Amistad's Orphans by Benjamin Nicholas Lawrance

Amistad's Orphans by Benjamin Nicholas Lawrance

Author:Benjamin Nicholas Lawrance
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2015-03-14T16:00:00+00:00


CHILD “RESCUE,” APPRENTICESHIP, AND THE WEST AFRICA ANTI-SLAVERY SQUADRON

Were it not for the antislavery squadrons patrolling the Atlantic in the 1820s to 1840s, we would likely have little knowledge of Covey or the many thousands of children like him. From 1807–8, it became increasingly dangerous to export slaves from West Africa as the prohibition on new imports into the United States took hold. But in this context of increasing illegality, the slave trade swelled dramatically from 1815 and the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The profitability of slave trading rose too. The Royal Navy’s antislavery patrols represented one side of what historian George Brooks characterizes as a complex symbiotic relationship between slave trading and legitimate commerce.8 The navy ships captured slavers and brought them into Freetown. But many of the participants in the patrols had equally complex personal relationships with slavery: the ships were sold and their cargo “liberated,” but slave traders were rarely imprisoned or sentenced, and former slaves were subjected to a mandatory apprenticeship, ranging from as few as five to as many as seventeen years. Child apprentices, moreover, experienced a wide spectrum of jeopardy.

Covey first appears in the historical record as a direct result of actions by the West Africa Squadron. In his district court deposition, Covey stated, “I was sailing for Havana when the British man-of-war captured us.” He indicated that the captured ship returned to Freetown within four days with no slave deaths. The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database lists twelve ships that meet some of the parameters described by Covey, but only one neatly fits, namely, the schooner Segunda Socorro. Records in the British National Archives include the captured ship’s log, which indicates that José de Inza recognized the Trinculo was in pursuit after only two days at sea. The Trinculo captured de Inza’s vessel at 6°30′ N and 12°12′ W on July 9, 1833. The Segunda Socorro was bound for Havana, carried 307 slaves, flew the Spanish/Uruguayan flag. Covey’s narrative is complemented by the ship’s log, which recorded a journey from Galinhas to Freetown lasting four days, meaning two days out and two days under escort to Freetown. Data also indicate that whereas no slaves died during the brief journal, at least one boy, named Saso, aged eleven, died several months after disembarkation.9

The Segunda Socorro was the Trinculo’s first seizure after it arrived in the area from Mauritius via Fernando Po and Ascénsion in May 1833. The Trinculo was to become a very active antislaving vessel. Shortly after the condemnation of the Segunda Socorro, it assisted the Despatch in its capture of the slave schooner Rosa, near Accra. In September en route from Bonny to St. Jago de Cuba, it seized the Spanish slave schooner Caridade, piloted by Antonio Fortunato, with 112 slaves on board. In December bound to Príncipe from Cape Lopez, the Trinculo captured the Portuguese slave schooner Apia, piloted by Christovao Xavier Vellozo, with 54 slaves and the Santiesimo Rosario a Bom Jezuz, mastered by Francisco Silvestre. In 1835–36 alone it



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