by Hugh Thomas
13. George Coggeshall, Second Series of Voyages to Various Parts of the World (New York, 1857), 123.
14. Temperley [18, 9], 74.
15. Loc. cit.
16. Lords select committee, 1843, 523.
17. Brooks [27, 9], 186.
18. Hutt committee, II, 4.
19. Capt. Blount evidence in Lords select committee, 1843, 408-9.
20. Ward [29, 6], 48-49.
21. Lords select committee, 1843, 527.
22. O. George in Daget [12, 16], 565.
23. See Carol McCormack in Claire C. Robertson and Martin A. Klein, Women and Slavery in Africa (Madison, 1983), 278. His death is described in Canot [32, 12], 226; C. Fyfe, A History of Sierra Leone (1962), 66, 185.
24. Hutt committee, II, 8.
25. Lloyd [29, 47], gives a vivid picture, on which I have drawn freely, 132.
26. Hutt committee, 1, 402.
27. Brooks [27, 9], 61.
28. Hutt committee, II, 184.
29. Canot [32, 12], 326.
30. Ward [29, 6], 73-75.
31. Archivo Nacional de Cuba, Misc de Libros no. 11408, Franco [28, 20], 242.
32. Bennet and Brooks [17, 2], 87.
33. Commons select committee 1843, 466.
34. Bennet and Brooks [17, 2], 35, 38.
35. Van Dantzig in Daget [12, 16], II, 601.
36. Edward Reynolds in Daget [12, 16], 1, 576.
37. Brooks [27, 9], 235.
38. Reynolds [32, 36].
39. Hutt committee, II, 57.
40. Prince de Joinville, Vieux Souvenirs, new ed. (Paris, 1986), 230.
41. Andrew H. Foote, Africa and the American Flag (New York, 1862), 82.
42. Hutt committee, II, 70-71.
43. See Verger [13, 27], 467-74; David Ross, “Diego Martínez in the Bight of Benin,” JAH VI (1965), 79-90.
44. Ward [29, 6], 109.
45. Joseph Wright, c. 1825, in Philip Curtin, Africa Remembered (Madison, 1967), 320.
46. PRO CO 82/6 Fernando Po 67, Nicholls to Hay, Oct. 28, 1833, qu. Dike [31, 5], 53.
47. PRO FO 84/383 HMS Viper at sea, Burslem to Tucker, Sept. 10, 1840, qu. Dike [31, 5], 83.
48. Papers relating to this treaty can be seen in FO 84/383, 87ff; also PP 1842, XI, 551.
49. Lords select committee 1843, 430.
50. The Treaty was enclosed in a letter from Captain William Tucker in PRO FO 84/385, Aug. 22, 1841.
51. Evidence in Lords select committee, 43, 340.
52. Hope Masterton Waddell, Twenty-nine Years in the West Indies (London, 1863), 429.
53. Sir C. Hotham to the Admiralty, April 7, 1847, in RC 16, XXII (1847-48), 2.
54. Paul du Chaillu, Voyages et aventures dans l’Afrique Équatoriale (Paris, 1863), 45.
55. Surgeon Peters in Lords select committee 1843, 355.
56. Brooks [27, 7], 145.
57. Peter Knickerbocker, Sketches in South Africa (1850-51), vol. 37, 38, 39.
58. Parker in Knickerbocker, vol. 39, 134.
59. Georg Tams, A Visit to the Portuguese Possessions in South West Africa, tr. from German (Hamburg, 1845), vol. I, 116
60. Capt. A. Murray in select committee 1850, 38.
61. Bennet and Brooks [17, 2], 192.
62. Ibid., 262.
63. Ibid., 427.
64. José Capela, O escravismo colonial em Moçambique (Porto, 1993), 180.
65. Lords select committee 1850, 239.
66. Canot [32, 12], 252.
67. Admiral Dacres in Commons select committee 1850, 14.
68. Bennet and Brooks [17, 2], 9; see too George Francis Dow, Diary and Letters of . . . Benjamin Pickman (Newport, 1928).
33. SHARKS ARE THE INVARIABLE OUTRIDERS OF ALL SLAVE SHIPS
1. PD, 3d ser., vol. 109, col. 1093-95.
2. Hutt committee, I, 322.
3. Qu. Temperley [18, 9], 4.
4. Hutt committee, I, 2.
5. Hutt committee, 1, 401.
6. Warren Howard, American slavers and the Federal law, Berkeley, 1963.
7. Hutt committee, I, 82.
8. Hutt committee, I, 623.
9. Hutt committee, 1, 655.
10. Narrative of Joseph Wright, in Curtin [32, 44], 330-31.
11. Hutt committee, 1, 211.
12. Capt. Bailey in Lords select committee 1843, 138.
13. Evidence of Macgregor Laird in Lords select committee, 1843, 363.
14. Hutt committee, II, 257.
15. PP, 1822, 561, 633.
16. PP, 1824, 261.
17. Hutt committee, 1, 106.
18. G. F. Dow, Slave Ships and Slaving (Salem, 1927) xxviii ff., and PD 2nd series 5 1288 1821; also Daget [28, 41], 88.
19. Madden [30, 11], 228-41; Dubois [24, 29], 142; William A. Owens, Slave Mutiny (London, 1953).
20. Jas. Badinel in Hutt committee, 1, 256.
21. PP, 1865, vol. v, 165, 171.
22. T. R. H. Thomson to Hutt committee, 1, 397.
23. Log of Fantôme in PRO Adm 51/3718, nos. 7-10, Oct. 31, 1839-Oct. 20, 1834; Memoirs of Sir W. Symonds, ed. J. A. Sharp (London, 1858), 651.
24. Hudson cit. Mathieson [31, 8], 199.
25. Ward [29, 6], 122.
26. Nautical Magazine 1834, 649, qu. Lloyd [29, 47], 77-78.
27. Ward [29, 6], 116.
28. Summarized in Lloyd [9, 47], 87-88.
29. Hutt committee, 1, 168.
30. Commons select committee, 1850, 108.
31. Lords select committee, 1843, 168.
32. Lords select committee, 1843, 770.
33. Lords select committee, 1843, 283.
34. Canot [32, 12], 107.
35. Gladstone in Hutt committee, 1, 212.
36. Canot [32, 12], 107.
37. These figures derive from Howard [33, 6] but the most interesting calculations of cost and profit in the trade in the nineteenth century are those of Eltis [32, 5], appendix E, but see also E. Philip Le Veen, British Slave Trade Suppression Policies (New York, 1977).
38. Hutt committee, II, 57.
39. Drake [19, 25], 92.
40. Crawford to Russell, Feb. 5, 1861, in FO 84, 1135, 20 v. The last estimate here is that of Howard [33, 6].
41. Hutt committee, II, 13.
34. CAN WE RESIST THE TORRENT? I THINK NOT
1. Spears [28, 19], 155.
2. Mason to Skinner, in Lawrence Cabot Howard, American Involvement in Africa South of the Sahara (Garland, 1989), 118.
3. Horatio Bridge, Journal of an African Cruiser, ed. Nathaniel Hawthorne (Boston, 1845), 53.
4. See Palmerston’s evidence in Hutt committee, II, 6-7.
5. Foote [32, 41], 218.
6. Qu. Bethell [29, 23], 245.
7. Ibid., 270.
8. PP, vol. 49 (1845) 593-633, gave a list of 2, 185 slave voyages. David Eltis, in Henry Gemery and Jan Hogedorn, ed., The Uncommon Market (New York, 1979), pointed out that the Foreign Office had record of another 914 probable expeditions.
9. T. Nelson, Remarks on Slavery and the Slave Trade (London, 1846).
10. Wise despatch, Feb. 18, 1845, XIII, qu. L. F. Hill, Diplomatic Relations Between the United States and Brazil (Durham, N.C., 1932), 114.
11. Qu. Bethell [29, 23], 289.
12. House Exec. Doc., 30 Cong., 2 sess., VII, no. 61, 18.
13. Freyre [8, 8], 429.
14. Rodrigues [14, 14], 186.
15. Qu. Bethell [29, 23], 290.
16. PD, 3rd ser., vol. 93, col. 1000 (June 24, 1845); PP, 1847-48, xxii, appendix.
17. PD, 3d ser., vol. 96, col. 1096 (Feb. 22, 1848): the figures are for 1843. Cf. A. K. Manchester, British Pre-eminence in Brazil (Chapel Hill, 1933), 315.
18. PD, 3d ser., vol. 77, col. 1290.
19. PD, 3d ser., vol. 96, col. 41.
20. Bethell [29, 23], 297.
21. PD, 3d ser., vol. 109, 1160-70.
22. David Brion Davis, Slavery and Human Progress (New York, 1984), xviii.
23. PD, 3d. ser. vol. 93, col.
1076, July 16, 1844.
24. See Hutt committee, II, 123.
25. House of Commons, Accounts and papers, Slave Trade, 22, session Feb. 4-Aug. 9, 1845, vol. xlix.
26. PD, 3d ser., vol. 109, 1850, col. 1093.
27. Op. cit., col. 1185.
28. Dunlop evidence in Lords select committee 1850, 135ff.
29. A partial list of British agents, which included at least one foreign minister (Caetano Mario Lopes Gama, and one vice president of the parliament, Leopoldo Muniz Barreto, can be seen in Eltis [32, 5], 115. Alcofarado was still being paid an allowance by the British in 1860: see his letter of March 9, 1860, to Lord Palmerston requesting the continuance of this stipend, where he says that he had by then worked for Britain for twenty years. He says the proof of this is not only in the archives of the Foreign Office, but also in “the personal knowledge which your lordship possesses of such services” (FO 84/1130, f. 79). In Palmerston’s papers now in the University of Southampton there are receipts for secret service payments though they do not indicate what the services were.
30. Schomberg’s evidence in Lords select committee, 1853, 58ff; letter from Under Secretary of the Foreign Office to Admiralty, April 22, 1850, published in Commons select committee, 1853, 60.
31. Qu. Rodrigues [14, 14], 170.
32. Rodrigues [14, 14], 190-92.
33. Verger [13, 27], 437.
34. Ashley [31, 1], II, 263-64.
35. David A. Ross, “The Career of Domingo Martinez,” JAH VI, 1, 1965.
35. THEY ALL EAGERLY DESIRE IT, PROTECT IT AND ALMOST SANCTIFY IT
1. Murray [29, 4], 167.
2. Aberdeen to Bulmer in BM Add. Mss. 43146 f. 343.
3. Qu. Corwin [31, 20], 82.
4. Murray [29, 4], 202.
5. Irving to Calhoun, April 23, 1844, in William Ray Manning, Diplomatic Correspondence (Washington, D.C., 1925), vol. XI, 339.
6. Webster [31, 9], 462.
7. Pío Baroja, Los Pilotos de Altura (Madrid, 1995), 247.
8. H. Vidal Morales, Iniciadores y primeros martires (Havana, 1916), 1, 165.
9. Qu. Murray [29, 4], 227.
10. Qu. Murray [29, 4], 230.
11. PRO Russell to Howden in FO 84/871, Jan. 31, 1853.
12. Qu. Murray [29, 4], 250.
13. Manning [35, 5], 789.
14. Qu. David Potter, The Impending Crisis (New York, 1976), 182, fn. 15.
15. Amos Ettinger, The Mission to Spain of Pierre Soulé (London, 1932), 390-412.
16. Murray [29, 4], 244.
17. Consul Crawford in Havana in evidence of Capt. Hamilton in Lords select committee, 1853, 19.
18. Lords select committee, 1843, 457.
19. North American Review, Nov. 1886, 447 ff.
20. James and Patience Barnes, Private and Confidential (Selinsgrove, 1992), 165.
21. Ward [29, 6], 318.
22. Wise to the secretary of the Admiralty, October 28, 1858, in BFSP 1859-60, 763-65.
23. Ward [29, 6].
24. PD, 3d ser., vol. 186, col. 1492-1501 (1857).
25. Ward [29, 6].
26. Soulsby [28, 34], 168.
27. Ronald Takaki, A Pro-slavery Crusade: The Agitation to Reopen the African Slave Trade (New York, 1971).
28. Samuel Eliot Morison, The Oxford History of the American People (New York, 1966).
29. Letter of Charles Lamar to Trowbridge in North American Review, Nov. 1886, 456.
30. Barnes [326, 20], 209.
36. CUBA THE FORWARD SENTINEL
1. Corwin [31, 20], 127; Soulsby [28, 34], 159.
2. Corwin [31, 20], 128 fd 67.
3. Cass to Dallas in London qu. Soulsby [28, 34], 155.
4. Report of the secretary of the navy, 1860, 9.
5. Friends’ appeal on behalf of the coloured races, 1858.
6. Howard [33, 6], 302.
7. Continental Monthly, January 1862, 87.
8. Frederick C. Blake, ed., Secret History of the Slave Trade to Cuba . . . JNH LV, no. 3, 1970, 229.
9. Wilson letter to Lord John Russell, Sept. 12, 1860 in PRO, FO 84/1130, f. 85. Wilson, who had spent twenty-seven years in Havana, thought Spaniards were “similar to Moors.”
10. PRO, Crawford to Palmerston in FO 84/1135 of February 5, 1861 (f. 14). Crawford complained that some slave merchants had even been ennobled. The calculation in chapter 33, fn 40, appears in this essay.
11. PD, 3d ser., 1861, vol. 161, cols. 950-89.
12. Lloyd, [29, 41], 69.
13. FO 84/1150, October 5, 1861.
14. C. F. Adams Jr., Life of C. F. Adams (Boston, 1900), 241.
15. Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams (New York, 1918), 56.
16. Sir Richard Burton, ed., A Mission to Gelele King of Dahomey (London, 1966).
17. FO 84/1135, 21. An official wrote on April 20, 1860: “if it should be considered advisable to take possession of the place, no consideration founded on the insalubrity of the climate should be allowed to have any weight.”
18. Murray [29, 4], 311.
19. Antonio Barras y Prado, La Habana a mediados del siglo xix (Madrid, 1925), 52.
20. Diario del Congreso, 1864-65, May 6, 1865.
21. Corwin [311, 20].
22. Diario del Congreso, 1865-66, April 20, 1866.
23. Diario del Senado, 1865-66, April 20, 1866.
24. New York Times, April 3, 1866.
25. Franco [28, 20], 256.
26. These calculations derive from Eltis [32, 5], 97-101.
APPENDIX 3. STATISTICS
For many years, it was supposed that the Atlantic slave trade was of the order of 15 million persons shipped between the fifteenth and the nineteenth century. Historians, journalists, even demographers (such as Kuczynski) based their theories on this statistic. In one of the most brilliant chapters of recent historical writing, Philip Curtin, in his admirable work The Atlantic Slave Trade, A Census (Madison, 1969) showed that that estimate was based on a nineteenth-century guess. Curtin made a more modest estimate. A serious, though neglected, estimate of the dimension of the African slave trade had been made in 1950 by Noël Deerr, in his History of Sugar, 2 vols. (London, 1950): on the basis of an analysis country by country, Deerr suggested a figure of about 11, 970, 000 might be right (Vol. II, 284). Curtin also looked meticulously at estimates for different countries and suggested that the total might be lower: about 10 million, certainly not less than 8 million, probably not more than 10, 500, 000: say, 9, 566, 100 (The Atlantic Slave Trade, 268).
But Joseph Inikori in 1975 suggested that the old guess of 15 million—15.4 million was his estimate—might be nearer the truth than Curtin’s figure: he repeated his suggestion in 1982 (Forced Migration [London, 1982], 13-60; also, Inikori, D. C. Ohadikhe, and A. C. Unomah, The Chaining of a Continent [UNESCO, Paris, 1986]). But a year earlier, in 1981, James Rawley, in a general survey, put the figure at 11, 345, 000 (The Transatlantic Slave Trade [New York, 1981], 428). After a careful new look at the evidence (for after 1700 only, however), Paul Lovejoy suggested in 1982 that 11, 698, 000 slaves might have been sent from Africa, of whom perhaps 9, 778, 500 may have arrived (“The Volume of the Atlantic Slave Trade: A Synthesis,” JAH 23). Then, Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch talked in terms of 11.7 million, between 1450 and 1900 (in Daget’s Actes du colloque internationale sur la traite des noirs, vol. 2 [Nantes, 1985], 58). In 1989, a further revision was suggested by David Richardson, the historian of the Bristol trade (“Slave Exports from West and West-central Africa,” JAH 30) and, later that same year, Paul Lovejoy provided yet another figure of 11, 863, 000 (“The Impact of the Slave Trade on Africa . . . ,” JAH 30 [1989]). David Henige (“Measuring the Unmeasurable,” JAH 27 [1986]), and Charles Becker (“Notes sur les chiffres de la traite atlantique française au dixhuitième siècle,” Cahiers d’études africaines 26, 633-79) have also made overall estimates. The historian of La Rochelle, Jean-Michel Déveaux, in 1994 gave his total as 11, 500, 000 (France au temps des négrier [Paris, 1994]).
> The diversity of these estimates is explained by the fact that some of Curtin’s detailed country-by-country estimates, especially by his own admission those in the Spanish Empire, were full of uncertainties. Even on something so apparently important as the number of slaves imported illegally into the United States after the abolition of the trade in 1808, he was rather general; and he would, I think, now question his own suggestion that evidence that 54, 000 slaves were imported illegally into the United States after abolition: 5, 000 might now seem to him a good guess. Curtin, like most of his successors in seeking a grand total, had been understandably baffled as to how to face the vast Portuguese-Brazilian slave traffic.
Inikori’s criticisms of Curtin were based on the judgment, echoing Leslie Rout (The African Experience in Spanish America [Cambridge, 1976], 65), that Curtin underestimated both the illegal Cuban and Brazilian trades in the nineteenth century; and these figures are certainly difficult to decide upon. Similar corrections have been made by Enriqueta Vila Vilar in respect of the contraband Spanish deliveries in the early seventeenth century (Hispanoamerica y el comercio de esclavos [Seville, 1977]). Magalhães-Godinho (Os Descobrimentos e a economia mondial [Lisbon, 1963]) like C. L. R. Boxer (The Portuguese Seaborne Empire [London, 1963]) would double Curtin’s figures for 1440 to 1500. There are other such revisions to be considered, especially in relation to the hard-to-estimate Cuban figures of the 1850s.
In 1999, it appears that the Dubois Institute of Harvard will present a so-called “Data set” which will record about 27, 000 slave voyages, which, it is said, will cover 90 percent of British, French, and Dutch slave ships, and “more than two thirds of the total.” That suggests that that total must have been about 40, 000. That may turn out to be an underestimate—50, 000 may be nearer the mark.
The attempt by many meticulous historians to decide figures to the last digit in a number is a vain one. I am not even sure that it is necessary. I prefer to think that the approximate figure would seem to be something like eleven million slaves, give or take 500, 000.
INDEX
Abbot, Reverend, 644
Abd ar-Rahman 1, 39
Abd ar-Rahman III, 37, 39
Aberdeen, George Gordon, fourth earl of, 669, 671, 699, 730, 735, 741, 749