Nineteenth-Century Coastal Slave Trading and the British Abolition Campaign in Sierra Leone

Abstract

The Sierra Leone Colony was Britain's main base in its campaign to abolish the Atlantic slave trade. Yet, throughout the nineteenth century, slavers supplied external and internal demand by trafficking people along the coast near to and even within the Colony. Although some officials strove to eradicate slaving, others feared that aggressive actions could threaten the Colony's economic and political interests. Administrators debated what constituted trafficking and applied different policies in different treaty zones. Moreover, the expanding commercial system encouraged slave trading, and slavers had the means to evade patrols. Ultimately, officials ended slaving by stopping war and raiding, interdicting traffic and punishing slavers, but enslaved people also contributed by escaping from bondage.

Notes

[1]  An earlier version was presented at the 46th Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association (USA), November 2003. I would like to thank Christopher L. Brown, Victoria Bomba Coifman, Peggy Friedman, Martin A. Klein, and Bruce L. Mouser for their valuable comments.

[2]  Fyfe, Sierra Leone. Denzer, “Abolition and Reform in West Africa,” 71–4. Wyse, The Krio of Sierra Leone, 1–18.

[3]  Howard, “The Relevance of Spatial Analysis.”

[4]  Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery, 252–61ff.

[5]  Miers and Roberts, The End of Slavery in Africa, 20.

[6]  Dumett and Johnson, “Britain and the Suppression of Slavery,” 82.

[7]  Getz, “The Case for Africans,” 133, 139.

[8]  The routes parallel to the coast did not lie on a true north and south line, but on a northwest-southeast axis. For the most part, this article does not address the traffic along what I have called the Futa-Scarcies and Falaba Road corridors; see Howard, “The Relevance of Spatial Analysis” and Howard, “Trade and Islam in Sierra Leone,” 21–63.

[9]  Barry, Senegambia and the Atlantic Slave Trade, 78–9, 133–7; Mouser, “Trade and Politics.”

[10] Rodney, Upper Guinea Coast, 240–57; Brooks, Eurafricans in Western Africa, 96–7, 163–8, 301.

[11] Mouser, “Iles de Los,” 86–7.

[12] Jones, From Slaves to Palm Kernels, 35–6, 52–4ff.

[13] Rodney, Upper Guinea Coast, 240–7; Mouser, “Trade, Coasters and Conflict”; Brooks, Eurafricans in Western Africa, 293–305.

[14] Fyfe, Sierra Leone, 13–104; Mouser, “Trade, Coasters and Conflict”; Schwarz, Zachary Macaulay, Part I, 11–12, 17–19, 26–9, 49, 52–3, 65; Part II, 3–5, 11–14.

[15] McLachlan, Travels into the Baga and Soosoo Countries, vi; Jones, From Slaves to Palm Kernels, 81–3.

[16] Jones and Johnson, “Slaves from the Windward Coast,” 33–4 Jones, From Slaves to Palm Kernels, 82–5. The statistics available in the DuBois Institute database show that about twice as many captives were exported through Galinhas as through Rio Pongo, the second most important port. The figures indicate the peaks and troughs of shipment and also the end dates. However, the sample is incomplete. Eltis et al., The Trans Atlantic Slave Trade.

[17] Colonial Office (CO) 267/110, Findlay to CO, 11 Nov., 1830, statement of Salia, agent for Michael Proctor and other enclosures. See also Fyfe, Sierra Leone, 226.

[18] Mouser, “Trade, Coasters, and Conflict,” 55–64; McGowan, “The Establishment of Long-Distance Trade”; Schwarz, Zachary Macaulay, part I, xiii, xiv, 59–60ff.

[19] Harrell-Bond, Howard and Skinner, Community Leadership, 42–4ff.; Howard and Skinner, “Network Building”. For family and marriage networks, Coifman, “The Western West African and European Frontier,” 276–86.

[20] CO267/105, statement of W. B. Pratt, 19 Nov. 1830 and rept. of Lt. Gov. Findlay to CO, 16 June 1830.

[21] Howard, “The Relevance of Spatial Analysis”; Howard, Traders, Accumulation and Spatial Contestation.

[22] CO267/255, Gov. to CO #208, 7 Oct. 1856.

[23] Davidson, Trade and Politics, 82.

[24] John McCormack, who had great experience in the backland of the Colony, described one of the possible routes in detail: Sherbro slavers could pass overland through Koya or Masimera, then down the Rokel to Bullom, or across the Rokel to MaBonny (Maboni) on the Port Loko Creek, and on to Bullom or Loko Masama. From Barlo Wharf or RoBury, canoes went to Susu country, but it was also possible to go overland via routes near Kambia. SLNA(Sierra Leone National Archives)/CSO (Colonial Secretary's Office) Letters 1851–69, 40/1855, letter of McCormack, 21 Jan. 1855. For Gov. Kennedy's plan to stop such traffic, CO267/231, Gov. to CO, 14 Mar. 1853. Decades later a similar route was still being used.

[25] Acting-Governor Macaulay justified to the Colonial Office the cession of Sherbro – which was not especially well connected to the far interior – by arguing that it greatly reduced slave exporting; at one time he estimated that the cession prevented 15,000 people per year from being shipped abroad through that area, though he acknowledged that much of the traffic was diverted to the Galinhas. See CO267/72, desp. 3 of 9 March 1826; desp 56 of 2 July 1826.

[26] Eltis et al., The Trans Atlantic Slave Trade. The margin of error would also have to be considered. Paul Lovejoy draws upon the DuBois data set in compiling figures for the Upper Guinea Coast, an area somewhat larger than that served by the coastal corridor. His tables indicate that 182,500 people were sent abroad during the period from 1761 through 1800; if 40% were moved along the coast the average annual total would have been over 1,800. For the period 1801–1840, the total was nearly 136,000; using the same calculation, that would mean that nearly 1,400 were trafficked along the coast per year. Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery, 51, 146ff.

[27] For an overview of the forms of slavery in Guinea, see Klein, Slavery and Colonial Rule, 5–15; for Futa Jalon, see Barry, Senegambia and the Atlantic Slave Trade, 114–17.

[28] Mouser, Trade and Politics, 156–61, 178–88; Skinner, Thomas George Lawson.

[29] Mouser, Trade and Politics, 22–3ff.; Brooks, “Peanuts and Colonialism”; Barry, Senegambia and the Atlantic Slave Trade.

[30] Klein, “Slave Resistance and Slave Emancipation,” 206ff.; Goerg, “La destruction d'un réseau d'exchange précolonial.”

[31] Howard, “Islam and Trade.”

[32] Klein, Slavery and Colonial Rule, 253–57ff.; Klein, “Slave Resistance and Slave Emancipation”, 208–9.

[33] Grace, Domestic Slavery in West Africa, 169ff.; Howard, “Pawning in Coastal Northwest Sierra Leone,” 268.

[34] In a subsequent publication I plan to analyze sources I have collected on the origins of enslaved people and the means of enslavement during the nineteenth century.

[35] Klein, “Slave Resistance and Slave Emancipation,” 206.

[36] According to Davidson, slaves constituted the main commodity entering indigenous commerce from the Mende area in the nineteenth century; see Davidson, Trade and Politics in the Sherbro Hinterland, 81. Many sources cited in the present article indicate a high volume of Mende-speakers. Rashid states that Bullom, Baga and Temne comprised the slaves who rebelled against the slave-holding elite in Moriah in 1785–86. Rashid, “‘A Devotion to the Idea of Liberty at any Price,’” 139–41.

[37] European missionaries operating in the north gave accounts of enslavement, as did Sierra Leoneans. While such statements must be regarded with suspicion because of the anti-slaving campaign, in some instances they testified that they directly witnessed transactions and gave particulars of cost. Parliamentary Paper (PP) 1847–48, testimony of Rev. J. F. Schön, 186.

[38] Incidents of this type were reported over many decades. In the early 1890s a Sierra Leonean woman was trading inland with a girl as an assistant; the woman went to live with a man who then sold the child and some of the woman's property as well. SLNA/Native Affairs Minute Paper (NAMP)146/1896.

[39] CO 879/1, Memorandum on the British Settlements on the West Coast of Africa, 15 March 1856. It was claimed that during the administration of Gov. Kennedy 268 children had been rescued from slavery.

[40] CO 267/105, 22 Dec. 1830, statement of Carafala, captured in KaCundy when selling rice. There are numerous accounts of such captures in the Sierra Leone archives. The ploy continued to be used late in the century; see SLNA/Government Interpreter's Letter Book (GILB) 1873–76, memo of 23 Feb. 1874, regarding a Liberated African who was enslaved after being hired to cut wood in the Rokel river area.

[41] Howard, “Pawning,” 275–6.

[42] These ethno-linguistic terms appear repeatedly in the sources, and it is often impossible to tell if the person writing a report or giving testimony was primarily referring to language or using another marker, such as membership in a recognized community. For instance, a boy born in the Colony testified in 1858 that six years earlier he had been kidnapped by one Foday Jan-Cealah, placed in the house of a man named Kabba, taken to Sumbuya and sold to a Susu who sold him to another Susu. This was partly corroborated by a Fula witness (named Sorie Fula) who stated that he saw Kabba sell the boy to a Susu man for 6 oxen and that he was present when the captive was taken north in a Mandingo canoe. CO 267/261, desp. 123 Gov to CO, 8 July 1858, encl. statements. For a discussion of the fluidity of Mande identity in this era and region and for the role of Colony officials and residents in ethnic formation, see Harrell-Bond, Howard and Skinner, Community Leadership, 41–84ff.; Howard, “Mande and Fulbe Interaction”; Howard, “Mande Identity Formation.”

[43] Jones, From Slaves to Palm Kernels, 81–2.

[44] Davidson, Trade and Politics, 81–2.

[45] Around mid-century, British officials mounted a sustained campaign against foreign residents of the Colony whom they suspected of being engaged in slave trading, primarily Mande-speakers. This may well have biased the identification of those involved; Fyfe, Sierra Leone, 270–2.

[46] CO 267/105, Lt. Gov. Findlay to CO, 17 July 1830 and 3 and 5 Dec. 1830. The following is a sample of the names of those convicted in the Supreme Court of the Colony from 1859 to 1864: Mamadoo, Chacah, John Locks, Belea, Daabo, Martin Messeh, Morie Lahai, Sorie Carbo, John Cole, William Thorpe, Banna alias Grant, Joe Williams alias Borbor, and Thomas Labours. Others were tried and found not guilty, for example, Mamadoo Tarawally. This illustrates the difficulty in matching names and ethnicity, and why the ethno-linguistic labels applied by victims, witnesses and the accused themselves are problematic. See CO267/263, encl. in Gov. to CO, desp. 11, 17 Jan. 1859; CO267/280, desp. 1, 12 Feb. 1863 and desp. 41, 7 April 1863; CO267/283, desp. 1, 2 Jan. 1865.

[47] CO267/110, Findlay to CO, 25 Dec. 1830.

[48] Testimonies must be used with care, given the anti-slaving attitudes of many Sierra Leoneans and the controversial and public nature of some anti-slaving campaigns and trials at mid-century involving Muslim traders who were given ethnic labels. Still, it is striking how some of the testimonies of the 1850s paralleled those from the 1830s. CO267/105, Gov. to Cmdt., Gorée, 22 Dec. 1830, encl. statement of John Davis, 17 Dec. 1830; encl. statement of George, a Liberated African; CO267/229, desp. of 4 July 1852, encl. testimony of William Gibson, 26 June 1852.

[49] CO267/81, Gov. to CO, desp. 108, 9 March 1827.

[50] For a description of his often erratic actions, the opposition to them, and his early demise, see Fyfe, A History of Sierra Leone, 162–3, 183.

[51] CO267/105, statement of W. B. Pratt, 19 Nov. 1830; CO267/110, Lt. Gov. Findlay to CO, 11 Nov. 1830.

[52] In this period the British navy was especially active in attacking the main centers of exportation. In total, three blockades and six armed expeditions, most of them between 1839 and 1850, were required to stop the overseas shipment of enslaved people from Galinhas; Jones, From Slaves to Palm Kernels, 81–2.

[53] CO 267/229, Gov. to CO, 5 July 1852, encl. extract from report of Government Messenger, 16 June 1852. Lawson was hired in May 1852; for his career, see Skinner, Thomas George Lawson, 32ff.

[54] CO 267/231, Gov. to CO, desp. 29, 7 Feb. 1853. For accounts of Kennedy's attacks on slavers in Sherbro and neighboring rivers who were accused of sending captives to Rio Pongo, see CO 267/232, Gov. to CO, desp. 72, 14 April 1853.

[55] For example, CO 267/264, Gov. to CO, desp. 101, 18 June 1859 and desp. 184, 23 Nov. 1859.

[56] CO 267/264, Gov. to CO, desp. 103, 18 June 1859.

[57] For a conviction resulting in a sentence of three years at hard labor, see CO 267/284, desp. 124, Calendar of Prisoners tried, Oct. 1865.

[58] Thomas Leetham, Commander of HMS Isis, wrote in late 1863 that several canoes had been captured recently in the waters south of the Colony and, therefore, slavers were sending more captives up Yawri Bay, then across Koya (near to the Colony villages of Kent and Waterloo), then to Tagrin Point, then across Bullom, and then north again in canoes. CO 267/282, report of 30 Dec. 1863.

[59] For an overview of the British anti-slaving actions in the era, see PP1865 Vol. V. SLNA/Local Letters to Governor, memo of 6 July 1863.

[60] Fyfe, Sierra Leone, 275–7; Barry, Senegambia and the Atlantic Slave Trade, 133–44ff.

[61] SLNA/Local Minute Papers, 1876, file on slaves captured, 14 Feb. 1876.

[62] For example, Lamina Bapp, under W. E. Tucker, SLNA/GILB 1882–84, memo of 29 Jan. 1883.

[63] SLNA/GILB 1873–76, memo of 4 July 1878; SLNA/Aborigines Minute Paper (AbMP) 68/1882, letter of Nathaniel H. Boston, superintendent, Bullom Mission, and also AbMP 69 and 70/1882.

[64] People labeled as ‘Banjulah’ or ‘Mandingo’ were also alleged to have come from Bathurst. SLNA/Native Affairs Minute Paper (NAMP) 351/1892, Madam Yoko to Parkes, 11 Nov. 1892; SLNA/NAMP 98/1893, statement of Sally Gramboy, who stated that she and her children had been kidnapped 11 years earlier; SLNA/NAMP 309/1893, report of Sgt. Davis, 14 June 1893; SLNA/Aborigines and Native Affairs Confidential (AbNA Conf.)1889–1898, 5/92, report of 14 Sept. 1892.

[65] SLNA/GILB 1886–87, letter and statement in memo of 6 May 1887. This has echoes in the kinds of vampire stories that Luise White has collected and analyzed for later colonial periods in East and Central Africa. White, Speaking with Vampires.

[66] Grace, Domestic Slavery, 19, 86–100. The detailed local documentation demonstrates that the issues were more complex than a bipolar analysis would suggest; Parkes in particular tried various approaches. African actors, including lower-ranking police officers, slavers and the enslaved, shaped affairs and forced officials to grapple with the difficult realities on the ground. Ismail Rashid points out that some of the Colony police were themselves ex-slaves and made a particular effort to eradicate slavery by intervening on the ground; Rashid, “‘Do Dady,’” 208ff.

[67] Fyfe, Sierra Leone, 479ff.

[68] SLNA/AbNA Conf. 1889–1898, 20/1890, memo to Gov., 23 July 1890.

[69] SLNA/AbNA Conf. 1889–1898, 21/1890, memo to Gov., 23 July 1890.

[70] For a summary of Lendy's career in Sierra Leone, which culminated in his death during the infamous Waiama incident, see Fyfe, Sierra Leone, 485, 507, 518–20.

[71] SLNA/NAMP 469/1891, Crowther report of 10 Oct. 1891, and minutes of 19 Oct. 1891.

[72] SLNA/NAMP 443/1892.

[73] SLNA/4168, notes of 5 Oct., 1893.

[74] SLNA/Colonial Secretary's Minute Paper (CSMP) 4168/1892, encl. of 22 Oct. SLNA/CSMP 4268/1892, memo of 25 Oct. 1892.

[75] SLNA/CSMP 4168/1892, memo of 2 Dec. 1892.

[76] See, for example, SLNA/Arabic Letter Book (ALB) 7, to Alikali of Port Loko, 16 Nov. 1892.

[77] British customs stations on the coast had long attracted runaways and the number of escapees reaching those posts increased in the 1890s, Rashid, “Do Dady,” 214ff. The issue was more complex when police and military posts were not in ceded territory.

[78] SLNA/CSMP 4168/1892, memo of 17 Dec. 1892.

[79] SLNA/CSMP 4168/1892, memo of 20 Dec. 1892.

[80] SLNA/CSMP 4168/1892, memos of 21 and 24 Dec. 1892. The debate about slavery itself and its larger policy implications has been examined by Grace, Domestic Slavery, 73-4ff.

[81] SLNA/CSMP 4168/1892 memo of 9 Jan. 1893. In various statements at this time, Parkes warned not only of the political upheavals that would result from the freeing of slaves but also of the reduction of producers and the ‘flooding’ of Freetown with unemployed laborers.

[82] SLNA/NAMP 626/1893, Parkes statement of 13 Jan. 1893 and enclosed ‘Instructions to Police regarding overland slave traffic’; SLNA/CSMP 1429/1893; SLNA/NAMP 5/1894.

[83] SLNA/ALB 7 193/1893.

[84] SLNA/CSMP 4168/1892, memo of 23 Jan. 1894.

[85] This phase is well described in Grace, Domestic Slavery, 89–90.

[86] There are descriptions of Kono-speakers being caught up in the slave trade to the north; see, for example, SLNA/NAMP 443/1892, rept. of Sgt. Weeks, 26 Jan. 1893. The detailed local reports suggest, however, that the majority of enslaved people came from Mende-speaking areas and other places that had long supplied people rather than from the easternmost areas.

[87] SLNA/NAMP 113/1891, rept. of Second Lt. H. M. Alove to Parkes, 15 Feb. 1891.

[88] SLNA/NAMP 469/1891, rept. of Daniel Crowther, Sub-Officer, Police, 10 Oct. 1891. He described one man who had just arrived with 16 cattle; the trader's name was ‘Beylah’, which most likely referred to the commercial center in Futa Jalon.

[89] For several accounts, see SLNA/CSMP 4168/1892.

[90] SLNA/NAMP 443/1892, encl.

[91] It would appear that Parkes took the initiative in writing these guidelines. The words are from a confidential memo written in Port Loko in June 1894, and differ slightly from the official circular signed by the inspector-general. See SLNA/AbNA Conf. LB 1889–1898, Conf. 2/1892, June, 1894; SLNA/NAMP 284/1895, encl. Circ. 5/94.

[92] SLNA/NAMP 144/1895 to Col. Sec., 8 Apr., 1895 and encl.

[93] See, for example, SLNA/NAMP 146/1896.

[94] SLNA/NAMP 545/1896.

[95] Grace, Domestic Slavery, 94.

[96] SLNA/CSMP 1190/1899, Karene Magistrate Court records, March 1899. He was sentenced to six months' hard labor.

[97] SLNA/CSMP 1170/1900, Karene D. C. Court, March 1900.

[98] SLNA/CSMP 772/1902.

[99] SLNA/CSMP 3052/1902.

[100] SLNA/CSMP 2032/1904. For another example of European officials making mutual accusations of slave trading across a new colonial border, see Weiss, “The Illegal Trade in Slaves,” 190–97.

[101] C. N. Ubah states that the British needed German and especially French cooperation in order to suppress slaving in northern Nigeria, where it continued on into the 1930s; Ubah, “Suppression of the Slave Trade,” 459–61.

[102] Barry, Senegambia and the Atlantic Slave Trade, 254–62.

[103] Goerg, “La destruction d'un réseau d'exchange précolonial”; Howard, Bigmen, Traders, and Chiefs; Howard, “The Relevance of Spatial Analysis”; Howard, Traders, Accumulation, and Spatial Contestation.

[104] Rashid, “Escape, Revolt and Marronage”; Rashid, “A Devotion to the idea Liberty.”

[105] Klein, “Slave Resistance and Slave Emancipation,” 211–17. Lovejoy notes that slaves throughout West Africa had an important role in ending the institution; see Transformations in Slavery, 246–55.

[106] For the prosecutions of dealers in French West Africa, see Klein, Slavery and Colonial Rule, 225–6.