The Story of Rufino by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780190224363
Publisher: OxfordUP
Published: 2019-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

17

Dirty Tricks

Niterói had a good reason to alert the captain of the Ermelinda to the possibility of fraud. Although he had recently arrived in Sierra Leone, it is possible that the Brazilian judge was aware that unorthodox practices were the norm there when it came to ensuring that captured ships were condemned. As we have seen, there were numerous interests at stake, especially those of the officers and crew of the Royal Navy, as well as those of Sierra Leone merchants who were keen to buy not only the seized ships but the merchandise they carried. One method commonly used to convict slavers was planting incriminating evidence. In a letter to the president of the province of Pernambuco, Niterói noted that Brazilian, Spanish, and Portuguese ships were being condemned “through this and other similar crimes.”1 He was right, and that is precisely what happened with the Ermelinda.

On January 6, 1842, thirteen days prior to the date the ship went on trial, the Aku merchant Joseph Reffell planted chains, bolts, and shackles aboard the vessel to provide evidence of its involvement in the slave trade. The slave irons were taken from another ship, the Açoriana Oriental, which had been condemned a few months earlier and kept in a public warehouse on the docks from where they could easily have been taken. Customs officers and Mixed Commission officials seem to have collaborated with Reffel, at least indirectly and discreetly, by turning a blind eye to his scheme.2

To better understand this story, let us take a look at the procedures to which captured ships were subjected upon arrival in Sierra Leone. The Mixed Commission’s official boarded the prize to ascertain the details of its capture and make a general assessment of the ship, the state of the cargo it carried, and the presence of slave-trading equipment on board. Naturally, he also checked to see if it carried slaves and if so, how many, to whom they belonged, their physical condition, and where they had embarked. Then, the official sent a report to the customs office with copies to the Mixed Commission members. He also ordered the ship’s captain and crew to appear at the commission court, which the official also attended, to give their statements.

The official was responsible for safeguarding the captured vessel by hiring a shipkeeper to oversee its maintenance and security. In his turn, that shipkeeper employed his own team of assistants. Canoers were also hired while the ship was anchored in the port to take ashore any equipment considered suspicious and any rescued captives (however, pursuant to the treaties, the latter were only disembarked if and when the ship was officially condemned). The canoers also took merchandise from ship to shore so it could be sold to cover the day-to-day expenses of the ship and its crew. Later, if the ship was condemned, the canoers took the entire cargo to the docks to be auctioned off along with the ship. Joseph Reffell had been hired as a canoer to work with the Ermelinda.

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