The Slave Trade

by Hugh Thomas

  They attended the king with samples of their goods, and made their agreement about prices, though with much difficulty, for the king demanded very high ones. At that point, they had warehouses, a kitchen, and lodgings assigned to them, but none of their rooms had doors till they made them themselves, and put on locks and keys: “Then the bellII was ordered to go about to give notice to all people to bring their slaves to the trunk.”III

  Captains Clay and Phillips agreed to go to the trunk in turns to buy the slaves in order to avoid the quarrels between Europeans which were usually used by the Africans to raise their prices. “When we were at the trunk, the King’s slaves . . . were the first offered to sale . . . though they were generally the worst slaves . . . and we paid more for them than any others, which we could not remedy, it being one of His Majesty’s prerogatives.” For every slave the “nobles” sold them, publicly, they were obliged to pay part of the goods they received for him or her to the king, “as toll or custom, especially the bouges [cowries], of which he would take a small dishful out of each measure; to avoid that, they would privately send for us to [go to] their houses at night and dispose of two or three slaves at a time and we, as privately, would send them the goods agreed . . . for them; but this they did not much practice for fear of offending the King should he come to know of it. . . . Sometimes after he had sold one of his wives or subjects he would relent, and desire us to exchange for another. . . .”3

  A little later, Captain William Snelgrave wrote of arriving in Abomey, the capital of Dahomey, in 1727: “On our coming into the court . . . we were desired to stay a little till the presents were carried into the house that His Majesty [that is, Agaja] might view them. Soon after, we were introduced into a small court, at the further end of which the King was sitting crosslegged on a carpet of silk spread on the ground. He was richly dress’d and had but a few attendants. When we reached him, His Majesty enquired, in a very kind manner, how we did; ordering that we should be placed near him; and, accordingly, fine mats were spread on the ground for us to sit on. The sitting in that posture was not very easy to us, yet we put a good face on the matter, understanding by the linguist [the interpreter] that it was their custom.

  “As soon as we were placed,” Snelgrave went on, “the King ordered the interpreter to ask me what I had to desire of him. To which I answered that, as my business was to trade, so I relied on His Majesty’s goodness, to give me a good dispatch and fill my ship with Negroes.”

  A certain Zunglar, who had been the king’s agent at Whydah, on the coast, before his conquest of that port, then said that “His Majesty, being resolved to encourage Trade, though he was a conqueror . . . would not impose a greater Custom [duty] than used to be paid to the King of Whydah.” Snelgrave answered that “as His Majesty was a far greater Prince, so I hoped he would not take so much. . . .” The King replied that “as I was the first English captain [whom] he had seen, he would treat me as a young Wife or Bride who must be denied nothing at first.” (Subsequently, Agaja caused much trouble to English traders, killing Testesole, the new governor of the English fort at Whydah, for helping the enemies of the Dahomeyans.)4

  Sometimes, courtiers in these monarchies knew foreign languages; one or two of them had been to France or England. (A certain Cupidon was found by the captain of the Dirigente in 1750 to have spent some years at Saint-Malo.)

  In addition, many were artful negotiators: a Dutch West India Company director writing to Holland said, “One has to be fair to the negroes and say that, as merchants in whatever branch, they are very cunning; one generally notices how one merchant tries to do as much damage to the other as possible.” The Africans knew more of the Europeans than the Europeans knew of them; thus Thomas Phillips, of the Hannibal, reported that his opposite numbers “know our Troy weights as well as ourselves”; and, “the Blacks of the Gold Coast,” wrote Jean Barbot, “having traded with the Europeans since the fourteenth century [sic] are very well skilled in the nature of all European wares and merchandise vended there. . . . They examine everything with as much prudence and ability as any European can do.”5

  Ships in the eighteenth century would frequently stop at numerous places on the West African coast. A somewhat extreme example of this was the voyage in 1738 of the French vessel the Affriquain of Nantes, of 140 tons, belonging to Charles Trochon. She reached the Banana Islands, off the river Sierra Leone, on November 21 of that year, and obtained twenty-one men and two women. Soon after, the slaves revolted, the captain, Nicolas Fouré, was killed, along with one sailor, and many other members of the ship’s company were wounded. A new captain, Pierre Bourau, took over, nine slaves were killed, and two were so badly wounded that they died soon after. Bourau then made a phenomenal number of stops, almost as if he were conducting a river bus. Thus, on December 11, the Affriquain was at Cape Saint Ann, and reached the river Gallinas on December 14. She stayed at Cabo Monte (Cape Mount) from December 16 to 21, sailed to “the little cape” there the 21st and, on the 24th, went to Petites Mesurades (Mesurado), in what is today Liberia. On the 26th, the Affriquain moved on to Grand Saint Paul, the 29th to the Grandes Mesurades, where she remained till January 6, 1739. Then she set off for the rivers Petite Jonque, Grande Jonque, and Petit Bassam, and was at the river Grand Bassam by the 8th. On the 9th, she reached Grand Cories and, on the 10th, the river Sestre; here she remained till the 16th, when she moved on to Petit Sestre. On January 17, the Affriquain moved to Sanguin; on the 18th, to Bafo, to Tasse, and to Sinaux. On the 21st, she had reached Sestre-Crous; on the 23rd, Crous-Sestre. On the 26th, the ship was at Grand Sestre and, on the 29th, at Cape Palmas, where the coast of Africa turns east, at the beginning of the Ivory Coast. She then spent some days off the estuary of the river Canaille. On February 4, the Affriquain was at Tabo, the next day at Drouin, and then Saint-André. On February 8, she was at Cap Lahou; on the 10th, she continued to Jacques-Lahou, Petit Bassam and Grand Bassam (the site of the modern Abidjan, capital of the Côte d’Ivoire). On February 11, the vessel went to Issiny (Assini), where the French had once tried unsuccessfully to establish a trading post; on the 13th, to Cap d’Apollonis, the beginning of the Gold Coast. On the 14th, she was at Pamplune; on the 25th, at Axim, the first Dutch fort; on the 16th, at Dixcove (“Dick’s Cove”), the first English fort; on the 19th, at Fort Botro; and on the 20th, at Takoradi, the modern port of the Gold Coast. On the 22nd, she went to Shama and, on March 1, she was at the Dutch headquarters at Elmina, where she stayed six days before moving on to Cape Coast, the British command post. On the 7th, she lay outside Anamabo. By that time, Captain Bourau had bought 340 Africans, and lost one member of his crew by desertion. The Affriquain then sailed for Saint-Domingue, touching at the island of O Principe on the way.6

  After the middle of the eighteenth century, such journeys became unusual; European purchases of slaves were more often made in little boats detached from the main slave ship, capable of going up the rivers, where they would set up a stall and a depot for slaves. “When the adventurer arrives upon the coast with a suitable cargo,” John Matthews of the British navy said in 1787, “he despatches his [small] boats, properly equipped, to the different rivers. On their arrival at the place of trade, they immediately apply to the head man in the town, inform him of their business, and request his protection; desiring that he will either be himself their landlord, or appoint a suitable person, who becomes security for the person and goods of the stranger, and also for the recovery of all money lent, provided it is done with his knowledge and approbation.

  “This business finished, and proper presents made (for nothing is done without), [the captains] proceed to trade either by lending their goods to the natives who carry them up into the country, or by waiting till trade is brought to them. The former is the most expeditious way, when they fall into good hands; but the latter is always the safest.”7

  Quite often, too, by the 1770s, a slave ship would take all its slaves from the same source. The time spent on the coast shortened, and henc
e there were fewer deaths among the crews. The Dutch in the early eighteenth century might require 228 days for trading, the French 154 days. But, by the 1790s, English slavers would average only 114 days. On the other hand, the Portuguese liked to collect the slaves whom they obtained on islands in rivers—from barracoons, such as those at Luanda and Benguela, or from entrepôts such as São Tomé, where they might be employed in agriculture before being shipped to Brazil. Sometimes, as with the English in Gambia and certain French companies, such as Michel et Grou, or Rollet du Challet, in Sénégal, or Walsh, off Loango, ships were kept as floating depots, and maintained as prisons until the merchants came. This enabled the quick departure of slavers. For most vessels at this time, two to four months’ trading was rapid and happy, four to six normal; over six implied a difficult voyage.

  The first three months of the year, January through March, were the calmest for sailing down the West African coast, or crossing the Atlantic; the last three, October through December, were the worst, because of the fierce heat and the thick fogs, which were so frequent “that it is not possible to see from one end of the ship to the other.” Most slavers tried to visit the coast of Africa in the dry, moderately healthy season—say, March to June—so as to have slaves ready for the sugar harvests which, in the Caribbean, usually began in December. There were other considerations: yams, the inland Africans’ customary subsistence, were not fit to be taken from the ground before July. Different times of the year suited different zones—and different slavers. The best months in the river Calabar seemed to be May and June, because of continual rains, which the traders found more acceptable than fog. But some people—including Captain Phillips of the Hannibal, in 1694—thought that the summer was considered “the most malignant season by the blacks themselves who, while the rain lasts, will hardly be prevailed upon to stir out of their huts. . . .”8

  The prisons or barracoons, the “trunks,” in which slaves were kept waiting for purchase, varied between the harsh and the atrocious. For example, in the English headquarters at Cape Coast, “in the area of this quadrangle . . . are large Vaults, with an iron grate at the surface to let in light and air upon these poor wretches, the slaves, who are chained and confined there till a demand comes. . . .” John Atkins, the surgeon of 1721, recalled how, at Bence Island, Sierra Leone, “slaves are placed in lodges near the owner’s house for air, cleanliness and Customers better viewing them. I had every day the curiosity of observing their behaviour which, with most of them, was very dejected. Once, on looking over some of old Cracker’s [Caulker’s] slaves, I could not help taking notice of one fellow among the rest, of a tall, strong make, and bold, stern aspect. As he imagined, we were viewing them with a design to buy, he seemed to disdain his fellow slaves for their readiness to be examined and, as it were, scorned looking at us, refusing to rise or stretch out his limbs, as the master commanded; which got him an unmerciful whipping from Cracker’s own hand, with a cutting manatea strip [a whip made from the hide of a manatee], and had certainly killed him but for the loss he himself must sustain by it; all of which the negro bore with magnanimity, shrinking very little, and shedding a tear or two, which he endeavoured to hide as tho’ ashamed. All the Company grew curious at his courage and wanted to know of Cracker how he came by him; who told us that this same fellow, called Captain Tomba, was a leader in some country villages that opposed them and their trade, at the River Núñez; killing our friends there, and firing their cottages. The sufferers this way, by the help of my men, says Cracker, surprised and bound him in the night about a month ago, he having killed two in his defence before they could secure him; and from thence he was brought thither and made my property.”9

  Both sides would try and cheat each other. The Africans would often mix brass into the gold dust when selling metal. Ill slaves might be painted, and great trouble was taken to conceal infirmities of any kind in the captive. The Europeans, for their part, often watered the brandy, the wine, even the rum: King Tegbesu of Dahomey used to keep beside him a pot of watered brandy which he had been constrained to buy from Europeans and would offer it to any European trader who complained that his subjects robbed; he would say that, if watering were discontinued, theft would vanish from Dahomey. Gunpowder was also often fraudulently weighed by such simple techniques as adding a false head to the keg; linen and cotton cloths were often opened and two or three yards, according to the length of the piece, cut off from out of the middle, where the fraud might not be noticed until the cloth was unfolded; a piece of wood might be placed inside to make up the weight.

  There were often disputes. For example, in March 1719, the RAC’s agent, William Brainie, in charge of Fort Commenda, on the Gold Coast, described how an African trader with whom he had often dealt, John Cabess, came in “bawling and saying that [the traders who had arrived in the castle] . . . were fools, and he . . . did not deign to trade, for, having seen two slaves and asked the price of them, they had told him six ounces [an ounce of gold was worth about four pounds sterling] each and that he had offered them four ounces, and told them it was the highest price we could give for which he believed he could get them or a little more. I answered John to all this that I did not take it well in him that he should offer to bargain for anything . . . without my knowledge, yet, however, seeing he had offer’d four ounces for the slaves (tho’ it was the utmost farthing the company allowed for the very best), I, to save his credit among the tradesmen, would give so much, provided the slaves were good, whereupon they were sent for but, when they came, [I] found two old fellows not worth £4 each, which made me very angry with John, and gave me suspicion that he designed to put the other money into his own pocket, for which I checked him and told the traders [that] the slaves were not worth buying. However I bid them privately return to me after John was gone, having something to talk to them of. They accordingly did [so] and then, upon enquiry, I found they had agreed with John Cabess for ten pees [pieces] each slave, whereby he designed to put Six pees in his own pocket. . . .” Similar arguments continued for centuries.10

  On all European voyages, the ship’s surgeon usually played an essential part in the selection of the slaves. Indeed, his was the decisive voice in advising captains whether or not to buy. Much the same procedure was followed, whatever the nationality of the purchaser. As in most matters affecting the slave trade, the pioneers in this examination, the so-called palmeo, were the Portuguese. This included a measurement of the slaves to see if they reached the ideal of, say, seven palms high (about five feet, seven inches). If they did, and were the right age and were also in good health, they could be considered “a piece of Indies” in themselves, and not a fraction of that. John Atkins in 1721 commented, as did many others, that the slaves were “examined by us in like manner as our brother traders do beasts in Smithfield.” Another English witness testified “how our surgeon examined them well in all kinds to see that they were sound in wind and limb, making them jump, stretch out their arms swiftly, looking in their mouths to judge of their age. . . . Our greatest care of all is to buy none that are pox’d, lest they should infect the rest. . . . Therefore our surgeon is forc’d to examine the privities of both men and women with the nicest scrutiny, which is a great slavery [sic]. . . . When we had selected from the rest such as we liked, we agreed in what goods to pay for them. . . .” In the early nineteenth century, Captain Richard Willing employed a mulatto overseer “who could tell an unsound slave at a glance. He handled the naked blacks from head to foot, squeezing their joints and muscles, twisting their arms and legs, and examining teeth, eyes, and chest, and pinching breasts and groins without mercy. The slaves stood in couples, stark naked, and were made to jump, cry out, lie down, and roll, and hold their breath for a long time.”11 French captains behaved similarly. Their surgeons would examine the potential slave minutely. They, too, made use of the notional term pièce d’Inde for the perfect “nègre,” and he was paid for in full. Women slaves had to have their breasts “debout: Il faut choisir les nègr
es, surtout point de vieux peaux ridées, testicules pendants et . . . graissés, tondus et rasés. . . .” The lack of a tooth rendered a slave defective.12

  The Portuguese also began the practice, in Arguin in the 1440s, of the carimbo, the branding of a slave with a hot iron, leaving a mark in red on the shoulder, the breast, or the upper arm, so that it was evident that he or she was the property of the king of Portugal, or some other master, and that a proper duty had been paid. This procedure survived from the Middle Ages—indeed, from antiquity: the Romans used to brand their slaves but, when Constantine the Great ruled that slaves condemned to work in mines or fight in the arena were to be marked on the hands or legs, not the face, many slaveowners substituted bronze collars for branding.

  Each European nation during the slaving centuries had its special procedures. Thus slaves landed at São Tomé were branded with a cross on the right arm in the early sixteenth century; but, later, this design was changed to a “G,” the marca de Guiné. Slaves exported from Luanda were often branded not once but twice, for they had to receive the mark of the Luso-Brazilian merchants who owned them as well as the royal arms—on the right breast—to signify their relation to the Crown. Sometimes, baptism led to the further branding of a cross over the royal design. Slaves of the Royal African Company were marked, with a burning iron upon the right breast, “DY,” duke of York, after the chairman of the company. In the late eighteenth century, a “G” would indicate that the slave concerned had been marked by the Compañía Gaditana, the Cádiz company concerned to import slaves into Havana in the late 1760s. Captain Thomas Phillips, an interloper, described how “we mark’d the slaves [whom] we had bought on the breast or shoulder with a hot iron, having the ship’s name on it, the place being before anointed with a little palm oil, which caused but little pain, the mark being usually well in four or five days.”13 The South Sea Company later branded its slaves with the distinctive mark of the port in the Spanish empire to which they were being shipped—Cartagena, Caracas, Veracruz, and so on—this new brand being made of gold or silver: preferably the latter, because “it made a sharper scar.” That enterprise’s Court of Directors in London in 1725 specified that the slaves should be marked on the “left shoulder, heating the mark red hot and rubbing the part first with a little palm or other oil and taking off the mark pretty quick, and rubbing the place again with oil.”14 Willem Bosman reported of his Dutch colleagues and himself, “We take all possible care that they are not burned too hard, especially the women, who are more tender than the men.” A Dutch instruction of the late eighteenth century, to the Middelburgische Kamerse Compagnie, was more specific: it insisted that, “as you purchase slaves, you must mark them at the upper right arm with the silver mark CCN . . . the area of marking must first be rubbed with candle wax or oil; . . . the marker should only be as hot as when applied to paper the paper gets hot. . . .” The French had a similar technique: “After discussion, the captain inscribes on a slate the merchandise for exchange, a specific officer delivers, while the bought African waits in a prison before being attached to a ring and taken to the canoe which will carry him to the ship. The surgeon stamps the slave on the right shoulder with an iron which gives him the mark of the shippers and the ship—it will never come off (if the slave is of second rank, he is stamped on the right thigh).”15 In the eighteenth century, sometimes the initials of the shipper were marked, “une pipe sous le téton gauche.”