12. Martinez, Slave Trade, 50–51.
13. Ibid., 3–35.
14. Ibid., 52.
15. Message from the President of the United States, to Both Houses of Congress, at the Commencement of the Second Session of the Eighteenth Congress, 7 December 1824, 18th Cong. 2nd Secession.
16. The Treaty Between the Republic of Texas and Great Britain for the Suppression of the African Slave Trade was proclaimed by the president of the republic on September 16, 1842.
17. Taylor, The Internal Enemy, 349.
18. For a review of the most unsuccessful slave revolt in American history, see Daniel Rasmussen, American Uprising: The Untold Story of America’s Largest Slave Revolt (New York: HarperCollins, 2011). This deals with the 1811 uprising by 500 slaves around New Orleans. It resulted in disaster for all.
19. The only book that is devoted exclusively to the mutiny itself seems to be: George and Willene Hendrick, The Creole Mutiny: A Tale of Revolt Aboard a Slave Ship (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2003). See also an article by Edward D. Jervey and C. Harold Huber in the Journal of Negro History 65, no. 3 (Summer 1980), “The Creole Affair.” For a similar treatment, see Maggie Montesinos Sale, The Slumbering Volcano: American Slave Ship Revolts and the Production of Rebellious Masculinity (Durham: Duke University Press, 1997). For more of a diplomatic and political history, see Howard Jones, To the Webster-Ashburton Treaty: A Study in Anglo-American Relations, 1783–1843 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977).
20. During America’s first century (1789 to 1889), there were twenty-three presidents, of whom seventeen were lawyers; in the last century (1913 to 2013), the trend is reversed: there have been twenty presidents, but only nine of those were lawyers. Similarly, lawyers dominated the early Congress; for example, in the 30th Congress (1847–1849) in which Lincoln served, 74 percent of the members were lawyers. In contrast, in the 112th Congress law was the third-leading occupation.
Dramatis Personae
On board the Creole
Robert Ensor, captain
Zephaniah C. Gifford, first mate
Lucius Stevens, second mate
John R. Hewell, agent for slave trader McCargo
William H. Merritt, one of the slaves’ guards
Theophilus McCargo, nephew of slave trader
Mrs. Ensor, her daughter, and her niece
Six other crew members and one other passenger
Rebellious slaves: Madison Washington, Elijah Morris, Ben Johnstone, Pompey Garrison, and fifteen other slaves
In Nassau
John F. Bacon, American consul (1840–1842 and 1845–1850)
Timothy Darling, American consul (1842–1845)
William Woodside, master of the American brig Congress
Sir Francis Cockburn, governor general (1837–1844)
George Campbell Anderson, attorney general of the Bahamas
In Washington
Andrew Jackson, president (1829–1837)
Martin van Buren, president (1837–1842)
William Henry Harrison, president (1842)
John Tyler, president (1841–1846)
John Forsyth, secretary of state (1834–1841)
Daniel Webster, secretary of state (1841–1843)
Hugh S. Legare, attorney general (1841–1843)
John Quincy Adams, congressman from Massachusetts (1831–1848) and president (1825–1829)
Joshua Reed Giddings, congressman from Ohio (1838–1859)
Henry A. Wise, congressman from Virginia (1833–1844)
Henry Clay, senator from Kentucky and Whig leader
John C. Calhoun, senator from South Carolina and former vice president
Roger B. Taney, chief justice (1836–1864)
Joseph Story, Supreme Court justice (1811–1845)
Winfield Scott, general, US Army (1814–1861)
Henry S. Fox, British minister to the United States (1836–1843)
Alexander Baring, Lord Ashburton, special British envoy (1842)
In London
William Lamb, Viscount Melbourne, prime minister (1834–1941)
Sir Robert Peel, prime minister (1834–1835 and 1841–1846)
Lord Palmerston, secretary of state for foreign affairs (1839–1841)
Lord Aberdeen, secretary of state for foreign affairs (1841–1846) and prime minister (1852–1855)
Lord John Russell, secretary of state for war and colonies (1839–1841) and prime minister (1846–1852 and 1865–1866)
Lord Stanley, secretary of state for war and colonies (1841–1845)
Martin Van Buren, American minister (1831–1832)
Andrew Stevenson, American minister (1836–1841)
Edward Everett, American minister (1841–1845)
Joshua Bates, umpire of the US-UK Claims Commission (1853–1855)
In the United States
Charles Dickens, English author and visitor to the United States (1842 and 1867–1868)
Judah P. Benjamin, Louisiana attorney (1845)
Frederick Douglass, former slave and author of The Heroic Slave (1853)
The Rebellion
In late October 1841, the two-masted brig,[1] the Creole, lay at the dock in Richmond, Virginia’s capital, as tobacco, supplies, and slaves were brought on board. The ship had been built only a year or so earlier and was owned by Johnson & Eperson of Richmond. Before loading, the slaves had been kept at a slave pen in Richmond. A slave described a Richmond slave pen where he had been held six months earlier:
[T]here were two small houses standing at opposite corners within the yard. These houses are usually found within slave yards, being used as rooms for the examination of human chattels by purchasers before concluding a bargain. Unsoundness in a slave, as well as in a horse, detracts materially from his value. If no warranty is given, a close examination is a matter of particular importance to the negro jockey.[2]
At midnight, October 25, the Creole slipped away from the dock to begin her voyage to New Orleans under the command of Captain Robert Ensor of Richmond. His wife and their four-year-old daughter were on board, along with Ensor’s fifteen-year-old niece. The crew was composed of a first mate, Zephaniah C. Gifford, who had been a seaman for thirteen years, and second mate, Lucius Stevens, and six crewmen. There were also four “passengers”: (1) William H. Merritt, who had agreed to serve as a guard in exchange for free passage to New Orleans; (2) John Hewell, of Richmond, acting as a guard for the thirty-nine slaves owned by the local slave trader, Thomas McCargo; (3) Theophilus McCargo, a nephew of Thomas McCargo; and finally (4) Joseph Leitner (or Leidner), a Prussian acting as an assistant steward in exchange for passage. Thus, there were a total of sixteen nonslave crew and passengers. They were probably looking forward to leaving the chilled fall weather in Virginia, getting comfortable on the voyage in the warm Gulf Stream, and then basking in the relative heat of Louisiana.
As the ship sailed down the James River, the captain stopped a couple of times to pick up additional slaves. The brig passed Jamestown on the port side, where, in 1607, 102 men and boys landed and established the first English settlement in North America. Twelve years later, the first slaves were introduced: a British privateer had captured a Portuguese slave ship en route from Angola in southwest Africa, and it brought some twenty slaves to Jamestown, where they were traded for supplies.[3]
On October 29, the Creole finally transited the 110 miles from Richmond to Hampton Roads, where it lay over for one day and put additional slaves on board. The ship was close to Fort Monroe, the largest stone fort ever built in the United States, finally completed only seven years earlier. It was President Madison who, after the War of 1812, realized that the area needed to be protected from attack by the British, or any other sea power.[4] During the August 1831 Nat Turner slave rebellion in nearby Southampton County, Virginia, three companies were sent from Fort Monroe to thwart the rebellion.[5] Exactly thirty years later, during the first few months of the Civil War, Union General Ben Butler freed three Virginia slav
es at Fort Monroe, claiming them as “contraband,” almost three years before the Emancipation Proclamation. The Creole left Hampton Roads, Virginia, on October 30.
By the time the brig transited the Chesapeake Bay and entered the Atlantic Ocean, there were 135 slaves on board, about one-third of whom were women.[6] The male slaves were put in the forward hold, and the women slaves in the aft hold (except for six female “house servants” who were taken into the main cabin). In between the two holds were boxes of tobacco—the nonhuman cargo. The slaves were not chained or restrained, and could move about freely, although at night the men were not permitted to go into the women’s aft hold. If they did, the ship’s rule was that the men would be whipped. Undoubtedly, none of these slaves were looking forward to their arrival in New Orleans, and then their horrible—and short—life in a harsh climate on the large plantations.
Fig. B.1. A portion of the Manifest of the Creole, listing information about the slaves on board. Madison Washington appears at entry #24 (three lines below the crossed out entry), indicating his sex (male), age (22), height (5’ 9 1/2”) and color (black). Courtesy of the National Archives at Fort Worth, Texas
The head slave cook was Madison Washington.[7] He and his slave assistants were responsible for cooking the salt pork and salt beef, and for the boiling of “coffee” made from parched grain. Twice a day, he supervised the distribution to the slaves of hardtack and other food. Thomas McCargo, a local slave trader in Richmond, had bought Washington.[8] McCargo’s business was to buy slaves in Virginia, where there was an oversupply, and then, during the winter, move his “property” to the slave markets of New Orleans, where slaves were in demand for the cotton and sugar plantations, in time to get slaves in place for the coming planting season. McCargo shipped thirty-nine slaves on board the Creole; he insured them for about $800 each. While McCargo did not make this voyage himself, as he sometimes did, he sent an agent, John Hewell, to watch out for his interests and to guard his thirty-nine slaves. McCargo also sent his young nephew, Theophilus McCargo, on board the Creole.
Madison Washington had the lead role in planning a revolt. It is highly likely that he and the several other slave leaders had heard through the slave grapevine of earlier slave ships getting wrecked on some of the Caribbean Islands, and the slaves on board being liberated by the British. Washington’s position as chief slave cook gave him a marvelous opportunity to speak to each of the slaves—to observe those whom he might try to recruit to his plan to revolt—and also to observe personalities and routines of the officers, crew, and guards. From that observation post, he may have been hatching a plot to take control of the ship.
The Creole sailed south, along the coast of the United States, heading toward Florida and eventually westward to New Orleans. On the night of November 7, 1841, the Creole was almost 200 miles northeast of Miami, about 130 miles northeast from the hamlet of Hole-in-the-Wall at the southern tip of the island of Abaco in the northern Bahamas, a British colony consisting of twenty-nine islands. At about 8:00 p.m., Captain Ensor ordered the ship to heave to.[9] Most of the people on board had turned in for the night, with the comfortable slow rocking movement of the ship in the warm waters of the Gulf Stream. The ship was dark, except for a lantern at the bow. The first mate, Zephaniah Gifford, was on watch duty.
One of the slaves, Elijah Morris, came forward to tell First Mate Gifford that one of the male slaves had gone aft into the female slave hold. Gifford called one of the guards (William Merritt), lit a lamp, and told Merritt to go down into the aft hold to see what was going on. Gifford remained at the hatch. Merritt suddenly found twenty-two-year-old Madison Washington, a large (five feet, nine inches) and strong slave belonging to Thomas McCargo, standing at his back. Washington jumped out of the hold; both Gifford and Merritt tried to hold him back, but Washington ran forward. Elijah Morris suddenly appeared with a pistol and fired it at Gifford, grazing the back of Gifford’s head. Washington shouted at the male slaves in the forward hold: “We have commenced, and must go through; rush boys, rush aft; we have got them now. Come up, every damned one of you; if you don’t lend a hand, I will kill you all and throw you overboard.”[10]
Gifford rushed to the main cabin to arouse the captain and the others. The slaves ran aft and surrounded the main cabin. In the meantime, Merritt came on deck from out of the aft hold and was caught by one of the slaves, who shouted: “Kill him, God damn him, he’s one of them.” The slave tried to hit him with a handspike, but Merritt escaped, ran to his cabin. John Hewell, a “passenger” and McCargo’s agent, grabbed a musket from the second mate’s room and confronted the slaves. Hewell fired it from the companionway, but the gun had no powder and was useless. The slaves then “fell on him with clubs, handspikes and knives; they knocked him down and stabbed him less than twenty times.” Several of the slaves had weapons: Ben Johnstone had the captain’s bowie knife, Washington had a jackknife taken from Hewell, and Morris had a sheath knife belonging to one of the crew that he had taken from the forecastle. Hewell staggered into one of the staterooms, where he died. His body, nearly decapitated, was thrown overboard by order of Madison Washington, Johnstone, and Morris.
Captain Ensor grabbed a bowie knife and ran on deck. The slaves stabbed him and beat him severely, but he managed to climb up to the maintop, where he found temporary safety. (First Mate Gifford later found Captain Ensor passed out, and he lashed the captain to the rigging to prevent him from falling.) The second mate, Stevens, later found his way to the foreroyal yard—the smallest and highest horizontal beam—and joined the captain and first mate. The captain’s wife and the children were not harmed. McCargo’s young nephew, Theophilus McCargo, grabbed his pistols from a case, but they misfired, and he was taken prisoner. It looked as though he was to be killed, but two slaves intervened and pleaded with Elijah Morris and Ben Johnstone not to kill “Master Theo,” and they agreed and sent young McCargo to the hold. The captain’s wife, her child, and her niece begged for their lives. Two of the slave leaders, Elijah Morris and Pompey Garrison, were about to kill the helmsman, who was French. Madison Washington intervened, explaining that the helmsman did not speak English, and Washington told them not to kill him.
William Merritt, who was serving as a guard in exchange for passage, hid for a while, but the slaves finally found him. Elijah Morris and Ben Johnstone dragged him from hiding and, along with others, “surrounded him with knives, half-handspikes, muskets, and pistols, and raised their weapons to kill him.” Just in time, and in desperation, Merritt told his captors that he used to be a mate and that he had enough experience to navigate the ship for them. One of the cabin servants, Mary, urged Madison Washington to intervene. Madison Washington ordered the men to stop threatening Merritt and took him into a stateroom, accompanied by some of the other slave leaders. Washington told Merritt that he wanted the ship to go to Liberia, an area on the west coast of Africa that was being developed as a colony mostly populated by freed American slaves. But Merritt explained that was not feasible, since there was not enough water or provisions on board for the long passage to the African coast. Ben Johnstone and several other slaves said they wanted to go to the British islands, where the Hermosa wrecked the previous year and whose slaves were then freed. Merritt then showed Washington and the others, using the ship’s chart, that he could navigate to the British port of Nassau, where they would be freed. The slaves agreed that they would spare his life if he got the ship to that port.
By 1:00 a.m., the revolt was over. Madison Washington and his mutineers were in control of the Creole. Shouts and threats continued, but there were no more injuries or deaths.
At about 5:00 a.m., one of the slaves informed Merritt that Gifford and the captain were in the rigging. (Gifford had tied the captain in place there, because the vessel was rolling heavily.) The slaves found the captain, Gifford (the first mate), and Stevens (the second mate) hiding in the topsail, and Madison Washington ordered them to get them down on the deck. Ben Johnstone put a musket to Gif
ford’s chest, and Madison Washington threatened to kill him if he would not take them to a British island, as Merritt had promised. They forced Stevens, the second mate, to make the same promise. The captain, under armed guard, was allowed to be treated by his wife. At daybreak, Washington ordered Gifford and Stevens to set sail. The slave leaders maintained a watch on the compass, and ordered that Gifford and Merritt not communicate with anyone, or else they would be thrown overboard.
During the voyage southward, the captain, his family, and the second mate (Stevens) were confined in the forward hold where the male slaves had been kept at night. Two of the five members of the crew who were wounded during the outbreak were kept in the main cabin. The other crew members were not restrained. The nineteen slaves involved in the rebellion moved into the main cabin, where they ate; all the other slaves ate on deck, as usual. The assistant steward, Joseph Leitner, was instructed to hand out the ship’s supply of liquor, whereupon he brought out “four bottles of brandy, a jug of whiskey, and a demijohn of Madeira wine . . . [and the slaves] drank all the brandy, and most of the whiskey and wine.”[11] The slaves opened the trunks of the passengers, and took out money and clothes; some of them put on the new stockings they found, while discarding the old ones. Apart from the nineteen actively involved in the rebellion, the other slaves remained calm and did not associate with the nineteen. As the Creole sailed closer to Nassau, Madison Washington took a pistol from one of the nineteen and said he did not want them to have any arms when they reached Nassau.
The Creole Affair Page 2