On March 16, 1807, the British Parliament passed The Abolition of the Slave Trade Act. In the following year the Royal Navy's African Squadron was formed, its mission to stop and search ships at sea suspected of carrying slaves from Africa to the Americas and the Middle East.
On 16 March 1807, the British Parliament passed The Abolition of the Slave Trade Act. In the following year the Royal Navy's African Squadron was formed, its mission to stop and search ships at sea suspected of carrying slaves from Africa to the Americas and the Middle East. With typical thoroughness, the Royal Navy went further, and took the fight to the enemy, sailing boldly up uncharted rivers and creeks to attack the barracoon's where the slaves were assembled ready for shipment. For much of its long campaign against the evil of slavery Britain's Navy fought alone and unrecognised. Its enemies were many and formidable. Ranged against it were the African chiefs, who sold their own people into slavery, the Arabs, who rode shotgun on the slave caravans to the coast, and the slave ships of the rest of the world, heavily armed, and prepared to do battle to protect their right to traffic in the forbidden black ivory. The war was long and bitter and the cost to the Royal Navy in ships and men heavy, but the result was worthy of the sacrifices made. The abolition of the slave trade led to a scramble for empires and, in place of slaves, Africa began to export cocoa, coffee, timber, palm oil, cotton and ores, all very much in demand in the West.
The acclaimed naval historian sheds significant light on the Royal Navy’s role in fighting the African slave trade through years of bitter battle at sea. On March 16th, 1807, the British Parliament passed The Abolition of the Slave Trade Act. The following year, the Royal Navy’s West African Squadron was formed for the purpose of stopping and searching ships at sea suspected of carrying enslaved people. But with typical thoroughness, the Royal Navy took the fight to the enemy, sailing boldly up uncharted rivers and creeks to attack the barracoon's where slave traders prepared their shipments. For much of its long campaign against the evil of slavery, Britain's Navy fought alone and unrecognized. Its enemies were many and formidable. Ranged against it were the African chiefs, who sold their own people into slavery, and the slave ships of the rest of the world, heavily armed, and prepared to do battle to protect their right to traffic in so-called “black ivory.”
The Royal Navy and the Slave Trade, first published in 1987, offers a detailed analysis of the Royal Navy’s slave trade suppression on the East Coast of Africa – an area often neglected in studies of the campaigns against the slavers. It traces the naval impact on the Arab slave trade from Zanzibar dominions and the political implications of that involvement. The naval contribution to the broader ‘Imperial’ debate is also considered. It breaks new ground by dealing with naval operations off East Africa and by presenting an analysis of the interaction of the various Imperial officials in the region, and the subsequent development of British policy.
The true story of the Royal Navy’s sixty-year campaign to stop slavery across the British Empire, decades before the American Civil War. Long before recorded history, men, women and children had been seized by conquering tribes and nations to be employed or traded as slaves. Greeks, Romans, Vikings, and Arabs were among the earliest of many peoples involved in the slave trade, and across Africa the buying and selling of slaves was widespread. There was, at the time, nothing unusual in Britain’s somewhat belated entry into the slave trade, transporting natives from Africa’s west coast to the plantations of the New World. What was unusual was Britain’s decision, in 1807, to ban the slave trade throughout the British Empire. Britain later persuaded other countries to follow suit, but this did not stop this lucrative business. So the Royal Navy went to war against the slavers, in due course establishing the West Africa Squadron, which was based at Freetown in Sierra Leone. This force grew throughout the nineteenth century until a sixth of the Royal Navy’s ships and marines was employed in the battle against the slave trade. Between 1808 and 1860, the West Africa Squadron captured 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans. In Britain’s War Against the Slave Trade, naval historian Anthony Sullivan reveals the story behind this little-known campaign. Whereas Britain is usually, and justifiably, condemned for its earlier involvement in the slave trade, the truth is that in time the Royal Navy undertook a major and expensive operation to end what was, and is, an evil business.
The Royal Navy and the Slavers, first published in 1969, examines not only the Royal Navy’s 60-year campaign to eradicate slavery, but also the British Government’s diplomatic pressure on other countries to discontinue the slave trade. It analyses Captain’s logs and despatches, and their evidence at trials of the men they captured, as well as looking at the messages from British ambassadors and consuls around the world.
A groundbreaking history of the Black Joke, the most famous member of the British Royal Navy’s anti-slavery squadron, and the long fight to end the transatlantic slave trade. The most feared ship in Britain’s West Africa Squadron, His Majesty’s brig Black Joke was one of a handful of ships tasked with patrolling the western coast of Africa in an effort to end hundreds of years of global slave trading. Sailing after the spectacular fall of Napoleon in France, yet before the rise of Queen Victoria’s England, Black Joke was first a slaving vessel itself, and one with a lightning-fast reputation; only a lucky capture in 1827 allowed it to be repurposed by the Royal Navy to catch its former compatriots. Over the next five years, the ship’s diverse crew and dedicated commanders would capture more ships and liberate more enslaved people than any other in the Squadron. Now, author A.E. Rooks chronicles the adventures on this ship and its crew in a brilliant, lively narrative of the history of Britain’s suppression efforts. As Britain slowly attempted to snuff out the transatlantic slave trade by way of treaty and negotiation, enforcing these policies fell to the Black Joke and those that sailed with it as they battled slavers, weather disasters, and interpersonal drama among captains and crew that reverberated across oceans. In this history of the daring feats of a single ship, the abolition of the international slave trade is revealed as an inexplicably extended exercise involving tense negotiations between many national powers, both colonizers and formerly colonized, that would stretch on for decades longer than it should have. Harrowing and heartbreaking, The Black Joke is a crucial and deeply compelling work of history, both as a reckoning with slavery and abolition and as a lesson about the power of political will—or the lack thereof.
Donald L. CanneyOCOs study is the first book-length history of the U.S. NavyOCOs Africa Squadron. Established in 1842 to enforce the ban on importing slaves to the United States, in twenty yearsOCO time the squadron proved ineffective. To officers and enlisted men alike, duty in the squadron was unpopular. The equatorial climate, departmental neglect, and judicial indifference, which allowed slavers back at sea, all contributed to the sailorsOCO frustration. Later, the most damaging allegation was that the squadron had failed at its mission. Canney investigates how this unit earned a poor reputation and whether it is deserved. Though U.S. warships seized slave vessels as early as 1800, four decades passed before the Navy established a permanent squadron off the western coast of Africa to interdict U.S.-flag vessels participating in this trade. Canney traces the NavyOCOs role in interdicting the slave trade, Great BritainOCOs pressure on the U.S. government to curb slave traffic, the creation of the squadron, and how individual politicians, department secretaries, captains, and squadron commanders interpreted the laws and orders from higher authorities, changing squadron operations. While famous ships and captains served on this station, none won distinction in the Africa Squadron. In the final analysis, the squadron was unsuccessful, even though it was the NavyOCOs only permanent squadron with a specific, congressionally mandated mission: to maintain a quasi-blockade on a foreign shore. While Canney exonerates southern-born naval captains, who approached their work as diligently as their counterparts from the north, he demonstrates how the secretaries of the NavyOCopro-slavery southern politiciansOConeglected the squadron."
"Much is known about Britain's role in the Atlantic slave trade during the eighteenth century but few are aware of the sustained campaign against slaving conducted by the Royal Navy after the passing of the Slave Trade Abolition Act of 1807. Peter Grindal provides the definitive account of this little known yet important part of the British, European and American history. Drawing on original sources to provide a comprehensive and engaging narrative of the naval operations against slavers of all nations - in particular Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands and Brazil, he describes how illegal traders sought to evade treaty obligations, reveals the obduracy of the USA that prolonged the slave trade, and shows how, despite inadequate resources, the Royal navy's sixty-year campaign forced slavers to expend ever greater sums top conduct their business and confront the losses inflicted by capture and condemnation. A work that will transform our understanding of the Royal Navy's campaign against the Atlantic slave trade."--
Drawing on substantial collections of previously unpublished papers, this book examines personal experiences of British naval officers employed in suppressing the transatlantic slave trade from West Africa in the nineteenth century. It illuminates cultural encounters, the complexities of British abolitionism, and extraordinary military service at sea and in African territories.