Slavery: Not Just Something For The South

Slavery: Not Just Something For The South

Part XXIV

I'm sure most people have heard or seen that Spielberg movie (1997) about the Spanish schooner, Amistad in which the American Navy recovered her and eventually her rebellious slaves were freed by our United States court system; but the Amistad was an oddity.

While the Amistad survivors were on their way back to Africa (Nov. 1841), there was a slave revolt on an American ship, the Creole, which had been carrying slaves from Richmond to New Orleans; the slaves killed or wounded some of the crew and these rebellious slaves managed to bring the Creole into British-controlled Nassau harbor where it became as famous as the Amistad. 

An American fugitive slave, Madison Washington Jones, who'd been re-captured while trying to steal his wife from a Virginia plantation was the hero of the revolt. (Howard Jones, "The Peculiar Institution and National Honor: The Case of the Creole Slave Revolt" in Civil War History, vol. 21, Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1975, the Creole and Madison Washington Jones, "Peculiar Institution" pp.28-33, passim.

A bigger crisis occured 3 years later in Rio de Janeiro while the Creole international dispute was still running its course. This one concerned literally a flotilla of illegal slave ships from the United States.  All were from the North. One of the most gruesome revolts ever recorded was a New York brig named the Kentucky which arrived in Brazil drenched in blood.

Her sister ship, the Porpoise had sailed into Rio with two child slaves; both boys , branded on the chest with the mark of their Brazilian owner.  The Porpoise was already widely suspected as a slave tender; and the ship had already been to Africa in 1843 with two other American slave ships; one of those ships, the Hope, of New York, had carried the kind of cargo that made ships subject to seizure whether or not they were carrying slaves at the time.  Rum casks were on board filled with huge quantities of water. Lumber to build a temporary slave deck was listed as framing material for a house. Boxes marked SOAP were filled with manacles and a crate marked HATS carried an unassembled boiler for cooking food for large quantities of people.

U.S. Navy officials and customs agents were easily fooled, especially if they wanted an excuse to look the other way.  But authorities who were willing to seize an obvious slave vessel such as the Hope were torpedoed in court by a maze of owners!

The Porpoise, although registered in Maine, had been turned over to Maxwell, Wright & Company, U.S. coffee traders (in Rio) who, in turn chartered her out, through an English broker, to one of Rio's wealthiest slave merchants, Manoel Pinto da Fonseca. (the Kentucky and the Porpoise: Senate executive documents, 30th Congress, 1st session, document #28; House executive documents, 30th Congress, 2nd session, document #61.  Also see: the Hope and concealed cargo: House executive documents, 20th Congress, 1st session, document # 43.)

When the Kentucky arrived, Jan. 1844, in New York, Fonseca acquired control; 2 months later, he sent it to the east coast of Africa to rendevous with the Porpoise. Between the two of them, these ships provide a blueprint of the manner and depth of U.S. involvement in the illegal slave trade.

The Kentucky, under a part-owner had been delivered from N.Y. to Rio; from there she'd sailed for Africa under Captain George Douglass of Philadelphia. Capt. Cyrus Libby of Portland, Maine, had  commanded the Porpoise. 

Most of the summer 1844 saw both ships  sailing in the vicinity of Mozambique, from one place to another, attempting to get a full cargo of slaves; in late August, with slaves in short supply, Fonseca's agent settled for 500.

Now: working rapidly, two crews began to build a slave deck in the hold of the Kentucky.   The Porpoise  was moored so close to the Kentucky that Capt. Douglass   slept aboard the Porpoise and worked days about the other ship.  Early September saw boats from the Porpoise   help ferry captured Africans from the shore onto the Kentucky.      

The 2nd mate of the Kentucky, Thomas Boyle testified months later that Capt. Douglass purposely left the American colors behind when the two ships left Africa.   And Boyle   had himself helped paint out KENTUCKY OF NEW YORK from her stern; he also testified that he later recognized the renamed vessel, Franklyn of Salem in Rio harbor.  The Franklyn, as she was now called, had delivered its cargo of slaves and escaped seizure. (Boyle's testimony: Senate document number 28, pp. 71-77.)

But the voyage had not been a complete success. The Portuguese captain who took over command of the Kentucky/Franklyn told Boyle that while waiting for a favorable wind he'd had to put down  a slave revolt and he led Boyle to believe that 27 rebels had been killed in the fight, a very high number for a failed revolt. (However, another crewman  told Boyle that not only was the death toll much higher, but that the rebel Africans had not been killed in self-defense, they'd been  executed.

Another sailor on the Kentucky, William Page confirmed this in a detailed deposition.  He reported that, in fact, no slave had been killed during the brief, failed revolt.  But, in the days after the revolt, 46 men and a woman had been strung from the yardarms, shot, and thrown overboard. If one of the rebels happened to be shackled to a slave whom the crew wanted to save, the execution was especially gruesome:

 "If only one of two that were ironed together was to be hung, a rope was put round his neck and he was drawn up clear of the deck, beside the bulwarks, and his leg laid across the rail and chopped off, to save the irons and  release him from his companion.....The bleeding negro was then drawn up, shot in the breast, and thrown overboard.

     When the woman was hung up and shot, the ball did not take effect and she was thrown overboard living, and was seen to struggle some in the water before she sank."  (Page's testimony, "If only one of two that were ironed together..." : British slave trade papers, vol. 29, Class A correspondence, Rio de Janeiro, document # 201, p. 518.)

By Allen (Piewacket1861) He is member in the forum