by Tom Grundner
“And now, I have no idea. I am stuck on these ships, a half-baked, self-taught, surgeon. If I ever get off... I don’t know. I hear there are a lot of colleges being built in the south and maybe they’ll be far enough away from the dean’s wife so even I can get a job at one.”
“I am so sorry, Lucas,” she said as she took his arm. She wasn’t sure she completely understood everything he said, but he had taken her into his confidence, and she was moved.
* * *
“If I wasn’t a gunner I wouldn’t be here. Number two gun, FIRE!
“Away from my home and my family so dear. Number three gun, FIRE!
“If I wasn’t a gunner I wouldn’t be here. Number four gun, FIRE!”
The Tisiphone had rounded the point leading into English Harbor and was firing its salute to the governor. It was an old tradition, designed originally to show that an incoming vessel’s guns were now unloaded and it meant no harm, but later used simply as a sign of respect. To reduce the waste of gunpowder the admiralty limited the maximum salute to 21 guns—and that only for royalty. Because the Governor of Antigua was the equivalent of a senior Rear Admiral, the Tisiphone was firing 13 guns at five-second intervals. To achieve that exact interval the gunner’s mate was using the time-honored chant: “If I wasn’t a gunner I wouldn’t be here.” Fort Berkeley, which they were now passing on their larboard side, replied with seven-guns. Technically Saumarez, as a mere captain, didn’t rate a salute at all, but seven was given as a courtesy.
In 1782, the Caribbean was still being carved up by the major powers. Spain had taken control of the four major islands Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico, and disdained the lesser islands. France and England, however, knew that these “lesser” islands controlled the southern and eastern sea routes to the Caribbean and a mad scramble was on for what was called the Lesser Antilles.
The Lesser Antilles runs in a long crescent from the Virgin Islands, off the coast of Puerto Rico in the north, to Trinidad and Tobago off the coast of South America. It consists of over 25 significant islands and no one knew how many smaller ones. The French started things off by conning the indigenous people, called Caribs, out of Martinique and Guadeloupe, the largest islands in the chain. The British then simply took Barbados, St. Kitts, Nevis, Antigua and Montserrat.
The French quickly established their main base of operations in Martinique and built a very large facility at Port Royal. The British, however, were less lucky. Originally, they wanted Barbados to be their Caribbean base but there was no bay suitable for their large ships of the line; so, their second choice was Antigua.
Geographically Antigua was further north and further leeward than they wanted but it had the advantage of English Harbor, a lovely natural bay. It was here that in 1725 the British built the English Bay Dockyard. A deep drafted ship could easily come in, be careened (laid on it’s side) and worked on. Smaller ships could be repaired either there or in Frigate Bay on St. Kitts.
The main thing was that all these islands, French and British alike, were windward of the Spanish possessions. The Antilles is subject to a ferocious continual wind from the east, the kind of thing that causes trees to grow bent over to leeward. It was said that the downwind trip from Antigua to Jamaica would take seven days; and the upwind trip back could easily take three weeks or more. Any Spanish ship coming out of the Caribbean had to tack against those winds; the British and French ships did not. They would have the wind at their backs.
The Tisiphone sailed past Fort Berkeley and dropped anchor across from the dockyard where the harbormaster came out to greet them. The Governor, Sir Thomas Shirley, was across the bay supervising the building of additional fortifications for the harbor and they would have to trek up a small mountain to meet with him. Captain Saumarez took Smith and Walker with him in case the governor had any questions concerning the presence of the prince.
“Have either of you ever met Governor Shirley?” Saumarez asked when they were almost there. Both replied in the negative.
“Then you’re in for a real experience,” Saumarez said cryptically.
“Ah, my good friend Captain Saumarez!”
They found the governor sitting underneath a canopy wiping his brow with a cold cloth and sipping some kind of fruit beverage. He was a thin, nervous man, the kind who always seemed to be in a hurry while, at the same time, not actually doing much of anything.
“I saw the Tisiphone come in and remembered you from your last visit. Please, sit down, all of you. Sit down.” He waved with irritation at a black steward who immediately produced three more chairs.
“Thank you, sir. I’d like to introduce Lieutenant…”
“So, have you been assigned to us,” Shirley inquired?
“Well, no sir, you see…”
“Quite. Quite. But we could certainly use a good man such as you. I tell you; these are dangerous times, Saumarez. Dangerous times. As soon as I heard of our defeat at Yorktown, I started work on this fort up here. Oh, Fort Berkeley is all right; but we need more than that. More, Saumarez! What with America lost, the damn frogs are going to go into a feeding frenzy down here. De Grasse already is around here somewhere loaded to the gunnels with troops and supplies to take Jamaica, I’ll wager. I am thinking of calling it Fort Shirley, Saumarez. What do you think? Has a nice ring, what?”
“Yes sir, it certainly seems to…”
“And what do you think they give me to stop them? I have five officers and 300 slaves. Five officers! Can you imagine? And look at those blacks out there, each one works slower than the one next to him.”
Smith looked around as Governor Shirley had suggested. They were on the heights overlooking English Harbor and the view was breathtaking. The lush green vegetation of the hilly island ran down to the sparkling blue of the ocean. Below, he could see the Tisiphone at anchor and not far away a hillside that had been blasted away to create the careening area, with warehouses and storage areas behind and to the right.
Smith looked to his left and could see a small army of black figures toiling away, cutting and placing the rocks that would eventually make up the fort’s walls. To his right and behind him, however, was the real reason for the importance of this and every other island in the chain. There were sugar cane fields as far as he could see. White gold.
Antigua’s development was typical of that of the other islands in the Lesser Antilles. It was founded in 1632 by a group of English colonists from St. Kitts. Their intention was to start some plantations to grow tobacco, ginger, indigo, and sugar; but, of these crops, only sugar did well.
The problem was that sugar was a very labor-intensive crop. At first, they used native Indians and even whites as slaves, but the Indians tended to succumb to disease too easily and the whites could not take either the diseases or the climate. That left African blacks as their only source of cheap labor. Both the blacks and the sugar cane seemed to thrive.
Smith refocused his attention when he heard Saumarez speaking again.
“Yes, sir. That is a most difficult situation. But my main reason for being here is that I am looking for Admiral Hood.”
“Hood? Hood, you say? Hood is a great sailor, no doubt; but he can’t do it alone. He was in here a few days ago. You just missed him. His ships are a mess, I tell you. He took on water and victuals, but we didn’t have much in the way of bread to give him so we had to give him breadfruit and yams.
“I tell you, Saumarez, these are hard times. Hood’s ships look like something the cat wouldn’t have. The men are tired, most of his ships are rickety, and he’s short just about everything you can think of—food, water, rope, sail-cloth, spars—you name it.
“Hard times, Saumarez. Hard times and dangerous ones too.”
“Sir, do you know where the admiral might be right now?” Saumarez pressed.
“Last I heard he’s around St. Kitts, although what the devil he’s doing there I have no idea. Can you come tonight for dinner, Saumarez? You and your young gentlemen?”
&
nbsp; The very last thing Saumarez wanted to do was to spend dinner with this bureaucratic boob, but he couldn’t think of a way to avoid it.
“Yes, sir, we’d be delighted,” he said with a smile.
“Jolly good. I’ll see you about 8:00 then. My residence.”
* * *
It was a long walk back down the hill. They followed what was once probably a goat track that had been expanded into a crude dirt road in order to build the fort.
“Captain, can I ask you a question about what I just saw?” Smith asked.
“Certainly.”
“Those slaves. It’s the first time I’ve seen any.”
“Well, if you get posted to the West Indies, it won’t be your last.”
“I know, sir, but… well… Sir Shirley was complaining because he had only five officers to handle over 300 slaves. 300 to 5? Why don’t the slaves just revolt and take over the place?”
Saumarez gave a quick laugh. “They do. There have been dozens of slave revolts in these islands. They always loose.”
“Why?”
“Mostly because of lack of leadership. And when a genuine leader does arise, he’s quickly dealt with.
“Take here in Antigua, for example. They had a revolt back in ‘36 lead by a black named ‘Prince Klaas.’ They caught him, broke him on the wheel, hung six others and burned 77 of his followers alive.”
“Broke him on the wheel?”
“Yes, and if you can avoid seeing that happen I’d recommend you do so.
“Basically the person is tied, spread eagled, on the ground with pieces of wood placed under his wrists, elbows, ankles, knees and hips. The executioner then slams a large hammer or iron bar down on the wood blocks smashing each limb in several places and all the major joints—including the shoulders and hips.
“At this point the victim has been transformed into a howling puppet with four tentacles instead of arms and legs. He is then lifted up, his arms and legs are threaded through the spokes of the wheel, and the wheel is lifted to the top of a pole where he is left both to the crows and to his maker.
“Now, after seeing that, how eager would YOU be to become the next black leader?”
Walker could contain himself no longer. “I am sorry, sir, but that’s simply revolting. I cannot understand how someone could do that, or countenance it, and still call himself civilized. I can’t understand how anyone can tolerate slavery. I mean stealing human beings—kidnapping them. Forcing them aboard ships where half of them die in transit. And then selling them, for God’s sake.”
“Are you a tea drinker, Mr. Walker?”
Walker was puzzled by the question. “Yes, sir. I prefer coffee, but I do have tea.”
“Do you take sugar in it?”
“Yes, but I fail to see how…” And suddenly Walker understood the relevance of the question and, more than that, his personal tie to slavery.
“Believe me, I understand and, personally, I sympathize with your feelings, but I am afraid you are lacking some understanding. For example: Where do you think those slaves come from, Mr. Walker?”
“Where do they come from? Why, they’re captured in Africa by whites and forced into slavery.”
Saumarez started laughing. “No, sir. Not in a thousand years. Did you ever hear the rhyme:
Beware beware, the Bight of Benin:
One comes out, where fifty went in!
A white man would not last an hour in those jungles. If you didn’t die from the bite of some hideous snake or insect; if you didn’t contract some deadly disease from the miasma; then the blacks would have a poison tipped arrow in your back faster than you can say: Jack Sprat.
“Those people are sold to the whites by other blacks. So, what do you think those people were they before they were sold?”
“Slaves?” Walker asked.
“Right you are, Mr. Walker. Mostly they are prisoners of war or political enemies of a chief who, instead of torturing them to death for amusement, sold them to the white men.
“I personally once saw two chieftains arrive at the same time at Whydah with strings of slaves in tow. They had just finished two months of warring with each other and each had many of the other chief’s warriors and women on his string. What do you think they did? Exchange prisoners so they could have tearful reunions with their families? Hell no. The two chiefs slapped each other on the back, threw a big feast, and sold every last one of them to the white men.
“Even if that were the case, captain, it still doesn’t justify the inhuman conditions aboard those slave ships.”
“I quite agree. Those ships are awful. They’re designed to transport as much human cargo as they will hold; and they certainly are not designed to maximize the comfort of that cargo. They need speed and they need carrying capacity. That’s all.”
“Yes, sir. That’s what I am saying. How can anyone justify those death ships?”
“Death ships? Let me ask you: Do you suppose the owners of those ships know, on any given trip, how many slaves were purchased in Africa?”
“Certainly. There would have to be an accounting of the money spent.”
“And do you suppose they know how many were gotten to the West Indies and America and sold?”
“Yes sir, they’d have to. Again, there would have to be an accounting.”
“Exactly. Every slave represents money that a slaver has invested in his or her purchase. Every slave that does not make it to market represents a loss of forty to sixty pounds just as sure as if you threw the money overboard. Given that, what do you think would happen to the captain who looses large numbers of slaves in transit?”
Walker said nothing.
“Exactly. Not only would the captain himself have a lesser share of the profits but he would probably find himself on the beach and unable to ever get another ship. Do you think that doesn’t cross their minds?”
Smith finally decided to re-enter the discussion. “But, sir. Those people are still slaves. They’ve lost their freedom.”
“Indeed. So let’s say you are commanding a ship some day, lieutenant, and you capture a slaver. What do you do with those slaves?”
“I believe the policy is to drop them off at the nearest point of habitable land.”
“That’s correct. And, do you ever wonder what happens to them after that?”
“No, sir. I’ve never thought about it.”
“I have.
“When I was a young third lieutenant on the Topaz… about your age, as a matter of fact… we captured a slaver off the Bight of Biafra. We put them ashore in Sierra Leone and told them to go till a plot of land and have a good life.
“Now keep in mind, these were all slaves from the interior. They spoke different languages, had different dietary needs, carried old tribal hatreds for each other, and had no idea how to till a plot of land. They didn’t even know what we were talking about.
“When we came back a month later every one of them was either dead—killed by each other’s hand—or run off into the jungle where they probably died.
“Did we do them a favor, lieutenant?”
Smith said nothing.
“Mr. Walker, you have slavery in the American south do you not?”
“Yes sir, we do”
“All right, let’s take two men. One is transported to the southern United States or England as a slave, the other remains in Africa. Now, you know and I know that slavery can’t last forever. So run the clock out, let’s say, 200 years or so. Which person’s ancestors will be most likely to be living well?”
Walker was silent for a moment. He had never thought about the matter in quite this way. He finally replied: “But, Mr. Smith is still right, sir. If they were returned to Africa, at least they would be free,” said Walker.
“Free? Free like whom, Mr. Walker? Free like the white man?
“Let’s clarify what we’re talking about here. I once saw a ship in which upwards of 600 men and women were confined below decks in heavy shackles, most of them doub
le ironed. They lived in miserable filth, Mr. Walker, with vermin their constant companion; and no amount of moaning or pleading would help them one bit. They eagerly ate food that would make you or me sick just looking at it. Their keepers were of the lowest class of human beings, devoid of all feelings, ignorant, inherently brutal, and made tyrannical by the power they had. Is that what we are talking about?”
“Yes, sir. The slave ship.”
“No, Mr. Walker. What I just described was a prison hulk—there are about a dozen of them operating in England right now. It’s where we throw our own people, not just for weeks, but for years—even decades—and for as little as stealing a handkerchief.