by Noel Rae
As to selling by scramble, “Being some years ago at one of the islands in the West Indies, I was witness to a sale by scramble whereby about two hundred and fifty Negroes were sold. Upon this occasion 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 were landed and placed together in a large yard belonging to the merchants to whom the ship was consigned. As soon as the hour agreed on arrived, the doors of the yard were suddenly thrown open and in rushed a considerable number of purchasers with all the ferocity of brutes. Some instantly seized such of the Negroes as they could conveniently lay hold of with their hands; others, being prepared with several handkerchiefs tied together, encircled with these as many as they were able; while others, by means of a rope, effected 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 upon these occasions, fall out and quarrel with each other. The poor astonished Negroes were so much terrified by these proceedings that several of them, through fear, climbed over the walls of the courtyard and ran wild about the town; but were soon hunted down and retaken.
“On board a ship lying at Port Maria, in Jamaica, I saw another scramble in which, as usual, the poor Negroes were greatly terrified. The women in particular clang to each other in agonies scarcely to be conceived, shrieking through excess of terror at the savage manner in which their brutal purchasers rushed upon and seized them. Though humanity, one should imagine, would dictate the captains to apprize the poor Negroes of the mode by which they were to be sold, and by that means to guard them in some degree against the surprise and terror which must attend it, I never knew that any notice of the scramble was given to them.
“Various are the deceptions made use of in the disposal of the sick slaves, and many of these such as must excite in every humane mind the liveliest sensations of horror. I have been well informed that a Liverpool captain boasted of his having cheated some Jews by the following stratagem: a lot of slaves afflicted with the flux being about to be landed for sale, he directed the surgeon to stop the anus of each of them with oakum. Thus prepared, they were landed and taken to the accustomed place of sale where, being unable to stand but for a very short time, they are usually permitted to sit. The Jews, when they examine them, oblige them to stand up in order to see if there be any discharge; and when they do not see this appearance they consider it as a symptom of recovery. In the present instance, such an appearance being prevented, the bargain was struck, and they were accordingly sold. But it was not long before a discovery ensued. 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 purchasers were speedily convinced of the imposition.”
Because he was so young, Olaudah Equiano had been allowed to remain unfettered and on the deck for most of the crossing, and arrived in the West Indies in fairly good health.
“At last we came in sight of the island of Barbadoes, at which the whites on board gave a great shout, and made many signs of joy to us. We did not know what to think of this, but as the vessel drew nearer we plainly saw the harbour, and other ships of different kinds and sizes; and we soon anchored amongst them off Bridge Town. Many merchants and planters now came on board, though it was in the evening. They put us in several parcels and examined us attentively. They also made us jump, and pointed to the land, signifying we were to go there.” Once again it was rumored that they were to be sold to cannibals, so “the white people got some old slaves from the land to pacify us. They told us we were not to be eaten, but to work, and were soon to go on land, where we should see many of our country people. This report eased us much.”
Soon after they had landed a scramble was held, much as Falconbridge had described: “On a signal given, such as the beat of a drum, the buyers rush at once into the yard where the slaves are confined, and make choice of that parcel they like best. The noise and clamour with which this is attended, and the eagerness visible in the countenances of the buyers, serve not a little to increase the apprehensions of the terrified Africans … In this manner, without scruple, are relations and friends separated, most of them never to see each other again.” Because he was small for his age, which was still only eleven, Equiano would have been of little use on a sugar plantation and so was one of the few slaves that remained unsold. But all his fellow countrymen were taken away, and “the women, too, who used to wash and take care of me, were all gone different ways, and I never saw one of them afterwards.
“I stayed in this island for a few days—I believe it could not be above a fortnight, when I and some few more slaves, who from very much fretting were not saleable among the rest, were shipped off in a sloop for North America. On the passage we were better treated than when coming from Africa, and we had plenty of rice and fat pork. We landed up a river a good way from the sea, about Virginia county, where we saw few of our native Africans, and not one soul who could talk to me. I was a few weeks weeding grass and gathering stones in a plantation; and at last all my companions were distributed different ways, and only myself was left. I was now exceedingly miserable, and thought myself worse off than any of the rest of my companions; for they could talk to each other, but I had no person to speak to that I could understand.
“While I was in this plantation the gentleman to whom I suppose the estate belonged being unwell, I was one day sent for to his dwelling-house to fan him. When I came into the room where he was, I was very much affrighted at some things I saw, and the more so as I had seen a black woman slave as I came through the house, who was cooking the dinner, and the poor creature was cruelly loaded with various kinds of iron machines; she had one particularly on her head which locked her mouth so fast that she could scarcely speak, and could not eat or drink. I was much astonished and shocked at this contrivance, which I afterwards learned was called the iron muzzle.
“Soon after I had a fan put into my hand, to fan the gentleman while he slept; and so I did indeed, with great fear. While he was fast asleep I indulged a great deal in looking about the room, which to me appeared very fine and curious. The first object that engaged my attention was a watch, which hung on the chimney, and was going. I was quite surprised at the noise it made, and was afraid it would tell the gentleman anything I might do amiss; and when I immediately after observed a picture hanging in the room which appeared constantly to look at me, I was still more affrighted, having never seen such things as these before. At one time I thought it was something relative to magic, and not seeing it move I thought it might be some way the whites had to keep their great men when they died, and offer them libations, as we used to do to our friendly spirits. In this state of anxiety I remained till my master awoke, when I was dismissed out of the room, to my no small satisfaction and relief.”
And then, all of a sudden, his luck turned. “I had been some time in this miserable, forlorn and much dejected state, without anyone to talk to, which made my life a burden, when the kind and unknown hand of the Creator, who in every deed leads the blind in a way they know not, now began to appear to my comfort; for one day the captain of a merchant ship called the Industrious Bee came on some business to my master’s house. This gentleman, whose name was Michael Henry Pascal, was a lieutenant in the Royal Navy but now commanded this trading ship, which was somewhere in the confines of the county many miles off. While he was at my master’s house it happened that he saw me, and liked me so well that he made a purchase of me.” Lieut. Pascal paid between £30 and £40 for Equiano, intending him as a present for friends in England, and then sent him on ahead to the Industrious Bee. “When I arrived I was carried on board a fine large ship, loaded with tobacco &c. and just ready to sail for England. I now thought my condition much mended, having sails to lie on and plenty of good victuals to eat, and
everybody on board used me very kindly, quite contrary to what I had seen of any white people before; I therefore began to think that they were not all of the same disposition. A few days after I was on board we sailed for England. I was still at a loss to conjecture my destiny. By this time however I could smatter a little imperfect English, and I wanted to know as well as I could where we were going. Some of the people of the ship used to tell me they were going to carry me back to my own country, and this made me very happy. I was quite rejoiced at the idea of going back; and thought if I should get home what wonders I should have to tell. But I was reserved for another fate, and was soon undeceived when we came within sight of the English coast.”
By then he had undergone a standard procedure of the slave system: his name was changed at the whim of his owner. At his birth he had been given the name Olaudah; on the ship that brought him from Barbados he was called Michael and on the Virginia plantation Jacob; and now Lieut. Pascal decided that he should be re-named Gustavus Vassa. “And when I refused to answer to my new name, which at first I did, it gained me many a cuff; so at length I submitted.” Like Caesar and Pompey, names of famous Romans commonly given to slaves, Gustavus Vassa was a mock-heroic put-down, that being the name of the warrior king who had founded the Swedish royal family.
A varied and often exciting life awaited him. He served in the Royal Navy as a member of a gun crew during a battle against the French, and on another ship that explored the Arctic. He became a trader in the West Indies, where he saved enough to buy his freedom, and was active in the campaign to end the slave trade, joining with the English abolitionist Granville Sharp in making notorious the case of the Zong, whose captain had ordered his crew to throw one hundred and twenty-two sickly slaves overboard. (As the captain explained, “if the slaves died a natural death, it would be the loss of the owners of the ship; but if they were thrown alive into the sea, it would be the loss of the underwriters.”) He worked hard to help found Sierra Leone as a colony for poor blacks living in England, and after his conversion to Christianity hoped to return to Africa as a missionary; but the Bishop of London, who was in charge of overseas missions, had “some scruples” about giving his approval, and so he remained in England, where he ended his days happily married to an Englishwoman, the father of two daughters, and the author of an autobiography that sold well and bore the title The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Writen by Himself.
Equiano’s story was of course exceptional. A far more typical account of arriving in America was this story that appeared in the Charleston Courier on April 21, 1807: “A jury of inquest was held on Sunday afternoon on the body of an African negro woman found floating near the market dock—it appeared to the jurors, from its having on the usual dress of a blue flannel frock, to have belonged to one of the slave ships in the harbour, and thrown into the river to save the expense of burial; a custom too prevalent in this port with the officers of slave ships, and in itself shocking to humanity. The jury brought in a verdict that she came to her death by the visitation of God.”
The “Ethiopian Poetess” and probably the best-known African-American of the eighteenth century, Phillis Wheatley was about eight years old when she was put up for sale on a Boston dock. Ten years later, thanks to her obvious talent, and to the enlightened Wheatley family who owned her, she was immersed in the classics, and before long produced a volume titled Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. Since many Bostonians refused to believe that a black woman could have written such a book, she was examined by a committee that included the governor and John Hancock, who then signed a statement—included in the preface to her book—that she was indeed its author.
CHAPTER 5
THE COLONIES
NEW ENGLAND
FOR VARIOUS REASONS—THE ABUNDANCE OF WORKING-CLASS IMMIGRANTS from England, a rural economy of small farms and an urban economy of small businesses—slavery never really caught on in New England, other than as a source of domestic servants. And because slavery did not exist in the Mother Country, the early settlers had to make up their own rules as they went along, often basing them on the teachings of the Bible.
Just how out of step New England was with the rest of the world in the matter of slavery was made clear in 1645, when a ship called the Rainbow arrived in Boston from the West Indies, having on board some Negroes—variously called “Negeres, negars, neager, or Mores”—who, the captain admitted, had been “fraudulently and injuriously taken and brought from Ginny.” The General Court took cognizance of the matter, “conceiving themselves bound by the first opportunity to bear witness against the heinous and crying sin of man-stealing … justly abhorred of all good and just men,” and ordered “that the Negro interpreter, with others unlawfully taken, be, by the first opportunity, (at the charge of the country for the present), sent to his native country of Ginny, and a letter with him of the indignation of the Court.”
And not only did the people of Massachusetts condemn man-stealing as a sin, they failed to realize that in the New World slavery was to be reserved exclusively for people of color. Thus, from the court calendar: “December 1638. William Androws, having made assault upon his master, Henry Coggan, and not only so, but did conspire against the peace of this whole commonwealth, was censured to be severely whipped, and delivered up a slave to whom the Court shall appoint.” And in 1639: “John Kempe, for filthy, unclean attempts with 3 young girls, was censured to be whipped both here, at Roxbury, and at Salem, very severely, and was committed for a slave to Lieut. Davenport.” In another deviation from what was to be standard practice, this slavery was temporary rather than for life.
However, when it came to Indians, Massachusetts was more up to date. The Body of Liberties, drawn up in 1641, stated that “There shall never be any bond slaverie, villinage or captivitie amongst us, unles it be lawful captives taken in just warres.” Since in the eyes of the colonists all wars against the Indians were just wars, this cleared the way for the deportation of Pequots and other prisoners to the West Indies, where they were either sold or exchanged for Negro slaves. Later, this practice was extended to Indian criminals taken in peacetime. Thus “an Indian called Hoken, that hath been a notorious thief,” and was also “insolent in his carriage [conduct]” and “lyeth shirking and lurking about, whereby many persons are greatly in fear and danger of him” was ordered “to be apprehended and sold or sent to the Barbadoes, for to satisfy his debts and to free the Colony from so ill a member.”
As New England prospered, qualms about enslaving non-Indians abated. Her ships took part in the African slave trade, and in supplying the West Indian plantations with food and lumber; refining the sugar and molasses they brought back was also an important business. With prosperity there also came a growing demand for domestic help, far more important then than now, what with a list of chores that included having to cook everything from scratch, scrub and sand the floors, boil the laundry, split cords of firewood, lug heavy wooden buckets of water from the well, empty the toilets, shovel the snow, mend and darn clothes, and be at all times at the beck and call of the master or mistress. Small wonder that a good servant was hard to find, and harder to keep; but if the servant were a slave, then he or she had to stay. Many of those bought for domestic service were children—easier to train, cheaper to buy, and immediately employable. Prompted by fears of miscegenation, there was some opposition to these imports, and in 1705 Massachusetts passed an act “for the Better Preventing of a Spurious and Mixt Issue,” which imposed a duty of £4 on imported slaves. Nevertheless, the imports went on, resulting in these stories:
Mr. Maverick’s Negro Woman.
In 1639, the English traveler John Josselyn, who was staying with Mr. Maverick on Noddle’s Island (now part of Boston), made this entry in his journal: “The second of October, about nine of the clock in the morning, Mr. Maverick’s Negro woman came to my chamber window, and in her own country language and tune sang very loud and shrill. Goi
ng out to her, she used a great deal of respect toward me, and willingly would have expressed her grief in English; but I apprehended it by her countenance and deportment, whereupon I repaired to my host, to learn of him the cause, and resolved to entreat him on her behalf, for that I understood before that she had been a queen in her own country, and observed a very humble and dutiful garb [manner] used toward her by another Negro, who was her maid.” It was then explained to Josselyn that “Mr. Maverick was desirous to have a breed of Negroes, and therefore, seeing she would not yield by persuasions to company with a Negro young man he had in his house, he [Mr.Maverick] commanded him [the young man] will’d she nill’d she [willy nilly] to go to bed to her; which was no sooner done but she kicked him out again. This she took in high disdain beyond her slavery, and this was the cause of her grief.” (The story ends here. Josselyn’s next adventure was to go for a walk in the woods where he found “a fruit as I thought like a pine apple,” which, on his picking it up, turned out to be a hornets’ nest.)