the State of Virginia, were busily engaged in the work of establishing homes on the borders of the great American wilderness, an alarm was raised that a ship was coming with the tide up from the sea. Only one more startling cry than that could have been heard — a warning that hostile Indians were coming; but in those days, when the fighting between nations nominally at peace might cost more lives than were lost in our war with Spain, the approach of an unknown ship, to a settlement as weak as Jamestown, was a most serious matter. It was the more serious for the reason that Spain, in those days, laid claim to all of North America, and was threatening to come to the Chesapeake Bay and lay waste the settlement there as an encroachment upon her rights.
The stranger was a queer-looking craft, if we may judge her by modern standards, for she was, as all ships then were, short and thick — bluff-bowed and round at the stern — while she towered so high out of water at each end that the term "forecastle," which was then and is now applied to any structure at the bow of a ship, was a word of obvious significance. There was literally a castle on her bow, and another, called a poop, on her stern. Her sails, too, of which she carried, doubtless, two on the fore and the main masts, and one on the mizzen, were like great bags bellying out before the wind. When compared with the flat canvas of a modern ship it is easy to see that one would have difficulty in securing a crew for such a ship in these days. But more interesting than the form of either hull or sail was the row of black-muzzled cannon that projected through the bulwarks on each side; and altogether it is not mere fancy to say that the alarm of such a ship approaching Jamestown carried tremors of fear to the breasts of the weak, and added throbs to the hearts of the strong as they hurried to get their weapons and go down to the river bank to receive her.
But as the stranger drew near, the trained eyes of the colonists saw many signs to allay their fears. She was flying the Dutch flag, for one thing, and the Dutch were then the leading traders of the world. Moreover, it was apparent that her cannon were neither manned nor cast loose for action; the attitudes and the work of her crew told convincingly that trade, and not war, was wanted, and, seeing this, the ready muskets of the colonists were laid aside that a friendly welcome might be extended.
Then came the ship to the shore, where her lines were made fast to the near-by trees, and her captain walked over a gang-plank to greet the colonists under the wide-spread, thick-leaved branches, and tell them that he had brought merchandise to exchange for the products of the settlement.
Few more interesting ships than this are known to the history of America. The Mayflower only, of all the ships that followed Columbus, may be compared to her, and that by way of contrast, because the New England ship came with men who sought a form of liberty, while the Dutchman came to introduce a kind of slavery. Among the articles of merchandise that the Dutch captain had to offer the colonists were twenty human beings, negroes brought from the coast of Africa, and his ship was probably the first slavetrader to visit what is now the coast of the United States.
From a sailor's point of view also the story of this slaver is remarkable; in fact, it is one of the most singular stories known to the history of commerce. Thus, we know that she hailed from Flushing, and the number of slaves that she brought. There is no doubt about her shape and rig. We are well enough assured as to where she landed, and we are even justified in saying how she was secured to the river's bank. There is an old record containing the names of some of the slaves she landed. But her name and the name of her commander have been lost beyond recovery. She appears above our horizon like a strange sail at sea, showing unmistakably from our present point of view that something is wrong with her; we pass her close enough at hand to see on her decks men and women in distress whom we are wholly unable to relieve, and then she fades away in the mists astern, and is lost forever.
We are indebted to John Rolfe, the man that married the Indian maiden Pocahontas (and so became the most famous squaw-man in history), for the greater part of what we know about the first slave-trader to visit our shores. Rolfe was in Jamestown when the Dutchman came to Virginia waters, and it is his record that says: "a dutch man of warre that sold us twenty Negars" came to Jamestown late in August, 1619.
In other accounts this ship is called a Dutch trader, instead of a "man of warre," while others still call her a privateer. Taking all the statements together, the truth appears to be that she was built as a cargo carrier, and yet was armed, and had a license permitting her to prey on the commerce of the enemies of Holland. Her chief business was as a trader, but incidentally she was a lawful privateer. At what point in Africa, or how, she obtained the negroes is not known.
The story of how she happened to carry her slaves to Virginia is of especial interest here because it includes that of the first ship fitted in United States territory for the slave trade.
In the year 1619 “the rapacious and unscrupulous" Captain Samuel Argall was ruler of the colony of Virginia. Argall was able, energetic, adroit, and conscienceless. He was what ward politicians would call a "heeler" of the Earl of Warwick, a man at once rich and unscrupulous. Among the Earl's possessions was the ship Treasurer, and Argall owned a share of her.
During the year 1619 the Treasurer came to Virginia, armed as a privateer, and bearing a commission from the Duke of Savoy permitting her to cruise against the Spaniards. Presumably intending such a cruise, she cleared out for the West Indies, where, as her log-book shows, she fell in with a Dutch letter of marque and told him that slaves were wanted in Virginia.
It is fair to presume that the Dutchman at once headed away for the Chesapeake, because John Pory, secretary of the Virginia colony, in a letter to Sir Dudley Carleton, dated September 13, 1619, mentions "the man-of-war of Flushing," and says: The occasion of this ship's coming hither was an accidental consortship in the West Indies with the Treasurer." He adds that the Dutchman wanted to buy provisions, "of which the master pleaded that his vessel was in dire need."
It is a matter of record that the Treasurer also brought negro slaves to Virginia, and a woman called Angela was sold to a Mr. Bennett. A record of her may be found in the census record of Virginia made in 1625, according to Hotten's ‘‘ Original List of Emigrants, etc."
It is possible that the Treasurer returned ahead of the Dutchman; but, because the Dutchman was in need of food, and because John Rolfe speaks of the Dutchman's slaves only, it is fair to infer that the Dutchman came first.
The records tell why the Treasurer landed but one slave. Says the “Declaration" of the Virginia Council, made in 1623: "Finding Captain Argall, the setter-of-her-out, departed thence, she withdrew herself instantly from the new Governor's power, and went to the Somer Islands, then discharged her booty, which were a certain number of negroes, all of which, even those that belonged as shares unto the mariners (whereof they have not long since complained in court), were taken and placed on the said Earl's lands, as belonging to his lordship, and so continue."
It is perhaps worth mentioning that it has been asserted that the slaves ascribed to the Dutchman really came from the Treasurer, and that the letters and other Virginia documents relating to the matter were deliberately false, because the Virginians feared the Spanish would come to avenge the raids which the Treasurer had made in the West Indies. But a careful reading of all the available matter on the subject shows no real foundation for the assertion.
As to the Treasurer's career, a word more must be told, because, as has been said, she was the first slaver fitted out in America. She had visited the coast occasionally as a trader between England and the colonies since 1613, but had not been in the slave-trade until 1619. In this voyage to the West Indies she was "manned with the ablest men in the colony" (see "Declaration" of 1623), but on reaching Bermuda she was declared to be unseaworthy. Her arms were taken out of her and she was broken up. The robbing of her crew was a natural incident of the trade, and in after years common enough.
One more question as to the first slave-carrying ships in the American trade remains to be considered — a question that has been raised in connection with the Spanish settlement of Florida, and with the Norse discoveries on the New England coast. If it be admitted that Eric the Red landed on the New England coast, then it is probable that he carried a woman slave ashore with him. That the Spaniards had negro slaves in their settlement in Florida is not now disputed. Peter Menendez, who held a commission of the King of Spain for a settlement in Florida, landed at St. Augustine on September 8, 1565. He undoubtedly had negro slaves in his party. If anyone wishes to make an exhaustive study of the matter of the landing of the first slaves in America, he can find nearly all the references to authorities needed in the Magazine of American History for November, 1891; but the question of interest to the present history is not when the first slaves were brought within the present limits of the United States, but when the first slave-ship came here in the prosecution of its traffic in human beings. Certainly neither the Viking nor the Spaniard came as a slave-merchant.
The first American-built slaver of which there is definite record was the ship Desire, a vessel of 120 tons, built at Marblehead, in 1636. It does not appear that she was in the trade to Africa, but Winthrop's Journal has the following under the date of February 26, 1638:
"Mr. Pierce in the Salem ship, the Desire, returned from the West Indies after seven months. He had been at Providence, and brought some cotton and tobacco and negroes, etc., from thence, and salt from Tortugas." To this is added a remark worth considering: "Dry fish and strong liquors are the only commodities for those parts." Meantime another slave-ship had come to Virginia — the Fortune, Captain Grey, of London. While on the coast of Africa she had fallen in with an Angola ship loaded with slaves,and had captured her. The slaves were carried to Virginia and exchanged for eighty-five hogsheads and five butts of tobacco, which were sold in London. This was in 1630.
That the Dutch introduced African slaves as soon as they obtained a foothold in America need not be said to those who are familiar with the history of New York. They tried, at first, after the custom of the times, to enslave the aboriginal inhabitants, but the task was found so harassing and unprofitable that they soon sought supplies of blacks from Africa. In fact enslaving red men led to such trouble that a wall was built across the lower end of Manhattan Island, where Wall street is now found, to keep red lovers of liberty from driving the Dutch slave-catchers over the Battery beach into the bay.
The first formal mention of negro slaves in the Dutch Manhattan documents is found in the thirtieth clause of the Charter of Liberties and Exemptions of 1629. It says: "The company will use their endeavors to supply the colonists with as many blacks as they conveniently can." The New Project of Liberties and Exemptions of a later date says "the Incorporated West India Company shall allot to each Patroon twelve Black men and women out of the prizes in which Negroes shall be found." Unquestionably the first slave-ships in the trade to Manhattan Island were privateers, as the first slaver in Virginia was, or they were men-of-war.
Just when the first slaver reached New York is not where stated, but we can prove that it was within a few years after the first blacks were landed in Virginia. In 1644 Director-General Kieft gave liberty to a number of slaves who had "served the company eighteen or nineteen years." That is to say they had been taken into the company's service in 1625 or 1626.
Of the introduction of negro slaves at other points along the coast nothing need be said here. It was in those earliest years a very small trade. There were no ships engaged in carrying slaves exclusively on the high seas, so far as the record shows, until about 1630, when the Fortune captured the Angola slaver. The slaves were merely a part of the "general cargo" of that day. In 1647 the Dutch on Manhattan Island wrote of "the slave-trade, that hath lain so long dormant, to the great damage of the company." In 1635 the whole number of slaves imported into Virginia was but twenty-six. In 1642 only seven were imported, and in 1649 only seventeen. There is no record of the total importations, but it is certain that the traffic in all the colonies combined amounted to only a few hundred previous to 1650 — certainly fewer in number than would have made a single cargo in later years.
Trivial as were these transactions from a commercial point of view, the facts are all of importance here, not only because they belonged to the beginning of the trade, but because they are helpful to an understanding of the light in which the colonists saw the trade. Did the colonists think, as they bargained for the blacks, that there was the beginning of a "fatal traffic" that was "imposed upon them from without" — did they "lay aside scruples against" a traffic in human beings before they exchanged their products for the "twenty Negars"?
The student who looks to see why this Virginia colony was established may see, first of all, in "The True and Sincere Declaration," published in 1609, what the colonists said was their chief object. It reads: "To preach and baptize into the Christian Religion, and, by the propagation of the Gospell, to recover out of the armes of the Devill, a number of poore and miserable soules wrapt up unto death in almost invincible ignorance; to endeavour the fulfilling and accomplishment of the number of the elect which shall be gathered out of all corners of the earth and to add our myte to the Treasury of Heaven."
They believed that was their chief object, but we have another view of their habits of thought.
In a letter written by Captain John Smith in 1614 we find the following regarding the sport of fishing in the waters of the colony:
"And is it not pretty sport to pull up twopence, sixpence, and twelvepence, as fast as you can haul and veer a line?"
One may search the entire literature of that day without finding another sentence so significant of the spirit of the age as well as of the colonists — the spirit that measured even its sport in fishing by counting the market value of each fish taken. In all sincerity they would proclaim that missionary work was the first object in making the settlement; they did truly wish to add their "myte" to the number of "the elect," but with their missionary purposes there was found a proclaimed and unrepressed determination to make money. They had religious instructors who turned from a contemplation of the gold-paved streets of their heavenly home to talk of pay streaks in the mines of their wilderness home beyond the sea. And when they had arrived, they laid out a town site, boomer fashion, after which there was "no talk, no hope, no work but dig gold, wash gold, refine gold, loade gold."
But, alas, the dirt did not pan out. They sent a cargo of glittering stuff home in the first Supply, but it was worthless, so they turned to "pitch, tar, and soap ashes"; also to sassafras, with such vigor that even the "gentlemen" of the colony went to work with axes and thereby blistered their soft hands until they swore wicked oaths "at every other stroke" of their axes. For this they were publicly punished, so that they were led to hold their tongues, commonly, whatever their thoughts might be.
But "pitch, tar, and soap ashes" also failed to make them rich, or even comfortable, and the colony was at the point of absolute extinction when John Rolfe, the squaw man, introduced the cultivation of tobacco in 1612. With tobacco came, at last, prosperity, but only at a terrible price. To grow the crop required the severest kind of toil, and, what was worse, the work had to be done under conditions that proved deadly to the colonists of every class.
With these facts held in mind let us recall the further fact that the greater part of the chopping and digging was done by "apprentices" — a real "working class" — a class of men (afterward women were included) who were brought from their homes in England under contract to serve for a stated number of years, and were sold to the Virginia planters. The whole colonial labor system was based on the apprentice system, and it is a well-known fact that many men of education and ability came to the colonies as "apprentices," and were sold out as merchandise was.
Even that law of Massachusetts in 1641 so often quoted to prove that the colonists there were opposed to human slavery proves, in fact, that voluntary slavery was common. It says: "There shall never be any bond slavery amongst us, unles it be Lawfull captives, taken in just wars, [or such] as [shall] willingly sell themselves."
Holding in mind these facts, consider next the climate of the tobacco-growing region. The extinction of the colony was at one time threatened. Every immigrant had to endure the "seasoning" fever, and the percentage of deaths was frightful.
In this condition of affairs came a trader who offered to exchange twenty black laborers (who would need no "seasoning") for the products of the land which the colonists had in abundance.
Were men who had never obtained a laborer save by purchase, and men who themselves had voluntarily submitted to being bought and sold, to have their consciences afflicted at the thought of buying these strangers? Such an idea could not enter their heads. The fact is that the English Missionary Society that, in the seventeenth century, supplied all English-American colonies with pious pabulum, owned a plantation in Barbadoes and worked it with slaves, while the great Quaker Fox, after a visit to the West Indies, had nothing to say about the principle involved in the traffic, although he was careful to denounce the cruel treatment of slaves.
One more question in connection with this introduction of negro slaves must be considered briefly. Did it pay? Let the facts answer. The planters in the tobacco, rice, cotton, and sugar regions not only increased in number from year to year, but they built finer houses, bought finer clothes and books, and lived in more expensive fashion from generation to generation.
Thus we read: "Everything is by God's blessing ina good condition; and in consequence of the employment of the negroes, which were from time to time introduced from Angola into Brazil, in planting grain, flour is produced in such quantity that what always used to cost eight or ten guilders still continues to be sold at the rate of six stivers."[1] Such quotations may be multiplied almost indefinitely. In Georgia, the one colony where no slaves were allowed, in early days, the planters became so eager for them that their regular toast when drinking together was "Here's for the one thing needful!"
In short, to sum up the facts, slaves were introduced into United States territory in answer to a demand for labor. They were purchased by men who were accustomed to the purchase and sale of laborers, and no one's conscience was in any way hurt by the transaction. It was a good business proposition for that day, and for two centuries, at least, thereafter.
As for the early West India traffic, for which but brief space can be allowed, it appears that as early as 1503 negroes were carried to Hayti and put at work on the plantations there. Herrera writes of these negroes that they "prospered so much in the colony that it was the opinion that unless a negro should happen to be hung he would never die, for as yet none had been known to perish from infirmity." Here was the very inception of the American trade. When the Spaniards tried enslaving the aborigines of the island, the unfortunate red men withered like green corn under the hot winds of the unirrigated American desert. Bartholomew de las Casas, filled with pity for the dying Indian race, rose up in its defence. Good people have since been moved to apologize for and explain what this Dominican did, but his acts need no apology from any man. To save the race unfit for labor there, the Dominican proposed substituting negroes who were both physically and mentally capable of enduring even the work of digging gold in the torrid zone under the devil-hearted Spaniards of that day.
Having the true state of affairs placed before him by the humane Dominican, "in the year 1510 the King of Spain ordered fifty slaves to be sent to Hispaniola to work in the gold mines." So says Herrera. That was the beginning of the systematic importation of Africans into the Spanish West Indies. On the whole, the Spanish-American slave-trade was, at its inception, in the interest of humanity, shocking as that assertion may seem at first glance.
That the trade begun in 1510 did not reach our shores until 1619 is readily explained by the fact that our shores were not permanently settled by the whites until nearly a century after that first slave cargo was sent out.
Of the Spanish slave-trade in that first century we know little, nor are the facts necessary to the interest or the principles of this history, but we must not omit to record that Sir John Hawkins, the famous British navigator, made the first Anglo-Saxon venture in the trade in 1562. In his first voyage he descended on the coast of Africa, where he took, partly in trade and partly by violence, a cargo of slaves, of whom he sold three hundred in the West Indies, at a great profit.
When Queen Elizabeth heard this story on his return to England, she declared that "it would be detestable and call down the vengeance of heaven upon the undertakers" if any more negroes were taken by violence; but this opinion did not prevent Hawkins repeating the operation, nor did it keep Elizabeth from knighting him for his success.
Of the trade in the seventeenth century we know more because our ancestors the English then entered it, and some of the documents relating to it have been preserved. The cultivation of sugar-cane, which was undertaken with success in Barbadoes in 1641, gave the first impulse to the slave-trade in the British West Indies, and in 1662, when the "company of Royal Adventures Trading to Africa" was chartered by Charles II, the company bound itself to land three thousand negro slaves per year in the British West India islands.
The Queen dowager and he who was to be James II. both held stock in this company. This company built some forts on the African coast, as good points for buying slaves, but in 1672 sold out to a new company for £34,000. It had lost a large sum of money. And it is worth noting that this loss was due to the success of interloping owners of single ships who understood the trade and knew the slave-coast and the West India market. Good people have supposed that a special interference of Divine providence ruined the company.
The new company was called the Royal Assiento. It had bought out the old one, used guns on the outside traders, but the private traders, "especially the American merchants," made such persistent appeals that Parliament was obliged to come to their relief.
The company wanted to maintain a monopoly intact, and the English private trader wanted the monopoly abolished. The keen Yankees suggested that it would be a great benefit to the Kingdom to secure the trade by maintaining Forts and Castles there, with an equal duty upon all Goods exported." This compromise was adopted. Parliament declared that the slave-trade was "highly Beneficial and Advantageous to this Kingdom, and to the Plantations and Colonies thereunto belonging," and then enacted that private ships should be free to enter the trade on the payment of ten per cent. duty on English goods exported to Africa. The tax money was used to maintain forts on the African coast.
Those who are familiar with American naval history will find especial interest in the above account for the reason that it was the first Yankee conflict for "Free Trade and Sailors' Rights."
Then the British on both sides of the Atlantic reached out for the trade to the Spanish colonies, which Spain in those days farmed out to other countries. This was obtained by what is known as the Assiento Treaty of March 13, 1713. Only the Royal company was named in the agreement, but all British traders were to participate in the trade. It was contracted on the part of the Spanish that they would take at least 4,800 negroes a year for thirty years, and that the company might sell as many more as it could for twenty-five years at any Spanish-American port except three. In return for this the company paid 200,000 crowns spot cash, a duty of 3312 crowns on each slave landed, and a quarter of its profits each to the Spanish and the British kings.
This contract is found in Article 16 of the Treaty of Utrecht, which was signed on April 11, 1713. Although England obtained by this treaty the Hudson Bay Territory, Acadia, Newfoundland, and Gibraltar, this slave-trade article "was regarded as one of the greatest triumphs of the pacification of 1713."
At the time of this treaty London and Bristol were the slave-ship ports of England, and Newport was the chief one in America. Liverpool entered the slave trade previous to 1730, with "a single barque of thirty tons."
The vessel had half the capacity of one of the sailing lighters common to New York Harbor. An Erie Canal boat carries two hundred and forty tons. But the little bark was profitable, and the trade grew after 1731 until in 1752 Liverpool had eighty-seven vessels in the trade, Bristol one hundred and fifty-seven, and London one hundred and thirty-five. The Liverpool merchants built such sharp and swift ships for the trade that a special wet dock, that would keep them afloat during ebb tide while in that port, had to be built for them. The present great dock system of Liverpool originated in the needs of the slavetraders.
In those days the ship-chandlers of Liverpool made special displays in their windows of such things as handcuffs, leg-shackles, iron collars, short and long chains, and furnaces and copper kettles designed for slavers' use. The newspapers were full of advertisements of slaves and slaver goods. "The young bloods of the town deemed it fine amusement to circulate handbills in which negro girls were offered for sale." An artist of wide repute — Stothard — painted "The voyage of the Sable Venus from Angola to the West Indies." The Merchants' Exchange, or Town Hall, as it was called, was ornamented in a way that was strikingly appropriate, for "between the capitals runs an entablature or fillet, on which are placed in base-relief the busts of blackamoors and elephants, with the teeth of the latter, with such-like emblematical figures representing the African trade and commerce." The merchants of Liverpool needed no Ruskin to suggest "pendant purses" for decorating a frieze, or "pillars broad at the base, for the sticking of bills," when they were building a market-place.
In America the New England colonies took the lead in the slave-trade. Barefooted boys waded through the snow to find berths in the forecastles of the colony ships, and, hard as sailor life was then, they found more comforts afloat than on the farms they left behind. And once afloat the Yankee boy worked his way aft as readily as he climbed the ratlines when ordered to reef topsails.
"At the very birth of foreign commerce from New England ports," says one writer,[2] "the African slave trade became a regular business." The Desire, as already mentioned, was a slaver. "The ships which took cargoes of staves and fish to Madeira and the Canaries were accustomed to touch on the coast of Guinea to trade for negroes, who were carried generally to Barbadoes, or the other English islands of the West Indies."
The Massachusetts statute of 1705, which is curiously enough often quoted as showing that the people there were opposed to the slave-trade, was carefully worded to promote the trade. It did, indeed, lay a tax of four pounds on each negro imported, but "a drawback was allowed upon exportation." "The harbors of New England were thus offered as a free exchange-mart for slavers."
In Rhode Island "Governor Cranston, as early as 1708, reported that between 1698 and 1708 one hundred and three vessels were built in that State, all of which were trading to the West Indies and the Southern colonies. They took out lumber and brought back molasses" in the direct trade, but "in most cases made a slave voyage in between."
According to the "Reminiscences of Samuel Hopkins," Rhode Island had one hundred and fifty vessels in the African slave-trade in 1770. Hopkins wrote in that year saying: "Rhode Island has been more deeply interested in the slave-trade, and has enslaved more Africans than any other colony in New England."
In 1787 he wrote again: "This trade in human species has been the first wheel of commerce in Newport, on which every other movement in business has depended. That town has been built up, and flourished in times past" on the slave-trade, "and by it [the inhabitants] have gotten most of their wealth and riches."