Handcuffs are rarely used on shipboard. It is the common custom to secure slaves in the barracoons, and while shipping, by chaining ten in a gang; but as these platoons would be extremely inconvenient at sea, the manacles are immediately taken off and replaced by leg-irons, which fasten them in pairs by the feet. Shackles are never used but for full-grown men, while women and boys are set at liberty as soon as they embark. It frequently happens that when the behavior of male slaves warrants their freedom, they are released from all fastenings long before they arrive. Irons are altogether dispensed with on many Brazilian slavers, as negroes from Anjuda, Benin, and Angola, are mild; and unaddicted to revolt like those who dwell east of the Cape or north of the Gold Coast. Indeed, a knowing trader will never use chains but when compelled, for the longer a slave is ironed the more he deteriorates; and, as his sole object is to land a healthy cargo, pecuniary interest, as well as natural feeling, urges the sparing of metal.
My object in writing this palliative description is not to exculpate the slavers or their commerce, but to correct those exaggerated stories which have so long been current in regard to the usual voyage of a trader. I have always believed that the cause of humanity, as well as any other cause, was least served by over-statement; and I am sure that if the narratives given by Englishmen are true, the voyages they detail must either have occurred before my day, or were conducted in British vessels, while her majesty’s subjects still considered the traffic lawful.[C]
FOOTNOTES:
[B] As the reader may scarcely credit so large a profit, I subjoin an account of the fitting of a slave vessel from Havana in 1827, and the liquidation of her voyage in Cuba:—
1.—Expenses Out.
| Cost of La Fortuna, a 90 ton schooner, | $3,700 00 |
| Fitting out, sails, carpenter and cooper’s bills, | 2,500 00 |
| Provisions for crew and slaves, | 1,115 00 |
| Wages advanced to 18 men before the mast, | 900 00 |
| “ “ to captain, mates, boatswain, cook, and steward, | 440 00 |
| 200,000 cigars and 500 doubloons, cargo, | 10,900 00 |
| Clearance and hush-money, | 200 00 |
| $19,755 00 | |
| Commission at 5 per cent., | 987 00 |
| Full cost of voyage out, | $20,742 00 |
2.—Expenses Home.
| Captain’s head-money, at $8 a head, | 1,746 00 |
| Mate’s “$4 “ | 873 00 |
| Second mate and boatswain’s head-money, at $2 each a head, | 873 00 |
| Captain’s wages, | 219 78 |
| First mate’s wages | 175 56 |
| Second mate and boatswain’s wages, | 307 12 |
| Cook and steward’s wages, | 264 00 |
| Eighteen sailors’ wages, | 1,972 00 |
| $27,172 46 |
3.—Expenses in Havana.
| Government officers, at $8 per head, | 1,736 00 |
| My commission on 217 slaves, expenses off, | 5,565 00 |
| Consignees’ commissions, | 8,878 00 |
| 217 slave dresses, at $2 each, | 634 00 |
| Extra expenses of all kinds, say, | 1,000 00 |
| Total expenses, | $39,980 46 |