Exactly 207 years ago today, after years of appeal in the British Parliament led by William Wilberforce, the final passage of legislation abolishing the British slave trade received the Royal Assent that made it official.
While this did not abolish slavery itself, it did end British participation in one of the most horrific and inhumane commercial enterprises imaginable.
Alexander Falconbridge, a surgeon aboard slave ships and later the governor of
a British colony for freed slaves in Sierra Leone, writes the following vivid account:
From the time of the arrival of the ships to their departure, which is
usually about three months, scarce a day passes without some Negroes being
purchased and carried on board; sometimes in small and sometimes in large
numbers...
The unhappy wretches thus disposed of are bought by the black traders at
fairs, which are held for that purpose, at the distance of upwards of two
hundred miles from the sea coast; and these fairs are said to be supplied from
an interior part of the country. Many Negroes, upon being questioned relative
to the places of their nativity, have asserted that they have traveled during
the revolution of several moons (their usual method of calculating time)
before they have reached the places where they were purchased by the black
traders...
The men Negroes, on being brought aboard the ship, are immediately
fastened together, two and two, by handcuffs on their wrists and by irons
riveted on their legs. They are then sent down between the decks and placed
in an apartment partitioned off for that purpose. The women also are placed
in a separate apartment between the decks, but without being ironed. An
adjoining room on the same deck is appointed for the boys. Thus they are all
placed in different apartments.
But at the same time, however, they are frequently stowed so close, as to
admit of no other position than lying on their sides. Nor with the height
between decks, unless directly under the grating, permit the indulgence of an
erect posture; especially where there are platforms, which is generally the
case. These platforms are a kind of shelf, about eight or nine feet in
breadth, extending from the side of the ship toward the center. They are
placed nearly midway between the decks, at the distance of two or three feet
from each deck. Upon these the Negroes are stowed in the same manner as they
are on the deck underneath.
In each of the apartments are placed three or four large buckets, of a
conical form, nearly two feet in diameter at the bottom and only one foot at
the top and in depth of about twenty-
eight
inches, to which, when necessary, the Negroes have recourse. It often happens
that those who are placed at a distance from the buckets, in endeavoring to
get to them, tumble over their companions, in consequence of their being
shackled. These accidents, although unavoidable, are productive of continual
quarrels in which some of them are always bruised. In this distressed
situation, unable to proceed and prevented from getting to the tubs, they
desist from the attempt; and as the necessities of nature are not to be
resisted, ease themselves as they lie. This becomes a fresh source of boils
and disturbances and tends to render the condition of the poor captive
wretches still more uncomfortable.
The nuisance arising from these
circumstances is not infrequently increased by the tubs being too small for
the purpose intended and their being emptied but once every day. The rule for
doing so, however, varies in different ships according to the attention paid
to the health and convenience of the slaves by the captain.
About eight o'clock in the morning the Negroes are generally brought upon
deck. Their irons being examined, a long chain, which is locked to a ring-
bolt
fixed in the deck, is run through the rings of the shackles of the men and
then locked to another ring-
bolt
fixed also in the deck. By this means fifty or sixty and sometimes more are
fastened to one chain in order to prevent them from rising or endeavoring to
escape. If the weather proves favorable they are permitted to remain in that
situation till four or five in the afternoon when they are disengaged from the
chain and sent below.
The diet of the Negroes while on board, consists chiefly of horse beans
boiled to the consistency of a pulp; of boiled yams and rice and sometimes a
small quantity of beef or pork. The latter are frequently taken from the
provisions laid in for the sailors. They sometimes make use of a sauce
composed of palm-
oil
mixed with flour, water and pepper, which the sailors call slabber-
sauce.
Yams are the favorite food of the Eboe [Ibo] or Bight Negroes, and rice or
corn of those from the Gold or Windward Coast; each preferring the produce of
their native soil....
They are commonly fed twice a day; about eight o'clock in the morning and
four in the afternoon. In most ships they are only fed with their own food
once a day. Their food is served up to them in tubs about the size of a small
water bucket. They are placed round these tubs, in companies of ten to each
tub, out of which they feed themselves with wooden spoons. These they soon
lose and when they are not allowed others they feed themselves with their
hands. In favorable weather they are fed upon deck but in bad weather their
food is given them below. Numberless quarrels take place among them during
their meals; more especially when they are put upon short allowance, which
frequently happens if the passage form the coast of Guinea to the West Indies
islands proves of unusual length. In that case, the weak are obliged to be
content with a very scanty portion. Their allowance of water is about half a
pint each at every meal. It is handed round in a bucket and given to each
Negro in a pannekin, a small utensil with a straight handle, somewhat similar
to a sauce-
boat.
However, when the ships approach the islands with a favorable breeze, the
slaves are no longer restricted.
Upon the Negroes refusing to take sustenance, I have seen coals of fire,
glowing hot, put on a shovel and placed so near their lips as to scorch and
burn them. And this has been accompanied with threats of forcing them to
swallow the coals if they any longer persisted in refusing to eat. These
means have generally had the desired effect. I have also been credibly
informed that a certain captain in the slave-
trade,
poured melted lead on such of his Negroes as obstinately refused their food.
Exercise being deemed necessary for the preservation of their health they
are sometimes obliged to dance when the weather will permit their coming on
deck. If they go about it reluctantly or do not move with agility, they are
flogged; a person standing by them all the time with a cat-o'-nine-
tails
in his hands for the purpose. Their music, upon these occasions, consists of
a drum, sometimes with only one head; and when that is worn out they make use
of the bottom of one of the tubs before described. The poor wretches are
frequently compelled to sing also; but when they do so, their songs are
generally, as may naturally be expected, melancholy lamentations of their
exile from their native country.
On board some ships the common sailors are allowed to have intercourse
with such of the black women whose consent they can procure. And some of them
have been known to take the inconstancy of their paramours so much to heart as
to leap overboard and drown themselves. The officers are permitted to indulge
their passions among them at pleasure and sometimes are guilty of such
excesses as disgrace human nature....
The hardships and inconveniences suffered by the Negroes during the
passage are scarcely to be enumerated or conceived. They are far more
violently affected by seasickness than Europeans. It frequently terminates in
death, especially among the women. But the exclusion of fresh air is among
the most intolerable. For the purpose of admitting this needful refreshment,
most of the ships in the slave trade are provided, between the decks, with
five or sick air-ports
on each side of the ship of about five inches in length and four in breadth.
In addition, some ships, but not one in twenty, have what they denominate wind-sails.
But whenever the sea is rough and the rain heavy is becomes necessary to shut
these and every other conveyance by which the air is admitted. The fresh air
being thus excluded, the Negroes' rooms soon grow intolerable hot. The
confined air, rendered noxious by the effluvia exhaled from their bodies and
being repeatedly breathed, soon produces fevers and fluxes which generally
carries of great numbers of them.
During the voyages I made, I was frequently witness to the fatal effects
of this exclusion of fresh air. I will give one instance, as it serves to
convey some idea, though a very faint one, of their terrible
sufferings....Some wet and blowing weather having occasioned the port-holes
to be shut and the grating to be covered, fluxes and fevers among the Negroes
ensued. While they were in this situation, I frequently went down among them
till at length their room became so extremely hot as to be only bearable for a
very short time. But the excessive heat was not the only thing that rendered
their situation intolerable. The deck, that is the floor of their rooms, was
so covered with the blood and mucus which had proceeded from them in
consequence of the flux, that it resembled a slaughter-
house.
It is not in the power of the human imagination to picture a situation more
dreadful or disgusting. Numbers of the slaves having fainted, they were
carried upon deck where several of them died and the rest with great
difficulty were restored....
As very few of the Negroes can so far brook the loss of their liberty and
the hardships they endure, they are ever on the watch to take advantage of the
least negligence in their oppressors. Insurrections are frequently the
consequence; which are seldom expressed without much bloodshed. Sometimes
these are successful and the whole ship's company is cut off. They are
likewise always ready to seize every opportunity for committing some acts of
desperation to free themselves from their miserable state and notwithstanding
the restraints which are laid, they often succeed.
Source:
Alexander Falconbridge,
An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast
of Africa (London, 1788).
