Chapter VII: The Ship Doctor’s Narrative

On the arrival of the ships at Bonny[26] and New Calabar, it is customary for them to unbend the sails, strike the yards and topmasts and begin to build what they denominate a _house_. This is effected in the following manner. The sailors first lash the booms and yards from mast to mast in order to form a _ridge-pole_. About ten feet above the deck, several spars, equal in length to the ridge-pole, are next lashed to the standing rigging and form a wall-plate. Across the ridge-pole and wall-plate, several other spars or rafters are afterwards laid and lashed at the distance of about six inches from each other. On these, other rafters or spars are laid lengthwise, equal in extent to the ridge-pole, so as to form a kind of lattice or net-work, with interstices of six inches square. The roof is then covered with mats, made of rushes of very loose texture, fastened together with rope-yarn and so placed as to lap over each other like tiles. The space between the deck and the wall-plate is likewise enclosed with a kind of lattice or net-work formed of sticks lashed across each other and leaving vacancies of about four inches square. Near the mainmast a partition is constructed of inch deal boards which reaches athwart the ship. This division is called a _barricado_. It is about eight feet in height and is made to project about two feet over the sides of the ship. In this barricado there is a door at which a sentinel is placed during the time the negroes are permitted to come upon deck. It serves also to keep the different sexes apart; and as there are small holes in it, where blunderbusses are fixed and sometimes a cannon, it is very convenient for quelling insurrections that now and then happen. Another door is made in the lattice or network at the ladder by which you enter the ship. This door is guarded by a sentinel during the day and is locked at night. At the head of the ship there is a third door, for the use of the sailors, which is secured in the same manner as that at the gangway. There is also in the roof a large trap-door through which the goods intended for barter, the water casks, &c., are hoisted out or in.

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Footnote 26:

This account of slaving is abstracted from Alexander Falconbridge’s
_Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa_, London, 1788.

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The design of this house is to secure those on board from the heat of the sun, which in this latitude is intense, and from the wind and rain which at particular seasons are likewise extremely violent. It answers these purposes, however, but very ineffectually. The slight texture of the mats admits both the wind and the rain, whenever it happens to be violent, and at the same time it increases the heat of the ship to a very pernicious degree, especially between decks. The increased warmth occasioned by this means, together with the smoke produced from the green mangrove (the usual firewood) which, for want of a current of air to carry it off, collects and infects every part of the ship, render a vessel during its stay here very unhealthy. The smoke also, by its acrimonious quality, often produces inflammations in the eyes which terminates sometimes in the loss of sight.

Another purpose for which these temporary houses are erected is to prevent the purchased negroes from leaping overboard. This, the horrors of their situation frequently impel them to attempt; and they now and then succeed notwithstanding all the precautions that are taken, by forcing their way through the lattice work.

The slave ships generally lie a mile below the town, in Bonny River, in seven or eight fathoms of water. Sometimes fifteen sail, English and French, but chiefly the former, meet here together. Soon after they cast anchor, the captains go on shore to make known their arrival and to inquire into the state of the trade. They likewise invite the kings of Bonny to come on board, to whom, previous to breaking bulk, they usually make presents (in that country termed _dashes_) which generally consist of pieces of cloth, cotton, chintz, silk handkerchiefs and other India goods and sometimes brandy, wine or beer.

CARRYING SLAVES TO A PORTUGUESE SLAVE BRIG LYING IN BONNY RIVER
From a drawing by T. F. Birch, made in January, 1837, in the
Macpherson Collection
]

` When I was at Bonny, a few years ago, it was the residence of two kings whose names were _Norfolk_ and _Peppel_. The houses of these princes were not distinguished from the cottages or huts of which the town consists, in any other manner, than by being of somewhat larger dimensions and surrounded with warehouses containing European goods designed for the purchase of slaves. These slaves, which the kings procure in the same manner as the black traders do theirs, are sold by them to the ships. And for every negro sold there by the traders, the kings receive a duty which amounts to a considerable sum in the course of a year. This duty is collected by officers, stationed on board the ships, who are termed _officer boys_; a denomination which it is thought they received from the English.

The kings of Bonny are absolute, though elective. They are assisted in the government by a small number of persons of a certain rank, who style themselves _parliament gentlemen_; an office which they generally hold for life. Every ship, on its arrival, is expected to send a present to these gentlemen, of a small quantity of bread and beef, and likewise to treat them as often as they come on board. When they do this, their approach to the ship is announced by blowing through a hollow elephant’s tooth which produces a sound resembling that of a post-horn.

After the kings have been on board and have received the usual presents, permission is granted by them for trafficking with any of the black traders. When the royal guests return from the ships they are saluted by the guns.

From the time of the arrival of the ships to their departure, which is usually about three months, scarce a day passes without some negroes being purchased and carried on board; sometimes in small and sometimes in larger numbers. The whole number taken on board depends in a great measure on circumstances. In a voyage I once made, our stock of merchandise was exhausted in the purchase of about 380 negroes, when it was expected to have procured 500. The number of English and French ships then at Bonny had raised the price of negroes so much as to occasion this difference.

The reverse (and a happy reverse I think I may call it) was known during the war of the American Revolution. When I was last at Bonny, I frequently made inquiries on this head of one of the black traders whose intelligence I believe I can depend upon. He informed me that only one ship had been there for three years during that period; and that was the _Moseley Hill_, Captain Ewing, from Liverpool, who made an extraordinary purchase, as he found negroes remarkably cheap from the dulness of trade. Upon further inquiring of my black acquaintance what was the consequence of this decay of their trade, he shrugged up his shoulders and answered, “_Only making us traders poorer and obliging us to work for our maintenance._” One of these black merchants being informed that a particular set of people, called Quakers, were for abolishing the trade, he said _it was a very bad thing, as they should then be reduced to the same state they were in during the war, when, through poverty, they were obliged to dig the ground and plant yams_.

I was once upon the coast of Angola, also, when there had not been a slave ship at the river Ambris for five years previous to our arrival, although a place to which many usually resort every year; and the failure of the trade for that period, as far as we could learn, had no other effect than to restore peace and confidence among the natives; which, upon the arrival of ships, is immediately destroyed by the inducement then held forth in the purchase of slaves. And during the suspension of trade at Bonny, as above-mentioned, none of the dreadful proceedings which are so confidently asserted to be the natural consequence of it, were known. The reduction of the price of negroes and the poverty of the black traders appear to have been the only _bad_ effects of the discontinuance of trade; the _good_ ones were, _most probably_, the restoration of peace and confidence among the natives and a suspension of kidnapping.

After permission has been obtained for _breaking trade_, as it is termed, the captains go ashore, from time to time, to examine the negroes that are exposed to sale and to make their purchases. The slaves are bought by the black traders at fairs, which are held for that purpose, at the distance of upwards of two hundred miles from the sea coast; and these fairs are said to be supplied from an interior part of the country. Many negroes, upon being questioned relative to the places of their nativity, have asserted that they have travelled during the revolution of several moons (their usual method of calculating time) before they have reached the places where they were purchased by the black traders. At these fairs, which are held at uncertain periods, but generally every six weeks, several thousands are frequently exposed to sale who had been collected from all parts of the country for a very considerable distance round. During one of my voyages, the black traders brought down, in different canoes, from twelve to fifteen hundred negroes which had been purchased at one fair. They consisted chiefly of men and boys, the women seldom exceeding a third of the whole number. From forty to two hundred negroes are generally purchased at a time by the black traders, according to the opulence of the buyer, and consist of all ages, from a month to sixty years and upwards. Scarcely any age or situation is deemed an exception, the price being proportionable. Women sometimes form a part of them, who happen to be so far advanced in their pregnancy as to be delivered during their journey from the fairs to the coast; and I have frequently seen instances of deliveries on board ship. The slaves purchased at these fairs are only for the supply of the markets at Bonny and Old and New Calabar.

There is great reason to believe that most of the negroes shipped from the coast of Africa are _kidnapped_. But the extreme care taken by the black traders to prevent the Europeans from gaining any intelligence of their modes of proceeding; the great distance inland from which the negroes are brought; and our ignorance of their language (with which, very frequently, the black traders themselves are equally unacquainted) prevent our obtaining such information on this head as we could wish. I have, however, by means of occasional inquiries made through interpreters, procured some intelligence relative to the point and such, as I think, puts the matter beyond a doubt.

On board one of the slave ships a negro informed me that being one evening invited to drink with some of the black traders, upon his going away they attempted to seize him. As he was very active he evaded them and got out of their hands, but was prevented from effecting his escape by a large dog which laid hold of him. These animals are kept by many of the traders for that purpose and being trained to the sport do very effective work.

I was also told by a negro woman that as she was on her return home one evening, from some neighbours to whom she had been making a visit by invitation, she was kidnapped and notwithstanding she was big with child, was sold for a slave. This transaction happened a considerable way up the country and she had passed through the hands of several purchasers before she reached the ship. A man and his son, according to their own information, were seized by professed kidnappers, while they were planting yams, and sold for slaves. This also happened in the interior parts of the country; and after passing through several hands they were purchased for the ship to which I belonged.

It frequently happens that those who kidnap others are themselves, in their turn, seized and sold. A negro in the West Indies informed me that after having been employed in kidnapping others he had experienced this reverse. And he assured me that it was a common incident among his countrymen.

Continual enmity is thus fostered among the negroes of Africa and all social intercourse between them destroyed; which most assuredly would not be the case had they not these opportunities of finding a ready sale for each other.

During my stay on the coast of Africa, I was an eyewitness of the following transaction:—A black trader invited a negro who resided a little way up the country, to come and see him. After the entertainment was over the trader proposed to his guest to treat him with a sight of one of the ships lying in the river. The unsuspicious countryman readily consented and accompanied the trader in a canoe to the side of the ship, which he viewed with pleasure and astonishment. While there, some black traders on board, who appeared to be in the secret, leaped into the canoe, seized the unfortunate man and dragging him into the ship immediately sold him.

Previous to my being in this employ I entertained a belief, as many others have done, that the kings and principal men bred negroes for sale as we do cattle. During the different times I was in the country, I took no little pains to satisfy myself in this particular; but notwithstanding I made many inquiries, I was not able to obtain the least intelligence of this being the case. All the information I could procure, confirmed me in the belief that to kidnapping and to crimes (and many of these were fabricated as a pretext) the slave trade owes its chief support.

Here is an instance that tends to prove that artifice is often made use of. Several black traders, one of whom was a person of consequence and exercised an authority somewhat similar to that of our magistrates, being in want of some particular kind of merchandise and not having a slave to barter for it, they accused a fisherman at the river Ambris, with extortion in the sale of his fish; and as they were interested in the decision they immediately adjudged the poor fellow guilty and condemned him to be sold. He was accordingly purchased by the ship to which I belonged and brought on board.

As an additional proof that kidnapping is not only the general but almost the sole mode by which slaves are procured, the black traders in purchasing them, choose those which are the roughest and most hardy; alleging that the smooth negroes have been _gentlemen_. From which we may conclude they mean that nothing but fraud or force could have reduced these smooth-skinned gentlemen to a state of slavery.

In order to prove that the wars among the Africans do not furnish the number of slaves they are supposed to do, I may say that I never saw any negroes with recent wounds; which must have been the consequence, at least with some of them, had they been taken in battle. And it being my particular province, as the surgeon, to examine the slaves when they are purchased, such a circumstance could not have escaped my observation. As a farther corroboration it might be remarked, that on the Gold and Windward Coasts, where fairs are not held, the number of slaves procured at a time are usually very small.

The preparations made at Bonny by the black traders, upon setting out for the fairs which are held up the country, are very considerable. From twenty to thirty canoes, capable of containing thirty to forty negroes each, are assembled for this purpose; and such goods put on board as they expect will be wanted for the purchase of the number of slaves they intend to buy. When their loading is completed they commence their voyage with colors flying and music playing and in about ten or eleven days generally return to Bonny with full cargoes. As soon as the canoes arrive at the trader’s landing-place, the purchased negroes are cleaned and oiled with palm oil and on the following day they are exposed for sale to the captains.

The black traders do not always purchase their slaves at the same rate. The speed with which the information of the arrival of ships upon the coast is conveyed to the fairs, considering that it is the interest of the traders to keep them ignorant, is really surprising. In a very short time after any ships arrive upon the coast, especially if several make their appearance together, those who dispose of the negroes at the fairs are frequently known to increase their prices; and these fairs are not the only means, though they are the chief, by which the black traders on the coast are supplied with negroes. Small parties of from five to ten are frequently brought to the houses of the traders, by those who make a practice of kidnapping and who are constantly employed in procuring a supply while purchasers are to be found.

When the negroes that the black traders have to dispose of, are shown to the European purchasers, they first examine them relative to their age. They then minutely inspect their persons and inquire into the state of their health; if they are afflicted with any disease or are deformed or have bad eyes or teeth; if they are lame or weak in the joints or distorted in the back or of a slender make or are narrow in the chest; in short, if they have been or are afflicted in any manner so as to render them incapable of much labor. If any of the foregoing defects are discovered in them they are rejected. But if approved of, they are generally taken on board the ship the same evening. The purchaser has liberty to return on the following morning, but not afterwards, such as upon re-examination are found exceptionable.

The traders frequently beat the negroes which are objected to by the captains and use them with great severity. It matters not whether they are refused on account of age, illness, deformity or for any other reason. At New Calabar, in particular, the traders have frequently been known to put them to death. Instances have happened at that place, when negroes have been objected to, that the traders have dropped their canoes under the stern of the vessel and instantly beheaded them in sight of the captain.

On the Windward Coast another mode of procuring slaves is pursued; that is, by _boating_, a mode that is very destructive to the crews of the ships. The sailors who are employed upon this trade go in boats up the rivers, seeking for negroes among the villages situated on the banks of these streams. But this method is very slow and not always effectual. After being absent from the ship during a fortnight or three weeks, they sometimes return with only from eight to twelve negroes.

I have good reason to believe that of the one hundred and twenty negroes purchased for the ship to which I then belonged, then lying at the river Ambris, by far the greater part, if not the whole, were kidnapped. This, with various other instances, confirms me in the belief that it is kidnapping that supplies the thousands of negroes annually sold off the Windward and other Coasts where boating prevails.

As soon as the wretched negroes fall into the hands of the black traders, they experience an earnest of the sufferings which they are doomed in future to undergo. And there is not the least doubt that even before they can reach the fairs, great numbers perish from cruel usage. They are brought from the places where they are purchased, to Bonny, &c., in canoes, at the bottom of which they lie, having their hands tied with a kind of willow twigs and a strict watch is kept over them. Their usage in other respects, during the time of the passage, which generally lasts several days, is equally cruel. Their allowance of food is so scanty that it is barely sufficient to support nature and they are also much exposed to the violent rains which frequently fall, being covered only with mats that afford but a slight defence; and as there is usually water in the bottom of the canoes they are scarcely ever dry.

And after they become the property of Europeans their treatment is no less severe. The men, on being brought aboard ship, are immediately fastened together, two and two, by handcuffs on their wrists and by irons rivetted on their legs. They are then sent down between the decks and placed in a space partitioned off for that purpose. The women also are placed in a separate space between decks, but without being ironed. An adjoining room, on the same deck, is set apart for the boys.

At the same time, however, they are frequently stowed so close as to admit of no other position than lying on their sides. Nor will the height between decks, unless directly under the grating, allow them to stand; especially where there are platforms on either side, which is generally the case. These platforms are a kind of shelf, about eight or nine feet in width, extending from the side of the ship towards the centre. They are placed nearly midway between the decks, at the distance of two or three feet from each deck. Upon these the negroes are stowed in the same manner as they are on the deck underneath.

In each of the apartments are placed three or four large buckets, of a conical form, nearly two feet in diameter at the bottom and only one foot at the top and in depth about twenty-eight inches, to which, when necessary, the negroes have recourse. It often happens that those who are placed at a distance from the buckets, in endeavouring to get to them, tumble over their companions, in consequence of their being shackled. These accidents, although unavoidable, are productive of continual quarrels in which some of them are always bruised. In this situation, unable to proceed and prevented from getting to the tubs, they desist from the attempt; and as the necessities of nature are not to be resisted, they ease themselves as they lie. This becomes a fresh source of broils and disturbances and tends to render the condition of the poor wretches still more uncomfortable. The nuisance arising from these circumstances is not unfrequently increased by the tubs being much too small for the purpose intended and their being usually emptied but once every day. The rule for doing so, however, varies in different ships according to the attention paid to the health and convenience of the slaves by the captain.

When the ships have disposed of all their merchandize in the purchase of negroes and have laid in their stock of wood, water and yams, they prepare for sailing by getting up the yards and topmasts, reeving the running rigging, bending the sails, and by taking down the temporary house. They then drop down the river to wait for a favorable opportunity to pass over the bar which is formed by a number of sandbanks lying across the mouth of the river, with navigable channels between them. It is not uncommon for ships to get upon the bar and sometimes they are lost.

About eight o’clock in the morning the negroes are generally brought upon deck. Their irons being examined, a long chain, which is locked to a ring-bolt fixed in the deck, is run through the rings of the shackles of the men and then locked to another ring-bolt fixed in the deck. By this means fifty or sixty and sometimes more are fastened to one chain in order to prevent them from rising or endeavoring to escape. If the weather proves favorable they are permitted to remain in that situation till four or five in the afternoon when they are disengaged from the chain and sent below.

The diet of the negroes while on board, consists chiefly of horse-beans boiled to the consistence of a pulp; of boiled yams and rice and sometimes of a small quantity of beef or pork. The latter are frequently taken from the provisions laid in for the sailors. They sometimes make use of a sauce composed of palm-oil mixed with flour, water and pepper, which the sailors call _slabber-sauce_. Yams are the favorite food of the Eboe or Bight negroes, and rice or corn of those from the Gold and Windward Coasts; each preferring the produce of their native soil.

In their own country the negroes in general live on animal food and fish, with roots, yams and Indian corn. The horse-beans and rice, with which they are fed aboard ship, are chiefly brought from Europe. The latter, however, is sometimes purchased on the coast where it is superior to any other.

The Gold Coast negroes scarcely ever refuse any food that is offered them and they generally eat larger quantities of whatever is placed before them than any other species of negroes, whom they also excel in strength of body and mind. Most of the slaves have such an aversion to the horse-beans that unless they are narrowly watched, when fed upon deck, they will throw them overboard or in each other’s faces when they quarrel.

They are commonly fed twice a day; about eight o’clock in the morning and four in the afternoon. In most ships they are only fed with their _own food_ once a day. Their food is served up to them in tubs about the size of a small water bucket. They are placed round these tubs, in companies of ten to each tub, out of which they feed themselves with wooden spoons. These they soon lose and when they are not allowed others they feed themselves with their hands. In favorable weather they are fed upon deck but in bad weather their food is given them below. Numberless quarrels take place among them during their meals; more especially when they are put upon short allowance, which frequently happens if the passage from the coast of Guinea to the West India Islands proves of unusual length. In that case, the weak are obliged to be content with a very scanty portion. Their allowance of water is about half a pint each at every meal. It is handed round in a bucket and given to each negro in a pannekin, a small utensil with a straight handle, somewhat similar to a sauce-boat. However, when the ships approach the islands with a favorable breeze, the slaves are no longer restricted.

A VIEW OF CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA
From a line engraving after a painting by T. Mellish, published about
1750, by John Bowles, London, in the Macpherson Collection
]

Upon the negroes refusing to take food, I have seen coals of fire, glowing hot, put on a shovel and placed so near their lips as to scorch and burn them. And this has been accompanied with threats of forcing them to swallow the coals if they persisted in refusing to eat. This generally had the desired effect. I have also been credibly informed that a certain captain in the slave-trade, poured melted lead on such of his negroes as obstinately refused their food.

Exercise being considered necessary for the preservation of their health they are sometimes obliged to dance when the weather will permit their coming on deck. If they go about it reluctantly or do not move with agility, they are flogged; a person standing by them all the time with a cat-o’-nine-tails in his hand for that purpose. Their music, upon these occasions, consists of a drum, sometimes with only one head; and when that is worn out they make use of the bottom of one of the tubs before described. The poor wretches are frequently compelled to sing also; but when they do so, their songs are generally, as may naturally be expected, melancholy lamentations of their exile from their native country.

The women are furnished with beads for the purpose of affording them some amusement. But this end is generally defeated by the squabbles which are occasioned in consequence of their stealing from each other.

On board some ships the common sailors are allowed to have intercourse with such of the black women whose consent they can procure. And some of them have been known to take the inconstancy of their paramours so much to heart as to leap overboard and drown themselves. The officers are permitted to indulge their passions among them at pleasure and sometimes are guilty of such brutal excesses as disgrace human nature.

The hardships suffered by the negroes during the passage are scarcely to be conceived. They are far more violently affected by seasickness than Europeans and it frequently terminates in death, especially among the women. But the exclusion of fresh air is the most intolerable. For the purpose of admitting fresh air, most of the ships in the slave-trade are provided, between the decks, with five or six air-ports on each side of the ship, of about six inches in length and four in breadth; in addition to which, some few ships, but not one in twenty, have what they denominate _wind-sails_. But whenever the sea is rough and the rain heavy it becomes necessary to shut these and every other conveyance by which the air is admitted. The fresh air being thus excluded, the negroes’ rooms very soon grow intolerably hot. The confined air, rendered noxious by the effuvia exhaled from their bodies and by being repeatedly breathed, soon produces fevers and fluxes which generally carry off great numbers of them.

During the voyages I made, I was frequently a witness to the fatal effects of this exclusion of the fresh air. One instance will serve to convey some idea, though a very faint one, of their terrible sufferings. Some wet and blowing weather having occasioned the port-holes to be shut and the grating to be covered, fluxes and fevers among the negroes ensued. While they were in this situation, I frequently went down among them till at length their rooms became so extremely hot as to be only bearable for a very short time. But the excessive heat was not the only thing that rendered their situation intolerable. The deck, that is, the floor of their rooms, was so covered with the blood and mucus which had proceeded from them in consequence of the flux, that it resembled a slaughter-house. It is not in the power of the human imagination to picture a situation more dreadful or disgusting. Numbers of the slaves having fainted they were carried upon deck where several of them died and the rest with great difficulty were restored. It had nearly proved fatal to me also. The climate was too warm to admit the wearing of any clothing but a shirt and that I had pulled off before I went down; notwithstanding which, by only continuing among them for about a quarter of an hour, I was so overcome with the heat, stench and foul air that I nearly fainted; and it was only with assistance that I could get on deck. The consequence was that I soon after fell sick of the same disorder from which I did not recover for several months.

A circumstance of this kind sometimes repeatedly happens in the course of a voyage; and often to a greater degree than that which has just been described, particularly when the slaves are much crowded, which was not the case at that time, the ship being more than a hundred short of the number she was to have taken.

A certain Liverpool ship once took on board at Bonny, at least seven hundred negroes. By shipping so large a number, the slaves were so crowded that they were obliged to lie one upon another. This occasioned such a mortality among them that without meeting with unusual bad weather or having a longer voyage than common, nearly one half of them died before the ship arrived in the West Indies.

That it may be possible to form some idea of the almost incredible small space into which so large a number of negroes were crammed, the following particulars of this ship are given. According to Liverpool custom she measured 235 tons. Her width across the beam was 25 feet. Length between the decks, 92 feet, which was divided into four rooms, thus:

Store room, in which no negroes were placed 15 feet
——————
Negroe’s rooms—men’s rooms—about 45 feet
women’s ditto—about 10 feet
boy’s ditto—about 22 feet
——————
Total room for negroes 77 feet
——————
Exclusive of the platform before described, from 8
to 9 feet in breadth and equal in length to that
of the rooms.

The ships in this trade are usually fitted out to receive only one third women negroes, or perhaps a smaller number, which the dimensions of the room allotted for them, above given, plainly show but in a greater disproportion.

One would naturally suppose that an attention to their own interest would prompt the owners of the Guinea ships not to permit their captains to take on board a greater number of negroes than the ship would allow room sufficient for them to lie with ease to themselves or, at least, without rubbing against each other. However that may be, a more striking instance than the above, of avarice, completely and deservedly disappointed, was surely never displayed; for there is little room to doubt but that in consequence of the expected premium usually allowed to the captains, of £6. per cent. sterling on the produce of the negroes, this vessel was so crowded as to occasion such a heavy loss.

The place allotted for the sick negroes is under the half deck, where they lie on the bare planks. By this means those who are emaciated frequently have their skin and even their flesh entirely rubbed off, by the motion of the ship, from the prominent parts of the shoulders, elbows and hips so as to render the bones quite bare. And some of them, by constantly lying in the blood and mucus that had flowed from those afflicted with the flux and which is generally so violent as to prevent their being kept clean, have their flesh much sooner rubbed off than those who have only to contend with the mere friction of the ship. The excruciating pain which the poor sufferers feel from being obliged to continue in such a dreadful situation, frequently for several weeks, in case they happen to live so long, is not to be conceived or described. Few, indeed, are ever able to withstand the fatal effects of it. The utmost skill of the surgeon is here ineffectual. If plasters are applied they are very soon displaced by the friction of the ship; and when bandages are used the negroes very soon take them off and appropriate them to other purposes.

The surgeon, upon going between decks in the morning to examine the condition of the slaves, frequently finds several dead; and among the men, sometimes a dead and living negro fastened by their irons together. When this is the case they are brought upon the deck and laid on the grating when the living negro is disengaged and the dead one thrown overboard. We should here remark that the surgeons employed in the Guinea trade are generally driven to engage in so disagreeable an employment by the confined state of their finances. An exertion of the greatest skill and attention could afford the diseased negroes little relief so long as the causes of their diseases, namely, the breathing of a putrid atmosphere and wallowing in their own excrements, remain. When once the fever and dysentery get to any height at sea, a cure is scarcely ever effected.

Almost the only means by which the surgeon can render himself useful to the slaves is by seeing that their food is properly cooked and distributed among them. It is true, when they arrive near the markets for which they are destined, care is taken to polish them for sale by an application of the lunar caustic to such as are afflicted with the yaws. This, however, affords but a temporary relief as the disease most assuredly breaks out whenever the negro is put upon a vegetable diet.

It has been asserted in favor of the captains in this trade, that the sick slaves are usually fed from their tables. The great number generally ill at a time, proves the falsity of such an assertion. Were a captain even disposed to do this, how could he feed half the slaves in the ship from his own table? For it is well known that more than half are often sick at a time. Two or three perhaps might be fed.

The loss of slaves, through mortality, arising from the causes just mentioned, is frequently very considerable. One half, sometimes two thirds and even beyond that have been known to perish. On one voyage, before we left Bonny River no less than fifteen died of fevers and dysenteries occasioned by their confinement. On the Windward Coasts, where slaves are procured more slowly, very few die in proportion to the numbers which die at Bonny and at Old and New Calabar where they are obtained much faster; the latter being of a more delicate make and habit.

As very few of the negroes can bear the loss of their liberty and the hardships they endure, they are ever on the watch to take advantage of the least negligence. Insurrections are frequently the consequence; which are seldom suppressed without much bloodshed. Sometimes these are successful and the whole ship’s company is cut off.

One evening while a ship to which I belonged lay in Bonny River, a number of negroes were brought on board and shortly after one of them forced his way through the network on the larboard side of the vessel, jumped overboard and was devoured by the sharks. During the time we were there, fifteen negroes belonging to a vessel from Liverpool found means to throw themselves into the river and very few were saved; the rest fell a sacrifice to the sharks.

Circumstances of this kind are very frequent. On the coast of Angola, at the River Ambris, the following incident happened:—During the time of our living on shore we erected a tent to shelter ourselves from the weather. After having been there several weeks and being unable to purchase the number of slaves we wanted, through the opposition of another English slave vessel, we determined to leave the place. The night before our departure the tent was struck, which was no sooner seen by some of the negro women on board than it was considered as a prelude to our sailing and about eighteen of them, when they were sent between decks, threw themselves into the sea through one of the gun ports, the ship carrying guns between decks. They were all of them, however, excepting one, soon picked up; the negress missing was at last found about a mile from the shore.

A young female negro, falling into a desponding way, it was judged necessary in order to attempt her recovery to send her on shore to the hut of one of the black traders. Elated at the prospect of regaining her liberty she soon recovered her usual cheerfulness, but hearing, by accident, that it was intended to take her on board the ship again, the young woman hung herself.

It frequently happens that the negroes on being purchased by Europeans, become raving mad and many of them die in that state, particularly the women. One day at Bonny, I saw a middle-aged, stout woman, who had been brought down from a fair the preceding day, chained to the post of a black trader’s door, in a state of furious insanity. On board the ship was a young negro woman chained to the deck, who had lost her senses soon after she was purchased and taken on board. In a former voyage we were obliged to confine a female negro of about twenty-three years of age, on her becoming a lunatic. She was afterwards sold during one of her lucid intervals. One morning upon examining the place allotted for the sick negroes, I noticed that one of them, who was so emaciated as scarcely to be able to walk, was missing and was convinced that he must have gone overboard in the night, probably to put a more expeditious end to his sufferings.

The first place the slave ships touch at in their passage to the West Indies, is either the Island of St. Thomas, or Princes Island, where they usually carry their sick on shore for the benefit of the air and also replenish their stock of water. The former of these islands is nearly circular, being one hundred and twenty miles round, and lies exactly under the equator, about forty-five leagues from the African continent. It abounds with wood and water and produces Indian corn, rice, fruits, sugar and some cinnamon. The air is rather prejudicial to an European constitution; nevertheless it is well peopled by the Portuguese. Princes Island, which is much smaller, lies in 1° 30′ North, and likewise produces Indian corn and a variety of fruits and roots, besides sugar cane. Black cattle, hogs and goats are numerous there; but it is infested with a mischievous and dangerous species of monkeys.

During one of the voyages I made, I was landed upon the Island of St. Thomas with nearly one hundred sick negroes who were placed in an old house taken on purpose for their reception. Little benefit, however, accrued from their going on shore, as several of them died there and the remainder continued nearly in the same situation as when they were landed, though our continuance was prolonged for about twelve days and the island is deemed upon the whole healthy.

When the ships arrive in the West Indies the slaves are disposed of by different methods. Sometimes the mode of disposal is that of selling them by what is termed a _scramble_ and a day is soon fixed for that purpose. But previously the sick or refuse slaves, of which there are frequently many, are usually taken on shore and sold at a tavern, by vendue or public auction. These, in general, are purchased by the Jews and surgeons, but chiefly the former, upon speculation, at so low a price as five or six dollars a head. I was informed by a mulatto woman that she purchased a sick slave at Grenada, upon speculation, for the small sum of one dollar, as the poor wretch was apparently dying of the flux. It seldom happens that any who are carried ashore in the emaciated state to which they are generally reduced by that disorder, long survive their landing. I once saw sixteen taken on shore and sold in the foregoing manner, the whole of whom died before I left the island. Sometimes the captains march their slaves through the town at which they intend to dispose of them and then place them in rows where they are examined and purchased.

The mode of selling them by _scramble_ is most common. Here, all the negroes scrambled for bear an equal price; which is agreed upon between the captains and the purchasers before the sale begins. On a day appointed, the negroes are landed and placed altogether in a large yard belonging to the merchants to whom the ship is consigned. As soon as the hour agreed on arrives, the doors of the yard are suddenly thrown open and in rushes a considerable number of purchasers, with all the ferocity of brutes. Some instantly seize such of the negroes as they can conveniently lay hold of with their hands. Others, being prepared with several handkerchiefs tied together, encircle with these as many as they are able; while others, by means of a rope, effect the same purpose. It is scarcely possible to describe the confusion of which this mode of selling is productive. It likewise causes much animosity among the purchasers who not unfrequently fall out and quarrel with each other. The poor astonished negroes are so much terrified by these proceedings, that several of them, on one occasion, climbed over the walls of the courtyard and ran wild about the town but were soon hunted down and retaken.

THE VOYAGE OF THE SABLE VENUS, FROM ANGOLA TO THE WEST INDIES
From a painting by T. Stothard, engraved for Edwards’ _History of the
West Indies_, London, 1818
]

This picture inspired the muse of a member of the British Parliament, as follows:

“Her skin excell’d the raven’s plume,
Her breath the fragrant orange bloom,
Her eye the tropic beam:
Soft was her lip of silken down,
And mild her look as evening sun
That gilds the Cobre stream.”

While on a former voyage from Africa to Kingston in Jamaica, I saw a sale there by _scramble_, on board a snow. The negroes were collected together upon the main and quarter decks and the ship was darkened by sails suspended over them in order to prevent the purchasers from being able to see, so as to pick or choose. The signal being given the buyers rushed in, as usual, to seize their prey, when the negroes became so terrified that nearly thirty of them jumped into the sea, but they were soon retaken, chiefly by boats from other ships.

On board a ship lying at Port Maria, in Jamaica, I saw another _scramble_ in which, as usual, the negroes were greatly terrified. The women, in particular, clung to each other, shrieking in terror at the savage manner in which their brutal purchasers rushed upon and seized them.

Various are the deceptions made use of in the disposal of the sick slaves and many of these must excite the liveliest sensations of horror. A Liverpool captain boasted of his having cheated some Jews by the following stratagem:—A lot of slaves afflicted with the flux, being landed for sale, he directed the surgeon to stop the anus of each of them with oakum. Thus prepared they were taken to the place of sale, where, being unable to stand but for a very short time, they were usually permitted to sit. The Jews, when they examine them, oblige them to stand up in order that they may see if there be any discharge; and when there is no appearance they consider it as a symptom of recovery. In the present instance, such an appearance being prevented, the bargain was struck and the slaves were accordingly sold. But it was not long before discovery of the cheat followed, for the excruciating pain which the prevention of a discharge of such an acrimonious nature occasioned, not being to be borne by the poor wretches, the temporary obstruction was removed and the deluded Jews were speedily convinced of the imposition.

So severely are the negroes sometimes afflicted with this troublesome and painful disorder that I have seen large numbers of them, after being landed, obliged by the virulence of the complaint to stop almost every minute as they passed on.

The whole of their cargoes being disposed of the ships are immediately made ready to proceed to sea. It is very seldom, however, that they are not detained for want of a sufficient number of sailors to navigate the ship, as the slave trade may justly be denominated the grave of seamen. Though the crews of the ships, upon their leaving England, generally amount to between forty and fifty men, scarcely three-fourths and sometimes not one-third of the complement, ever return to the port from whence they sailed, through mortality and desertion.

The time during which the slave ships are absent from England, varies according to the destination of the voyage and the number of ships they happen to meet on the coast. To Bonny, or Old and New Calabar, a voyage is usually performed in about ten months. Those to the Windward and Gold Coasts are rather more uncertain, but last in general from fifteen to eighteen months.