An account of the slave trade on the coast of Africa

by Alexander Falconbridge

With regard to their drink, they are generally denied grog, and are seldom allowed any thing but water to quench their thirst. This urges them, when opportunity offers, at Bonny and other places on the coast, to barter their clothes with the natives, for English brandy, which the Africans obtain, among other articles, in exchange for slaves; and they frequently leave themselves nearly naked, in order to indulge an excess in spiritous liquors. In this state, they are often found lying on the deck, and in different parts of the ship, exposed to the heavy dews which in those climates fall during the night; notwithstanding the deck is usually washed every evening. This frequently causes pains in the head and limbs, accompanied with a fever, which generally, in the course of a few days, occasions their death.

The temporary house constructed on the deck, affords but an indifferent shelter from the weather; yet the sailors are obliged to lodge under it, as all the parts between decks are occupied by, or kept for, the negroes. The cabin is frequently full, and when this is the case, or the captain finds the heat and the stench intolerable, he quits his cot, which is usually hung over the slaves, and sleeps in the round-house, if there be one, as there is in many ships.

The foul air that arises from the negroes when they are much crowded, is very noxious to the crew; and this is not a little increased by the additional heat which the covering over the ship occasions. The mangrove smoke is likewise, as before observed, productive of disorders among them.

Nor are they better accommodated after they leave the Coast of Africa. During the whole of the passage to the West-Indies, which in general lasts seven weeks, or two months, they are obliged, for want of room between decks, to keep upon deck. This exposure to the weather, is also found very prejudicial to the health of the sailors, and frequently occasions fevers, which generally prove fatal. The only resemblance of a shelter, is a tarpawling thrown over the booms, which even before they leave the coast, is generally so full of holes, as to afford scarce any defence against the wind or the rain, of which a considerable quantity usually falls during this passage.

Many other causes contribute to affect the health of the sailors. The water at Bonny, which they are obliged to drink, is very unwholesome; and, together with their scanty and bad diet, and the cruel usage they receive from the officers, tends to impoverish the blood, and render them extremely susceptible of putrid fevers and dysenteries.

The seamen, whose health happen to be impaired, are discharged, on the arrival of the ships in the West-Indies, and as soon as they get ashore, they have recourse to spiritous liquors, to which they are the more prone, on account of having been denied grog, or even any liquor but water, during their being aboard; the consequence of which is, a certain and speedy destruction. Numbers likewise die in the West-India islands, of the scurvy, brought on in consequence of poverty of diet, and exposure to all weathers.

I am now come to a part of the sufferings of the sailors who are employed in the slave-trade, of which, for the honour of human nature, I would willingly decline giving an account; that is, the treatment they receive from their officers, which makes no inconsiderable addition to the hardships and ailments just mentioned, and contributes not a little to rob the nation annually, of a considerable number of this valuable body of men. However, as truth demands, and the occasion requires it, I will relate some of the circumstances of this kind, which fell under my own immediate observation, during the several voyages I made in that line.

In one of these, I was witness to the following instance of cruel usage. Most of the sailors were treated with brutal severity; but one in particular, a man advanced in years, experienced it in an uncommon degree. Having made some complaint relative to his allowance of water, and this being construed into an insult, one of the officers seized him, and with the blows he bestowed upon him, beat out several of his teeth. Not content with this, while the poor old man was yet bleeding, one of the iron pump-bolts was fixed in his mouth, and kept there by a piece of rope-yarn tied round his head. Being unable to spit out the blood which flowed from the wound, the man was almost choaked, and obliged to swallow it. He was then tied to the rail of the quarter-deck, having declared, upon being gagged, that he would jump overboard and drown himself. About two hours after he was taken from the quarter-deck rail, and fastened to the grating companion of the steerage, under the half deck, where he remained all night with a centinel placed over him.

A young man on board one of the ships, was frequently beaten in a very severe manner, for very trifling faults. This was done sometimes with what is termed a cat, (an instrument of correction, which consists of a handle or stem, made of a rope three inches and a half in circumference, and about eighteen inches in length, at one of which are fastened nine branches, or tails, composed of log line, with three or more knots upon each branch), and sometimes he was beat with a bamboo. Being one day cruelly beaten with the latter, the poor lad, unable to endure the severe usage, leaped out of one of the gun ports on the larboard side of the cabin, into the river. He, however, providentially escaped being devoured by the sharks, and was taken up by a canoe belonging to one of the black traders then lying along-side the vessel. As soon as he was brought on board, he was dragged to the quarter-deck, and his head forced into a tub of water, which had been left there for the negroe women to wash their hands in. In this situation he was kept till he was nearly suffocated; the person who held him, exclaiming, with the malignity of a demon, “If you want drowning, I will drown you myself.” Upon my inquiring of the young man, if he knew the danger to which he exposed himself by jumping overboard, he replied, “that he expected to be devoured by the sharks, but he preferred even that, to being treated daily with so much cruelty.”

Another seaman having been in some degree negligent, had a long chain fixed round his neck, at the end of which was fastened a log of wood. In this situation he performed his duty, (from which he was not in the least spared) for several weeks, till at length he was nearly exhausted by fatigue; and after his release from the log, he was frequently beaten for trivial faults. Once, in particular, when an accident happened, through the carelessness of another seaman, he was tied up, although the fault was not in the least imputable to him, along with the other person, and they were both flogged till their backs were raw. Chian pepper was then mixed in a bucket, with salt water, and with this the harrowed parts of the back of the unoffending seaman were washed, as an addition to his torture.