The ships and sailors of old Salem

by Ralph Delahaye Paine

Under date of May 29, 1789, Doctor Bentley wrote in his diary:

“On Wednesday went to Boston and returned on Friday. News of the death of Captain William Fairfield who commanded the Schooner which sailed in Captain Joseph White’s employ in the African Slave Trade. He was killed by the Negroes on board.”

This following letter of instructions to one of the few Salem captains in the slave trade was written in 1785, under date of November 12th:

“Our brig of which you have the command, being cleared at the office, and being in every other respect complete for sea, our orders are that you embrace the first fair wind and make the best of your way to the Coast of Africa and there invest your cargo in slaves. As slaves, like other articles when brought to market, generally appear to the best advantage, therefore too critical an inspection cannot be paid to them before purchase; to see that no dangerous distemper is lurking about them, to attend particularly to their age, to their countenance, to the strength of their limbs, and as far as possible to the goodness or badness of their constitutions, etc., will be very considerable objects.

“Male or female slaves, whether full grown, or not, we cannot particularly instruct you about, and on this head shall only observe that prime male slaves generally sell best in any market. No people require more kind and tender treatment to exhilarate their spirits than the Africans, and while on the one hand you are attentive to this, remember that, on the other hand, too much circumspection cannot be observed by yourself and people to prevent their taking advantage of such treatment by insurrection and so forth. When you consider that on the health of your slaves almost your whole voyage depends, you will particularly attend to smoking your vessel, washing her with vinegar, to the clarifying your water with lime or brimstone, and to cleanliness among your own people as well as among the slaves.”

These singularly humane instructions are more or less typical of the conduct of the slave trade from New England during the eighteenth century when pious owners expressed the hope that “under the blessing of God” they might obtain full cargoes of negroes. The ships were roomy, comparatively comfortable quarters were provided, and every effort made to prevent losses by disease and shortage of water and provisions. It was not until the nations combined to drive the traffic from the high seas that slavers were built for speed, crammed to the hatches with tortured negroes and hard-driven for the West Indies and Liverpool and Charleston through the unspeakable horrors of the Middle Passage.

Salem records are not proud of even the small share of the town in this kind of commerce, and most of the family papers which dealt with slave trading have been purposely destroyed. It is true also that public sentiment opposed the traffic at an earlier date than in such other New England ports as Bristol and Newport. Slaves captured in British privateers during the Revolution were not permitted to be sold as property, but were treated as prisoners of war. The refusal of Elias Hasket Derby to let his ship Grand Turk take slaves aboard on her first voyage to the Gold Coast was an unusual proceeding for a shipping merchant of that time. Nor according to Doctor Bentley was the slave trade in the best repute among the people of the place.

While Salem commerce was rising in a flood tide of enterprising achievement in the conquest of remote and mysterious markets on the other side of the globe, and the wounds left by the Revolution were scarcely healed, her ships began to bring home new tales of outrage at the hands of British, French and Spanish privateers and men-of-war. There was peace only in name. In 1790, or only seven years after the end of the Revolution, seamen were bitterly complaining of seizures and impressments by English ships, and the war with France was clouding the American horizon. The Algerine pirates also had renewed their informal activities against American shipping, and the shipmasters of Salem found themselves between several kinds of devils and the deep sea wherever they laid their courses.

The history of the sea holds few more extraordinary stories than that related of a Salem sailor and cherished in the maritime chronicles of the town.

“On the 14th of August, 1785, a French vessel from Martinique, bound to Bordeaux came up with the body of a man floating at some fifty rods distance. The captain ordered four men into the boat to pick it up. When brought on board, to the great surprise of the crew, the supposed dead body breathed. Half an hour afterwards the man opened his eyes and exclaimed: ‘O God, where am I?’ On taking off his clothes to put him to bed it was discovered that he had on a cork jacket and trousers. It was afterwards ascertained that he had sailed from Salem in a brig bound to Madrid. The brig was attacked by Sallee pirates and captured. This sailor, pretending to be lame, was neglected by the Moors who had captured him. About 11 o’clock at night, having put on his cork apparatus, he let himself down from the forechains into the water unperceived. He swam about two days when he being quite exhausted, his senses left him, in which state he was discovered by the men from the Frigate. On his arrival at Bordeaux he was presented by the Chamber of Commerce with a purse of 300 crowns.”