Slavery and the Slave Trade
mp
Plan of the
slave ship
Brookes,
carrying 454
slaves. (orig
609)
Slave Trade Act
1788: Limited
numbers per
tonnage: 1.67
p.t. to a max of
207; then 1
slave per ton.
http://www.slavevoyages.org
• Turk Island
• On arrival at “Grand Quay” (Grand Turk) she was
handed over to her new Master, Mr D and was
valued at 100 pounds. It was clear that life on
Grand Turk was harsh. Mary was given a half-barrel
and shovel and was expected to work from 4 in the
morning. A quick breakfast was taken at 9 am and
the she continued working until midday when she
was given lunch and then had to return to the salt
ponds until dusk. Even then the day’s work was not
finished. The salt pond workers were not allowed
to work in the ponds between dusk and dawn, but
this did not mean they couldn’t work. The salt had
to be heaped up, carried to the deposits, bagged
up for shipping etc. Mary recalled how hard the life
was:
• “We slept in a long shed, divided into narrow slips,
like the stalls used for cattle. Boards fixed upon
stakes driven into the ground, without mat or
covering, were our only beds. On Sundays, after we
had washed the salt bags, and done other work
required of us, we went into the bush and cut the
long soft grass, of which we made trusses for our
legs and feet to rest upon, for they were so full of
the salt boils that we could get no rest lying upon
the bare boards”.
• It is impossible to think about sugar production in
the West Indies without thinking about slavery. The
labor of enslaved Africans was integral to the
cultivation of the cane and production of sugar.
Slaves toiled in the fields and the boiling houses,
supplying the huge amounts of labor that sugar
required. Overall some four million slaves were
brought to the Caribbean, and almost all ended up
on the sugar plantations. Conditions were harsh, and
mortality rates were extremely high through all
stages of slaves' lives. In some sugar colonies the
slave population was ten times that of Europeans,
and slave uprisings were an ever-present fear for the
planters.
• Slave trading was part of a highly profitable triangle
of trade that spanned the Atlantic. Manufactured
goods were traded to the West African coast for
slaves, who were shipped to the sugar colonies (the
infamous middle passage) and sugar, molasses, and
rum were shipped from the islands to England.
Slavery in England itself had been deemed illegal
since 1772. The controversy over slavery in the sugar
colonies was vigorously pursued in Parliament and in
publication throughout the last quarter of the
eighteenth century and up to the time of abolition of
the trade in 1807 and emancipation in 1833.
Lord Mansfield: Somerset vs Stewart 1772
The state of slavery is of such a nature that it is incapable of being
introduced on any reasons, moral or political, but only by positive
law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasions, and
time itself from whence it was created, is erased from memory. It is
so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive
law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from the
decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of
England; and therefore the black must be discharged.
Dido Elizabeth Lindsay 1761-1804/Mansfield
Before the Slave
Trade Act 1788,
the Brookes had
transported 609
slaves and was
267 tons burden,
making 2.3 slaves
per ton. The Zong
carried 442 slaves
and was 110 tons
burden—4.0
slaves per ton.
Zong (Voyage 1781: 442 slaves emb. 208 disemb.
(54, 42, and 36: Nov 29, Dec 1, Dec 2nd)
• March 1783 – Jury found in favour of the owners under an
established protocol of maritime law that considered slaves as cargo
• May 1783 King’s Bench Appeal, under Mansfield – who summed the
first verdict as the jury having… ‘no doubt (though it shocks one very
much) that the Case of Slaves was the same as if Horses had been
thrown over board ... The Question was, whether there was not an
Absolute Necessity for throwing them over board to save the rest,
[and] the Jury were of opinion there was…’
• New trial ordered; Mansfield rules that insurers not liable for losses
arising from mistakes by the crew.
Luisa Calderon/Gov Thomas Picton/the
picquet (1803-8 trials)
Luisa
Calderon