CHAPTER XXVIII — SLAVERY AS A NATIONAL INSTITUTION

A Cargo of Black Ivory (1829)

BY REVEREND ROBERT WALSH

THE captain now ordered a gun to be fired to leeward, and the English union flag to be hoisted; we had the wind right aft, and were running right down upon her, distant about four miles. . . . The ball went ricochetting along the waves, and fell short of her stern; in a little time afterwards she hoisted a flag, which we perceived was Brazilian. . . .

We could now discern her whole equipment; her gun streak was distinctly seen along the water, with eight ports of a side; and it was the general opinion that she was a French pirate and slaver, notorious for her depredations. . . .

. . . Our boat was now hoisted out, and I went on board with the officers. When we mounted her decks, we found her full of slaves. She was called the Veloz, commanded by Captain José Barbosa, bound to Bahia. She was a very broad-decked ship, with a mainmast, schooner-rigged, and behind her foremast was that large formidable gun, which turned on a broad circle of iron, on deck, and which enabled her to act as a pirate, if her slaving speculation had failed. She had taken in, on the coast of Africa, 336 males, and 226 females, making in all 562, and had been out seventeen days, during which she had thrown overboard fifty-five. The slaves were all enclosed under grated hatchways, between decks. The space was so low, that they sat between each other’s legs, and stowed so close together, that there was no possibility of their lying down, or at all changing their position, by night or day. As they belonged to, and were shipped on account of different individuals, they were all branded, like sheep, with the owners’ marks of different forms . . . These were impressed under their breasts, or on their arms, and, as the mate informed me, with perfect indifference . . . "burnt with the red-hot iron." Over the hatchway stood a ferocious looking fellow, with a scourge of many twisted thongs in his hand, who was the slave-driver of the ship, and whenever he heard the slightest noise below, he shook it over them, and seemed eager to exercise it. . . .

But the circumstance which struck us most forcibly, was, how it was possible for such a number of human beings to exist, packed up and wedged together as tight as they could cram, in low cells, three feet high, the greater part of which, except that immediately under the grated hatchways, was shut out from light or air, and this when the thermometer, exposed to the open sky, was standing in the shade, on our deck, at 89°. The space between decks was divided into two compartments, 3 feet 3 inches high; the size of one was 16 feet by 18, and of the other 40 by 21; into the first were crammed the women and girls; into the second, the men and boys: 226 fellow-creatures were thus thrust into one space 288 feet square; and 336 into another space 800 feet square, giving to the whole an average of 23 inches, and to each of the women not more than 13 inches . . . We also found manacles and fetters of different kinds, but it appears that they had all been taken off before we boarded.

The heat of these horrid places was so great, and the odour so offensive, that it was quite impossible to enter them, even had there been room. They were measured as above when the slaves had left them. The officers insisted that the poor suffering creatures should be admitted on deck to get air and water. This was opposed by the mate of the slaver, who, from a feeling that they deserved it, declared they would murder them all. The officers, however, persisted, and the poor beings were all turned up together. It is impossible to conceive the effect of this eruption — 517 fellow-creatures of all ages and sexes, some children, some adults, some old men and women, all in a state of total nudity, scrambling out together to taste the luxtury of a little fresh air and water. They came swarming up, like bees from the aperture of a hive, till the whole deck was crowded to suffocation, from stem to stern; so that it was impossible to imagine where they could all have come from, or how they could have been stowed away. On looking into the places where they had been crammed, there were found some children next the sides of the ship, in the places most remote from light and air; they were nearly in a torpid state, after the rest had turned out. The little creatures seemed indifferent as to life or death, and when they were carried on deck, many of them could not stand.

After enjoying for a short time the unusual luxury of air, some water was brought; it was then that the extent of their sufferings was exposed in a fearful manner. They all rushed like maniacs towards it. No entreaties, or threats, or blows, could restrain them; they shrieked, and struggled, and fought with one another, for a drop of this precious liquid, as if they grew rabid at the sight of it. There is nothing which slaves, in the mid-passage, suffer from so much as want of water. It is sometimes usual to take out casks filled with sea water, as ballast, and when the slaves are received on board, to start the casks, and refill them with fresh. On one occasion, a ship from Bahia neglected to change the contents of the casks, and on the mid-passage found, to their horror, that they were filled with nothing but salt water. All the slaves on board perished I We could judge of the extent of their sufferings from the afflicting sight we now saw. When the poor creatures were ordered down again, several of them came, and pressed their heads against our knees, with looks of the greatest anguish, at the prospect of returning to the horrid place of suffering below.

It was not surprising that they should have endured much sickness and loss of life, in their short passage. They had sailed from the coast of Africa on the 7th of May, and had been out but seventeen days, and they had thrown overboard no less than fifty-five, who had died of dysentery and other complaints, in that space of time, though they had left the coast in good health. Indeed, many of the survivors were seen lying about the decks in the last stage of emaciation, and in a state of filth and misery not to be looked at. Even-handed justice had visited the effects of this unholy traffic, on the crew who were engaged in it. Eight or nine had died, and at that moment six were in hammocks on board, in different stages of fever. This mortality did not arise from want of medicine. There was a large stock ostentatiously displayed in the cabin, with a manuscript book, containing directions as to the quantities; but the only medical man on board to prescribe it was a black, who was as ignorant as his patients.

While expressing my horror at what I saw, and exclaiming against the state of this vessel for conveying human beings, I was informed by my friends, who had passed so tong a time on the coast of Africa, and visited so many ships, that this was one of the best they had seen. The height, sometimes, between decks, was only eighteen inches; so that the unfortunate beings could not turn round, or even on their sides, the elevation being less than the breadth of their shoulders; and here they are usually chained to the decks, by the neck and legs. . . .

When I returned on board the frigate, I found the captain of the slaver pacing the deck in great agitation . . . Meantime, his papers were rigidly examined, to ascertain if they bore out his story. He said that he was a Brazilian, from Bahia, and that his traffic was strictly confined to the south of the line, where, by treaty, it was yet lawful . . . All this, his chart and log corresponded with. As the tale, however, could be easily fabricated, and papers were written to correspond, a strict scrutiny was made into other circumstances. . . .

The instructions sent to king’s ships as to the manner of executing the treaty of Brazil, are very ambiguous. They state in one place that "no slave ship is to be stopped to the south of the line, on any pretext whatever." Yet in another, a certain latitude is allowed, if there is reason to suspect that the slaves on board "were taken in, to the north." By the first, the ship could not be detained at all, and it was doubtful if there was just reason for the second. Even if there were the strongest grounds for capturing and sending her to Sierra Leone for adjudication, where the nearest mixed commission sat, a circumstance of very serious difficulty occurred. It would take three weeks, perhaps a month or more, to beat up to windward to this place, and the slaves had not water for more than half that time, and we could not supply her. A number had already died, and we saw the state of frenzy to which the survivors were almost driven, from the want of this element. . . . Under these doubtful circumstances, then, it appeared more legal and even more humane to suffer them to proceed on their course to Bahia, where it is probable, after all, the remnant left alive would be finally sent, after an investigation by the commissioners, as having been taken in, within the limits of legal traffic. It was with infinite regret, therefore, we were obliged to restore his papers to the captain, and permit him to proceed, after nine hours’ detention and close investigation. It was dark when we separated, and the last parting sounds we heard from the unhallowed ship, were the cries and shrieks of the slaves, suffering under some bodily infliction.

R[obert] Walsh, (London, 1830), II, 477–490 passim.