Slavery: Not Just Something For The South

Slavery: Not Just Something For The South

Part XIX

Esek Hopkins, the captain, worked on commission and he'd been promised 10 "privilege" slaves to sell himself, 4 more for every 100 he delivered to market plus 5% of the gross sales. He was to take his cargo first, to Barbados, if the market was depressed, try others in the West Indies, or go to the South. (The Browns also ordered Hopkins to set aside, 4 healthy young slaves "about 15 years old" for their own use.)

He reached Africa in mid-November 1764 and got a boy and girl for 156 gallons of rum and a barrel of flour within a few days. But he had trouble finding them after that, and although captains usually tried to escape the coast before hot weather (risk of disease) set in, he lingered until August when he left with about 170 Africans.

The Africans revolted a few days out to sea, and Hopkins' account is terse: "Slaves rose on us was obliged[to] fire on them and destroyed 8 and several more wounded badly 1 thye & one ribs broke." Two wounded Africans died later, but apparently none of his small crew got injured. (He probably still hoped the Sally would turn a profit.) But her cargo perished steadily during Middle Passage and when landing at Antigua, he reported that half his slaves had died. He believed the failed revolt led some to drown themselves in despair & others to starve. The 90 left were described as "very sickly & disordered manner".

The Sally's records was not enough to cover the Browns' investment but they were thankful for Hopkins' safe return. Esek Hopkins went on to command the Continental Navy for a time during the American Revolution.
 
Back to John Brown of famed Brown University ......
 John Brown's real importance as a slave merchant was political.
 
Even though he sponsored only 6 slave voyages (so far as is known) Brown was a shameless advocate for the slave trade. Writing as a "citizen" in a Providence newspaper, he stated that in his opinion, "there was no more crime in bringing off a cargo of slaves than in bringing off a cargo of jackasses." (John Brown, in United States Chronicle, March 26, 1789.)

Later, in 1800, while defending the trade in Congress, he further revealed his pragmatism. He stated that United States citizens had as much right as Europeans to the "benefits of the trade" and that barring U.S. ships would not stop a single slave from being exported from Africa. "We might as well therefore enjoy that trade as leave it wholly to others."

Furthermore, he argued that the trade fed the U.S. Treasury and that other industries--rum in particular--depended on it. Congressional notes, referring to Brown, read: "Mr. B. said our distilleries and manufactories were all lying idle for want of extended commerce. He had been well-informed that on those [African] coasts New England rum was much preferred to the best Jamaica spirits, and would fetch a better price. Why then should it not be sent there, and a profitable return be made?" (John Brown, remarks to Congress; In Donnan, Documents Illustrative of the Slave Trade, vol. 3, p. 334.

Brown's economic reasoning was right. As long as there was a market for slaves, someone would serve it! In 1790, in the search for new industry, Moses Brown hired Englishman  Samuel Slater to design better machinery for a textile mill he had invested in.  At about the same time Eli Whitney perfected his cotton gin, and by 1800 the cotton gin and Slater's machines were transforming Southern agriculture and Northern industry.

Poor conscience-stricken Moses Brown had done more to perpetuate slavery than his avaricious big brother. At the same time, John Brown's support of the slave trade had tangible results, particularly for Bristol, Rhode Island, and the DeWolf family.

During the 1790s the DeWolfs had to contend with a man George Washington had installed as customs collector for the Newport district (which at that time contained Bristol). A signer of the Declaration of Independence, William Ellery knew the DeWolfs were cheating the new government out of badly needed revenue.

1799 saw Ellery order the DeWolf's schooner, the Lucy, auctioned off as a suspected slave ship. John Brown came down from Providence to intervene. He pressured Ellery's man to withdraw from the auction; the bidder tried to oblige, but Ellery would not allow it. So on auction day men dressed as Indians waylaid the bidder and rowed him miles away. When the auctioneer banged his gavel down, the Lucy had been sold for a mere pittance to a DeWolf agent.

The DeWolfs managed an even greater coup years later, with Congressman Brown's vital help. In early 1801, Brown got a bill passed creating a separate customs district for Bristol. The change eliminated their old nemesis Ellery, but the DeWolfs were frustrated when, as one of his last acts, outgoing president John Adams appointed a collector not of their choosing to the new Bristol district. They had to wait to get free rein of the port until 1804, when they persuaded their Republican ally, President Thomas Jefferson, to expel Adam's collector; in his place Jefferson appointed Charles Collins, who was (though Jefferson might not have known it) ..a veteran captain of DeWolf slave ships.

Collins remained the Bristol collector for almost 20 years; during that time his lax enforcement helped the DeWolfs cement a unique legacy. "Theirs was one of the few fortunes that truly rested on rum and slaves," stated the premier historian of the Rhode Island slave merchants. "In the annals of the American slave trade, the DeWolfs are without peer." (Coughtry, Notorious Triangle,p.49.)

By Allen (Piewacket1861) He is member in the forum