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Abstract
In March 1845 vessels of the British and American surveillance squadrons cooperated in the capture of the schooner Spitfire of New Orleans which was collecting a slave cargo at the Rio Pongo on Africa's western coast. This article considers the context of that collaboration, the trial of the Spitfire's captain in Boston, and the complex methods that slavers used to conceal a vessel's nationality and ownership and to avoid seizure. It also focuses on an American trader who lived on the African coast and acted as a broker to facilitate that trade.
Notes
1 Chandler, Case of Flowery, 140.
2 Spilsbury, Account of a Voyage; Hawkins, History of a Voyage.
3 Mouser, Slaving Voyage.
4 Mayer, Captain Canot; Mouser, ‘Théophilus Conneau’; Conneau, Slaver's Log Book.
5 ‘William Greenwood vs. Benjamin Curtis’, http://masscases.com/cases/sjc/6/6mass358.html.
6 Snyder, Collection of Important Judicial Opinions, 178–86; Parsons, Commentaries on American Law, 332–5; Tyng, Reports of Cases, 358–91.
7 Trials of the Slave Traders; Mouser, ‘Trial of Samuel Samo,’ 423–41; Haslam, ‘Redemption, Colonialism and International Law’ (accessed at http://epress.anu.edu.au?p-200721).
8 Salem Register, 26 May 1845.
9 Canney, African Squadron, 71–4.
10 Mouser, ‘Lightbourn Family of Farenya,’ 60–6.
11 Boston Daily Atlas, 9 Apr. 1845; Maryland Colonization Journal, Jun. 1845, 376; Holsoe, ‘Theodore Canot’.
12 Baltimore Sun, 17 May 1845; Maryland Colonization Journal 2, 24 (June 1845), 375–6.
13 Baltimore Sun, 17 May 1845.
14 Canney, African Squadron, 71.
15 Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships: Truxton, http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/t9/truxtun-i.htm
16 Salem Register, 26 May 1845. The Baltimore Sun correspondent signed his byline with the initials ‘J. M.’.
17 Washington Daily Union, 19 May 1845.
18 Foote, Africa and the American Flag, 241; Soulsby, Right of Search and the Slave Trade, 86–7; Pfautz, ‘African Squadron’, 1.
19 Pfautz, ‘African Squadron’, 19.
20 New York Herald, 17 May 1845; Washington Daily National Intelligencer, 20 May 1845.
21 New York Herald, 17 May 1845.
22 Ibid. The correspondent of the Baltimore Sun indicated that 4,000 gallons of water and 1,700 gallons of rice were sufficient for 400 slaves, ‘from here [Pongo] to Cuba’.
23 New York Herald, 17 May 1845; Federal Cases, 1125.
24 New York Herald, 17 May 1845; Washington Daily National Intelligencer, 20 May 1845; Chandler, Case of Flowery, 140; Howard, American Slavers and the Federal Law, 181.
25 Soulsby, Right of Search, 86; Boston Daily Atlas, 16 May 1845; Cincinnati Daily Gazette, 11 Jun. 1845; Foote, Africa and the American Flag, 240; Pittsfield Sun, 5 Jun. 1845; Correspondence of the British Commissioners, 351–2.
26 New York Spectator, 17 May 1845; New York Evening Post, 16 May 1845; Washington Daily Union, 19 May 1845.
27 New York Evening Post, 16 May 1845; New York Spectator, 17 May 1845; Boston Emancipator and Republican, 21 May 1845; Correspondence of the British Commissioners, 347–8.
28 Pittsfield Sun, 5 Jun. 1845.
29 Washington Daily Union, 19 May 1845; New York Evening Post, 16 May 1845.
30 Eltis et al., Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: A database, ‘Voyage’ no. 3461. Other sources, Naval Database: Ardent, http://www.pbenyon.plus.com/18-1900/A/00301.html; Correspondence of the British Commissioners, 348) identified the commander of the Dos Hermanos as Feliciano Roviera. See also ‘Biography of John Russell, R.N.’, http://www.pdavis.nl/ShowBiog.php?id=395, for Dos Hermanos.
31 Naval Database: Ardent, http://www.pbenyon.plus.com/18-1900/A/00301.html; Duignan and Clendenen, United States and the African Slave Trade, 434.
32 Boston Daily Atlas, 16 May 1845; African Repository & Colonial Journal, 21 (Jul. 1845), 204.
33 New York Evening Post, 16 May 1845.
34 Washington Daily Union, 19 May 1845.
35 Ibid., 12 Jun. 1845.
36 Boston Daily Atlas, 16 May 1845. That testimony, likely from Midshipman Samuel Wilcox, also suggested that the price paid for a slave at Sangha was $20 per head and ‘they bring from three to four hundred dollars in Cuba’.
37 Ibid.
38 Newburyport Herald, 20 May 1845.
39 New York Herald, 17 May 1845. This is the same Charles Sumner, who became senator, from Massachusetts and outspoken leader of the abolitionist movement.
40 Ibid; Washington Daily Union, 19 May 1845; Philadelphia Public Ledger, 19 May 1845.
41 Boston Liberator, 23 May 1845; Portsmouth Journal of Literature and Politics, 24 May 1845.
42 Case No. 15,122, United States V. Flowery [1 Spr. 109; 8 Law Rep. 258], http://law.resource.org/pub/US/case/.../0025.F.CAS.1124.pdf
43 Cincinnati Daily Gazette, 11 Jun. 1845. This wording differed only in degree from the exact wording in the act.
44 Easton Star, 30 Sep. 1845; Baltimore Sun, 17 May 1845. Paul Faber and M. S. Gordon ‘and servants’ had taken the Canton from Matanzas to Boston, arriving in Boston on or about 5 Jul. 1844 (Boston Evening Transcript, 5 Jul. 1844, 2).
45 Sprague et al., Decisions of Hon. Peleg Sprague, 110. A full record of testimony for 6 and 7 Jun. is found in Washington Daily Union, 11 Jun. 1845.
46 Federal Cases, 1125; Chandler, Case of Flowery, 140; Howard, American Slavers, 181.
47 Boston Traveler, 10 Jun. 1845; Niles's Weekly Register, 68 (21 June 1845), 248.
48 Boston Traveler, 10 June 1845; Washington Daily Union, 6 Jun. 1845.
49 Chandler, Case of Flowery, 140. Tobacco was commonly transported in large barrels, 48 inches tall by 30 across at the head. A hogshead of tobacco might weigh as much as 1000 pounds.
50 Canney, African Squadron, 74–5; Sprague et al., Decisions of Hon. Peleg Sprague, 111; Niles's Weekly Register 68 (21 Jun. 1845), 248–9.
51 Case No. 15,122, United States V. Flowery [1 Spr. 109; 8 Law Rep. 258], http://law.resource.org/pub/US/case/.../0025.F.CAS.1124.pdf, Courier of New Orleans, 14 June 1845, termed this transaction ‘a sham’. Howard, American Slavers, 181, claimed that the cargo of tobacco loaded at New Orleans was worth ‘only $4,000’.
52 Canney, African Squadron, 74.
53 Ibid; Chandler, Case of Flowery, 140.
54 Boston Traveler, 10 Jun. 1845.
55 Courier of New Orleans, 14 Jun. 1845.
56 Boston Traveler, 10 Jun. 1845.
57 New York Commercial Advertiser, 5 Jun. 1845.
58 Ibid. See Lloyd, Navy and the Slave Trade, 100–1, for the impact of adding steamers to the surveillance squadron.
59 Washington Daily Union, 12 Jun. 1845.
60 Cincinnati Daily Gazette, 24 May 1845.
61 New York Evening Post, 10 Jun. 1845.
62 Boston Emancipator and Republican, 6 Aug. 1845; New York Spectator, 6 Aug. 1845.
63 Boston Emancipator and Republican, 13 Aug. 1845. See also Anti-Slavery Bugle, 18 Sep. 1846; Howard, American Slavers, 187.
64 Milwaukee Sentinel, 24 May 1847.
65 North Star, 24 Mar. 1848.
66 Salem Register, 26 May 1845.
67 Mouser, American Colony, 50; Trials of the Slave Traders, 16–17; Mouser, ‘Trial’, 434–6.
68 Mouser, ‘Walking Caravans’, 47–8.
69 Mouser, ‘Lightbourn Family’.
70 Mouser, American Colony, 51–5.
71 Ibid, 50; Mouser, ‘Walking Caravans’.
72 Mouser, American Colony.
73 Mouser, ‘Lightbourn Family’.
74 Havik, ‘From Pariahs to Patriots,’ 311; Brooks, Eurafricans in Western Africa, 206–10.
75 Mouser, ‘Trial of Samuel Samo’, 424.
76 Mouser, American Colony, 44, 64.
77 Mouser, ‘Lightbourn Family’, n44.
78 Cincinnati Daily Gazette, 11 June 1845.
79 Fyfe, History of Sierra Leone, 227.
80 Mouser, ‘Trial of Samuel Samo’, 440.
81 Boston Evening Transcript, 5 July 1844; Easton Star, 30 Sep. 1845.
82 Newburyport Herald, 20 May 1845.
83 Easton Star, 30 Sep. 1845.
84 Boston Daily Atlas, 9 Apr. 1845; Boston Courier, 10 Apr. 1845.
85 Boston Courier, 16 Sep. 1844.
86 Correspondence of the British Commissioners, 352.
87 Philadelphia Public Ledger, 19 May 1845.
Additional information
Bruce L. Mouser is emeritus professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. His research focuses on eighteenth and nineteenth century trading communities along the Sierra Leone coast, and the transition from slave trading to commerce in commodities, with special attention to the Rio Pongo. He is indebted to Emily Haslam (University of Kent, UK), Paul Lovejoy (York University, CA), Peter Mark (Wesleyan University, USA), Sean Kelley (Hartwick College, USA), and Suzanne Schwarz (Worcester University, UK) for reading and commenting on this paper.