Within the cruising ground prescribed for the African squadron, it was found that there was not a suitably enclosed burial place for the officers and sailors who might die. Men-of-war and merchant sailors had been thrown overboard or buried in different spots here, there, and everywhere, on beaches just above high water mark, on arid plains and on barren bluffs. So prevalent was the refusal, by Portuguese, of the rites of burial to Protestant sailors, that it was their custom to have a cross tattooed on their arms so that when dead they might get sepulture.
The reason for this sporadic burial of our men must be laid at the doors of bigotry. In some parts of Christendom, even among enlightened nations, where political churches are established, there lingers a heathenish relic of superstitious sectarianism under the garb of the Christian religion, in what is called “consecrated ground.” By this pretext of holiness, the sectaries logically carry into the grave the feuds and hatreds born of the very wickedness from which by their creeds and ritual they expect to be saved. This feeling is in southern Europe and the papal colonies, so intensified that it is next to impossible for a man denying the Roman faith to obtain burial in a cemetery governed by adherents of the Pope. Even the semi-civilized Portuguese refused to give interment to American officers in what they denominate “consecrated ground.”
This gave Perry an opportunity to establish a burial place for the American dead of every creed. In the words of the bluff sailor, after referring to the fact that “Catholics” do not like “Protestants” in their grounds, he says, “With us the same spirit of intolerance shall not prevail, and in our United States Cemetery the remains of Jew and Gentile, Catholic and Protestant will be laid in peace together.”
Accordingly, the cemetery for the dead of the Preble was prepared at Porto Grande. A plot of land having been purchased, was given in fee by the authorities. It was duly graded, and a stone wall seven feet high erected to enclose it, and thus protect it from the wash of rains and the trespasses of vagrant animals. Timber for headboards was furnished from the ship, and the amount of two hundred dollars for expenses incurred was subscribed by the officers and men.
The governor of the island of Santa Iago was ordered by the general government to give a legal title to a cemetery for “persons not Catholics.” The burial ground plotted out by the Commodore adjoined the other village cemetery at the same place called “The Cocoanuts.” The three new walls enclosing it were respectively one hundred by one hundred by ninety-four feet. The width of the wall masonry was three “palms” or twenty-seven inches, and the foundation was to be three-fourths of a yard deep. In this true God’s acre, more truly consecrated by the christening of Christian charity than the bigot’s benison, Perry was glad to permit also the burial of some British sailors. In a letter of thanks from Commodore W. Jones, of her Britannic Majesty’s squadron, the latter writes of the cemetery at Porto Grande, “In which you kindly permitted the interment of such British seamen as would have had their remains excluded from the (Roman) Catholic cemeteries at those places.”
“It seems hard that Englishmen should thus be indebted to the charity of strangers for a little Portuguese earth to cover them. It is a consolation that, in countries where superstition so far cancels gratitude and Christian feeling, that the noblest grave of a seaman, and in my opinion far the most preferable, is always at hand.”
Relieved by Commodore Skinner, Perry arrived in the Macedonian, off Sandy Hook, April 28, 1845.
During his service on this station, Perry exhibited his usual energy and patriotism in being ever sensitive to the honor of the flag, the navy and his country. In the exercise of his duty, he was frequently drawn into situations which evoked sharp controversies with the magistrates and officials of different nationalities in regard to restrictions in their ports, certain ceremonies, salutes, and minutiæ of etiquette. With practiced pen, this American sailor, a loving reader of Addison, showed himself a master in diplomacy and the art of expression. Uniting to the bluff ingenuousness of a sailor, something of the polish of a courtier, he almost invariably gained the advantage, and came off the best man. His conduct in delicate matters evoked the praise of both the American and English governments.
The American commanders on the African coast were too much handicapped by their instructions to be equally successful with the British cruisers against the slavers. Claiming the right of visitation and search, the Englishmen boarded all suspicious vessels except the American, and broke up the slave depots. The American men-of-war, in the actual work of destroying the slave traffic, formed rather a sentimental squadron, “chasing shadows in a deadly climate.”
The insatiable demand of Cuba for slaves made man-stealing and selling profitable, even if the speculators in human flesh lost four cargoes out of every five. Most of the masters of barracoons were Spaniards, and some were college-bred men, with harems and splendid mansions. The price of a slave on the coast was $30, while in Cuba it was $300. Blanco White, who had a fleet of one hundred vessels, barracoons as large as Chicago stock-yards, and a trade of eight thousand human carcasses a year, lost in one year by capture, eight vessels. As he recovered insurance on all of them, his loss was slight. The business of slave export, like that of the Nassau blockade-runners during our civil war, had in it plenty of gain, some lively excitement, but little or no danger. Decoys were commonly used. While a gun-boat was giving chase to some old tub of a vessel, with fifty diseased or worn-out slaves on board, a clipper-ship with several hundred in her hold, with loaded cannon to sweep the decks in case of mutiny, and with manacles for the refractory, would dash out of her hiding-place among the mangroves and scud across the open sea to Cuba or Brazil.