Welch, Pedro L v - Intra-American and Caribbean Destinations and Transit Points for the Slave Trade

7/25/2019 Welch, Pedro L v - Intra-American and Caribbean Destinations and Transit Points for the Slave Trade

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Intra-American and Caribbean

Destinations and Transit Pointsfor the Slave Trade

PEDRO L.V. WELCH

Abstract

This essay investigates the factors that were involved in the development of an

intra-regional trade in enslaved Africans throughout the Americas. It traces the

beginnings of this intra-regional trade from the establishment of the Spanish

New World empire and its expansion, consequent the emergence of the plan

tation system in the British West Indies. It notes that even after the abolition

of the British slave trade in 1807, several thousands of enslaved persons were

traded between the various anglophone Caribbean territories. The trade created

multiple middle-passage' experiences for many of the enslaved and consider

ably increased the trauma of enslavement. The essay also notes the involvement

of Danish, Dutch and Swedish traders in the trade.

Introduction

The commemoration of the two-hundredth centennial of the abolition

of the British slave trade in 2007 has provided an opportunity for histo

rians to revisit the nature and scope of the African holocaust. For many,

the fact that for over three hundred years there were in excess of 25,000

voyages, disembarking more than eleven million persons (some esti

mates go as high as twenty million or more) in the New World, illus

trates the large-scale, involuntary migration of Africans.1The numbers,

however, do little to illustrate the horror and sheer brutality of the trade,except when juxtaposed with statistics on mortality and eyewitness

descriptions of the treatment of the enslaved.

The Journal of Caribbean History42, 1 (2008): 46-66

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Intra-American and Caribbean Destinations for the Slave Trade 47

In general, the tendency has been to focus almost exclusively on the

transatlantic slave trade itself and offer only cursory examinations of the

transportation of enslaved Africans in an intra-regional, New Worldtrade. This paper attempts to uncover some aspects of that trade and

widen the scope of the discussion on the mass movement of peoples of

African descent by their enslavers. The fact is, for several thousands of

these people ripped from kin and country with little hope of return, the

Middle Passage (that is, the transatlantic crossing) was to be expanded,

in turn, into other middle passages, as slave ships plied the trade from

island to island, from island to mainland and from mainland to islandviavarious regional transit points.

A review of the historiography on the slave trade reveals very sparse

treatment on the various transit points from which the enslaved were

moved across the New World. We are indebted to Elizabeth Donnan's

extensive sampling of documents on the slave trade, which has pro

vided important data for this paper.21 have relied heavily on this data

base for some of the discussions in the paper. Philip Curtin's analyses

of slave trade data have also been particularly useful. He observes that

inter-island (for which we might read intra-regional) migration has

implications for the calculations of slave imports by region or colony. He

informs us that "Slaves were re-exported regularly from colonies of the

major shipping nations, such as Portugal, Britain, or the Netherlands. In

addition, planters often moved with their slaves from one colony toanother.... In the early nineteenth century, after the British slave trade

had legally ended . .. British planters moved slaves to the new planting

frontiers of Trinidad and British Guiana.3 Curtin s comments above

serve to introduce us to the pioneering work of Eric Williams, and the

later discussion by David Eltis,4on the question of the intra-Caribbean

trade in enslaved Africans, which took place after the abolition of the

British slave trade in 1807.

Williams's 1942 article was one of the first to identify the intra-

regional slave trade as an important aspect of the wider discussion on

abolition. The title of the article, "The British West Indian Slave Trade

after its Abolition in 1807", was intended to draw attention to the fact

that, after abolition of that trade, considerable numbers of enslaved per

sons were still being traded between Caribbean territories. He estimatesthat in the five years from 1807 to 1812, British Guiana imported over

7,500 enslaved persons from other Caribbean territories. Also, in the

case of TVinidad, that territory imported more than 3,800 enslaved per

sons, the majority from Dominica and Grenada.5Given this picture of


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48 Pedro L. V. Welch

a post-1807 trade, it is not surprising that he could come to the conclu

sion that "the virtuous page in the history of Britain, represented by the

Act of 1807, was not so virtuous after all, unless it was that the abolitionists reserved their humanity and their invective for the slave trad

ing on the Gold Coast and the horrors of the Middle Passage".6

Eltis's discussion on the intra-Caribbean slave trade in the period

after 1807 sought to rectify what he felt were some deficiencies in

Williams's treatment, especially his treatment of the laws governing the

intra rgional trade and his 'incomplete estimate" of the volume of the

trade.7These issues apart, Eltis, like Williams, correctly recognized that

the implications for the enslaved people went far beyond the question

of statistics. Noting that almost 15,000 enslaved persons were exported

to Trinidad and Demerara after 1807, he interpreted this to mean a "con

siderable amount of human suffering". For many of the enslaved, this

movement served to prolong their misery that might, in some cases,

have represented a psychological return to the trauma of the Middle

Passage.

These comments provide a useful backdrop to a wider survey of the

intra-regional slave trade. We may bear in mind that the post-abolition

trade represented a continuation of a practice that had been going on

since the beginnings of the slave system in the Caribbean. It is in this

context, therefore, that we will survey the facts on the formative years

of the re-export trade in enslaved persons up to the late eighteenth century. After this survey, we will return to the question of the post-1807

intra-Caribbean trade.

The Beginnings of the Re-Export Trade: Identifying

the First Transit Points

We shall begin with a brief look at the Spanish, since they were the pio

neers in the trade of enslaved Africans to the New World. For the period

up to 1640, we might also include Portugal, since under the terms of the

papal intervention in the conflict between those two states after the

conquest of the New World, Portugal had control of the African trade.

Moreover, between 1580 and 1640 both Spain and Portugal were united

under one crown. Up to 1600, the Spanish were the biggest importersof enslaved Africans to the New World, accounting for some 75,000 of

them. However, the bulk of their imports went to the mainland colonies

rather than to the islands. Indeed, it was not until the middle decades

of the late eighteenth century that Cuba, and, to a much lesser extent,


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Puerto Rico experienced their own sugar revolutions". With that came

a major surge in the importation of enslaved labourers.

For Spanish America, it appears that the major transit points, in orderof importance, were Cartagena in Colombia, Vera Cruz in Mexico,

Caracas in Venezuela, Porto Bello in the Isthmus and Callao in Peru.

Once trade with the Dutch expanded after 1640, Curaao became an

important transit point which fed into the trade of these Spanish ports.

Thus, we are informed that Slaves by the thousands over the centuries

entered the New World at Cartagena, sometimes having been

'refreshed' in the Caribbean.. .. Cartagena became the principal entrept of Spanish America. Crossroads of empire, it held the famous

Cartagena fair which drew buyers in great numbers from the

provinces.8Yet, we must also note that some of the enslaved shipped

through Cartagena to other Spanish centres might have begun their mis

erable New World existence in other locations such as Curaao and, as

we shall discover when we look later at Spanish-English collaboration

in the intra-regional slave trade, from English ports such as Kingston in

Jamaica and Bridgetown in Barbados.

Notwithstanding the importance of the Spanish trade in enslaved

Africans during the formative years of European conquest and settle

ment, the major expansion of the slave trade is associated primarily

with the British colonies in the New World. After all, Barbados was the

first territory to experience the 'sugar revolution', and by the 1660s itbecame the premier centre for a re-export trade in enslaved Africans.

Our attention, therefore, turns to the experience of the English-speak

ing New World.

The early years of the transatlantic slave trade in the English-speak

ing New World are associated with a struggle between the Royal African

Company (RAC) and those who clearly recognized the considerable prof

its that might accrue from involvement in the trade. The RAC began its

life in 1660 as the Company of Royal Adventurers TVading to Africa.

This earlier, joint-stock company received a charter to trade in Africa in

that year and a revised charter in 1663. Its early capitalization was

assured by investment from persons drawn from the upper echelons of

English society and even from the king himself.

In the first period of its existence, the company began to farm outsome of its trade by licensing so-called private or separate traders. Thus,

by the time that its name changed to the RAC, it had a long practice of

farming out some of its trade to others. Quite apart from its licensing of

private traders, the RAC was faced with tremendous competition from


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50*Pedro L. V. Welch

illegal traders known, in the trade jargon of the time, as "interlopers".

Moreover, during the course of its monopoly, it faced a barrage of com

plaints and criticisms from planters and merchants in the Caribbean,

who felt that free trade should be allowed if their estates were to be ade

quately supplied.

It is important to note that the development of an intra-regional trade

in enslaved Africans in the anglophone New World was spurred, in part,

by this competition between the RAC and its licensed traders on the

one hand, and interlopers on the other. To get away from the constant

inspection of the company's agents, backed up by the customs and naval

agencies of the Crown, many of the other traders went in search of

other markets, particularly those where the reach of the RAC was not

immediately apparent. Moreover, as other plantation economies in the

Americas developed and the demand for enslaved persons grew, the

costs of labour increased. This was a factor that profit-seeking enslavers

were quick to exploit. On this issue, Davies observes that "monopoly,

imperfect as it was, resulted in adequate supplies at low prices, while

free trade was followed by much larger supplies at higher prices; and asthe eighteenth century proceeded and competition in the slave-trade

was intensified, prices rose to still greater heights'.9

Given this scenario, it is not surprising that in the colonies, of which

Barbados is a prime example, investors would look closely at the possi-


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bilities of transhipping enslaved persons once the domestic market had

been satisfied. This is clear from several pieces of correspondence that

appear during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.On 21 September 1719, Richard Harris, a "separate trader", wrote to

the secretary of the Board of Trade, describing the New World trading

systems:

Sir, in answer to yours of the 17th inst. touching the information their Lordships

have received, of a considerable trade for Negroes being carried on by the Dutch,

from Eustatia to the Leeward Islands, and Barbados etc. ... I must beg leave to

acquaint you, that I believe there is, and always was, a clandestine trade carriedon, between our islands and the Dutch, as well as the French islands, for linens,

spice, brandy, wine and many other commodities, and in former times for great

numbers of Negroes also, but for some years past, and particularly the two or

three last, Barbados has been over-supplied, and the price so low, that very great

Negroes have been carried out from thence, both to Martinique, Virginia and all

the Leward Islands.10

Harris's observations are those of a person intimately involved inthe trade and therefore qualified to offer such an overview. Indeed, he

goes on to tell us that he had sent two ships to Barbados in 1719, and

the market was so glutted that he was forced to send his ships on to

Jamaica. It is in this context that he offers the following advice: [When

ever Barbados [was] over-supplied, the Leeward Islands [could] never

want, there being a great trade always carried on from thence to

Leeward, for Negroes, Provisions, and many other goods by many sloops

daily employed therein.11

Barbados had become a main centre for the re-export of enslaved

persons in the anglophone Caribbean, and even to English North

America, partly due to the pioneering status of the island as the first to

experience the "sugar revolution".12Once the optimum complement of

enslaved labour for the island had been determined, with due respectto mortality rates and other such issues, any surplus labour could be

marketed to labour-scarce territories further north. Other factors under

line Barbados's position in the intra-regional slave trade nexus, and we

will note some of these now.

Bridgetown as an Entrepotin the Intra-ColonialTrade

There is considerable evidence of Barbados's growing importance as a

central node in regional trading systems. This centrality derived, in part,


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52Pedro L. V. Welch

from the island's position as a major hub for market intelligence and

from its geographical position as the easternmost island in the

Caribbean chain. Shipping data for 1680-1738 records an average offorty-one vessels per year docking at the various ports (Bridgetown,

Holetown, Oistins and Speightstown) and an outward-bound traffic

averaging eighty-one vessels per year to the other islands (roughly

twenty-five per cent of the total outward-bound shipping). George

Pinckard, a doctor attached to the British Caribbean fleet in the 1790s,

noted that another aspect of Bridgetown's growth as a port lay in the

excellent victualling services it offered. He observed that "most of the

West India trading ships recruit(ed) their stock at Barbados". Bridgetown

was both the "busy Thames" and the "London" of the West Indies.13

The British Naval Office shipping lists show that, of ninety-seven

vessels arriving at Barbados between 27 April and 3 July 1733, at least

seventy-five of them traded between that island and other Caribbean

and North American ports. Fifteen of these vessels were registered inBarbados and thirty-eight in North America. Twenty-six of some ninety-

one outward-bound vessels in this same period headed for Caribbean

and North American destinations.14When one realizes that a consider

able smuggling trade existed between Barbados and these islands, as

well as with the French and Spanish Caribbean, it becomes possible

that these official statistics may well represent only a small proportion

of the real volume of trade between Barbados and the rest of theregion.

It seems that much of the trade was carried on in small vessels

owned by local merchants and mariners. For example, in a petition of

30 October 1772, Bridgetown merchants complained that the imposition

of a duty, 2s 6d per ton on all vessels entering the port, was inimical to

their interests. They referred to an act of 30 May of that same year, enti

tled "An Act to Encourage the Inhabitants of this Island to Become the

Owners of Small Vessels", and observed that there was a considerable

number of small vessels (schooners) "commonly commanded by the

good Inhabitants and Natives of this island and employed in trading

with the neighbouring colonies. . . . [T]he said vessels generally make

from twelve to fifteen voyages within a month.'15

Our review of the shipping returns for the eighteenth century doesnot indicate an inter-colonial shipping trade of the frequency reported

here by the Bridgetown merchants. It is quite probable that the petition

ers were revealing a lot more of their activities than they had intended.

The small vessels used in the local trade were also involved in a clan-


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destine contraband trade. This trade made use of a class of vessel which

could slip far inland along the rivers and creeks under the cover of dark

ness to offload and load their illegal ware. Their owners could not beexpected always to comply with naval and shipping regulations, and, as

a result, these vessels did not often show up in the official returns.

Perhaps this was the experience that Olaudah Equiano, an enslaved

African, reported as he traversed the Caribbean waters in a sloop which

discharged its cargo several times up rivers and creeks. Notwithstanding

the evidence of illegal trade, the petitioners' complaint also indicates a

vigorous official trade.The intra-regional trade played a major role in the expansion of the

Bridgetown port. Moreover, the position of the island, at the hub of a

regional trading system, is an underlying factor in the self-consciousness

of an indigenous mercantile class. In 1807, the merchants petitioned

the Colonial Office in London for the extension of free-port status to

Bridgetown. It was not the first time that this had been suggested, but

the impetus at that time appears to have been the granting of free-port

status to Dominica, Jamaica and Grenada. This threatened to draw away

considerable trade from Barbados, and the merchants felt constrained

to remind His Majesty's Board of TYade" that Bridgetown was hitherto

the Chief Mart of TYade". Moreover, they argued that Barbados, 'being

placed to the Windward of all the other Islands under your Majesty's

Dominion in the West Indies affords it an opportunity of drawing toitself full benefits of such a Free Port".16 It might well have been the

possibility of making substantial profits from the slave trade that

prompted these responses. Barbadian investors might also have noted

that a considerable trade in enslaved Africans took place between

Dominica and the nearby French islands, particularly at a time when the

British had occupied these territories.

Ian Steele's path-breaking study of communications in the Atlantic

World has identified other advantages that facilitated Bridgetown's dom

inance in the inter-colonial and metropolitan-colonial trade. Steele notes

that, in the late seventeenth century, Bridgetown and Boston were "usu

ally first to be favoured with news from Stuart England, and the volume

and seasons of their shipping connections with each other further

enhanced their advantage as sources of news". He states further that"Whether it was news concerning market prices of sugar, merchant or

naval shipping that had entered the Caribbean . . . Barbadians were

well placed to be among the first to know the westbound news. . . .

English colonial shipmasters, anxious to maximize the safety and yield


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54Pedro L. V. Welch

on their ventures could learn

much at this island drawing 300

ships a year in all seasons fromEngland's Atlantic empire."17

It is therefore clear that the

Bridgetown port was an impor

tant centre for the reception and

dissemination of news on slave

prices throughout the region.

Indeed, the company's agents in

Swan Street, Bridgetown, recom

mended in 1708 that it would

be in ye Company's best interest

to order the ships bound to

Jamaica or the Leeward Islands

to touch at Barbados in theirway hither and make tryall of ye

Markett".18Despite the problems

caused by the occasional glut in

the Barbados market, the attrac

tiveness of the growing regional market underlies the place of the

Bridgetown port in the transhipment of enslaved Africans. In addition,

the port offered a haven for sailing ships after the rigours of the MiddlePassage and facilities for "refreshing" those slaves not sold on the island

in preparation for their journey further north, west and, sometimes,

southwards.

The fluctuations in the market throughout the 1720s to the 1770s do

not appear to have deterred would-be investors in the slave trade. North

American merchants, such as Nicholas Brown of Providence and Aaron

and Abraham Lopez of Newport, continued to invest in the trade, using

the Bridgetown port as the leading edge of their slave sales in the New

World. In 1764, Nicholas Brown fitted out a brig, which he named Sally,

for the Guinea trade. The captain, Esek Hopkins, was left with full

discretion to proceed to any port in the West Indies that would offer

maximum profit to Brown. He was, however, instructed to try Barbados

first. The voyage was unsuccessful, partly due to the effects of a slaveuprising on board the ship. Hopkins's arrival at Bridgetown, in October

1765, apparently found the market depressed. Moreover, a high mortal

ity rate (109 slaves died out of the 187 secured on the Guinea coast)

removed any hope of the owners making a profit. What his instructions

Africans slowed on board the slave shipWildfire hltp:llwww.sono(thesouth. net/

slaveryklave-ship_Picturel.jpg)


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illustrated, nevertheless, is the prominent place that the Bridgetown

port held in his owners' scheme of operations.19

The case of the Lopez ventures in the slave trade reveals a similarpicture. Between 1764 and 1773, Aaron and Abraham Lopez despatched

several vessels to the West Indies. Most of these stopped in Barbados

first, either selling all of the slave cargoes there or using the port as a

staging place for sales further north in the Caribbean and, finally, into

North America. In 1766, for example, the sloop Spryfollowed the route

Barbados-Jamaica-New York on its slave trading run.20

By the early nineteenth century, the price situation in the rest ofthe Caribbean, coupled with the abolition of the slave trade in 1807,

would lead to changes in the investment pattern for shipping in the

Guinea-New World run. However, the demand for slaves in the expand

ing sugar industries of other Caribbean colonies would facilitate an

intra-Caribbean trade. In this new phase thousands of slaves were

taken from the long-settled islands such as Barbados . . . and shipped to

the newly acquired and much less developed colonies" where prices

were double that obtained on the island.21

Expanding the Trade

With Barbados setting the pace for the re-export trade in enslaved

Africans that was transiting the region during the late seventeenth century and well into the eighteenth century, it was not long before other

territories became transit points in their own right. In the following

tables, we see the spread of the transit trade to North America, as slaves

were transhipped via various Caribbean ports to the mainland. In all of

this, we should bear in mind that the figures represent reported trade.

There was, as we have noted earlier, a considerable illegal trade that

never found its way into the official ledgers.

Eyewitness Accounts of the Intra-Regional Trade

While the statistics presented might pale in comparison with the sheer

volume of the trade from Africa to the Americas, it is important to

remember that each number represented a person. Indeed, at this pointwe might do well to take on board the comments by at least two

enslaved persons who were victims of this trade. I refer to the testi

monies of Olaudah Equiano and Jeffrey Brace, both of whom were

shipped from Africa to Barbados before being transhipped to North


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Table 2: Trade in Enslaved Africans to New York by Selected Caribbean

Countries,* for Selected Years, 1715-1765

Years Antigua Barbados Bermuda Curaao Jamaica

1715 _ 5 _ . 31716 - 5 - 3 7

1717 - 29 6 3 9

1718 52 146 - 4 81

1719-

12 2 9 321720 4 18 - - 30

1721 - 51 1 - 4

1722 1 9 - - 37

1723 5 12 12 6 70

1724 4 6 3 - 32

1725 7 25 3 4 35

1726 4 10 4 - 1121727 9 16 6 9 145

1728 5 12 4 1 76

1729 93 40 8 7 21

1730 50 22 5 11 42

1731 48 44 1 1 47

1732 13 24 2 9 75

1733 16 2 6 2 1311734 2 8 2 6 21

1736 - - 1 12 115

1738 4 - 3 16 30

1739 24 3 9 - 88

1740 12 2 2 4 21

1741 7 - 1 2 37

1743 4 - 1 - 5

1750 4 - - - 9

1754 - - - - -

1763 4 5 - - -

1765 30 5 - - -

Total 403 511 82 109 1,315

Source:Adapted from Elizabeth Donnan, Documents Illustrative of the History of

the Slave Trade to America(New York: Octagon Books, 1969), 4:462-510.Other countries listed in this trade were Martinique, St Kitts, St Martin,

Suriname, St Lucia, the Virgin Islands and so on. The general picture is that

of a vigorous annual intra-regional trade that involved several Caribbeanterritories.


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58Pedro L. V. Welch

America. Equiano's experience is the

more telling, since he was later sold to

the owner of a vessel involved in theintra rgional slave trade. Perhaps his

words will convey something of the hor

ror of the trade. He tells us the following:

^1 was often a witness to cruelties of everykind, which were exercised on my unhappy

fellow slaves. I used frequently to have differ

ent cargoes of new Negroes in my care for

sale; and it was almost a constant practice

with our clerks, and other whites, to commit

violent depredations on the chastity of the

Olaudah Equiano female slaves. . . . When we have had some of

/http://hum.lss.wisc.edu/bplum- these slaves on board my master's vessels tomer/hist330/olaudah.jpgl carry them off tQ other islands or toAfrica,

I have known our mates to commit these acts.

... I have even known them gratify their brutal passion with females not ten

years old; and these abominations some of them practiced to such scandalous

excess.22

Equiano's anguish was compounded by his apparent helplessness. As if

things were not bad enough, on one occasion the boat in which he was

travelling sprung a leak through contact with a reef. Because the ship's

boat only had a capacity of ten persons, the captain ordered that thehatch be nailed down over twenty enslaved persons who were being

transported from St Eustatius for Georgia. It was only with great diffi

culty that the captain was dissuaded from this action, which would

almost certainly have led to the death of the Africans.23From Equiano's

accounts, we learn that the sloop on which he worked generally made

the rounds from Montserrat to St Eustatius. It then travelled to ports

ranging from the eastern seaboard of the British North American

colonies and down to the southern colonies, trading in rum, molasses

and enslaved persons, among other commodities.

In the second narrative, drawn also from the testimony of an

enslaved African, we learn, from Jeffrey Brace, the circumstances of

his capture in Africa and his subsequent imprisonment, in Barbados, in

the house of a slave trader called Welch.

Brace was so ill on his arrival in Barbados, that he was not sold for about three

months. After his sale to a captain of the British Navy, he was sent to Welch's

house, presumably to take him through the period of seasoning. For such an

offence as puking, after eating some tainted food, Welch beat him into insensi-
http://hum.lss.wisc.edu/bplum-http://hum.lss.wisc.edu/bplum-


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bility. Later, after his recovery, Brace was handed over to his purchaser and

served with him on his ship, until he was sold later to another purchaser in

Boston. After several changes in ownership, he became the property of a family

called Stiles and, eventually, because of his action in the American Revolution,

he received his freedom. His narrative, dictated to a white American, Benjamin

Prentiss, reveals a story of violence and paints a vivid picture of the plight which

awaited the African enslaved person in the New World. The Middle Passage

experience was repeated several times in his life as he was traded from enslaver

to enslaver.24

The Development of an Anglo-Hispanic

Slave Trade Nexus

Our attention now shifts to other aspects of the growing intra rgional

trade. Given the circumstances of the Spanish conquest of the New

World and the subsequent papal demarcation of the so-called newly dis

covered lands, the supply of enslaved Africans was at first placed undera licence (the asiento) contracted with the Portuguese. By the late sev

enteenth century, after the Portuguese had broken away from the

Spanish yoke, the asiento for the supply of enslaved Africans to the

Spanish New World colonies had passed to the Dutch and then to

Genoese merchants. It is at this point that English colonies in the

Caribbean emerged as transit points in the regional trade in enslaved

persons to the Spanish territories. As Donnan informs us, in signing

contracts with the Genoese, the Spanish had come to accept that its

labourers must be obtained from foreigners and heretics".25Moreover,

'While Spain herself would not traffic with English heretics, the

Genoese had no such scruples."26 In any case, it was not long before

the Spanish were entering into direct negotiations with the English for

the supply of enslaved Africans.In 1660, the Earl of Marlborough made approaches to have Jamaica

become the base for the supply of enslaved Africans to the Spanish

colonies by the Company of Royal Adventurers. These approaches had

the sanction of the company, which was quick to see the possibility of

substantial profit. In 1663, the company wrote in a memorandum that

"if the Spanish subjects of the West Indies [were] licensed to trade . . .

[with the English territories], the whole trade and commerce [might] be

appropriated to the said Company".27 In fact, the company had already

received a sub-contract with the Genoese holders of the asiento by

which they were to deliver 3,500 Africans annually to ports in Barbados


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60Pedro L. V. Welch

and Jamaica, where they would then be transhipped to the Spanish

colonies.28

Grillo, the Spanish agent who negotiated this arrangement, facedsome obstacles from the Spanish Crown, who was reluctant to sanction

a trade that would benefit the English competitors. However, the need

for labourers overrode such reluctance and the Crown sought, through

the Duke of York, to have the British government permit Spanish agents

to reside in Jamaica and Barbados, so as to facilitate the safe conduct of

vessels transporting enslaved Africans.29 Whatever the attempts to

obtain official sanction on the part of the British and Spanish govern

ments for the trade, Spanish merchants took the initiative and visited

Barbados to negotiate the trade.

The proposals of the Spanish to Henry Walrond, President of the

Barbados Council, illustrate the potential for substantial economic ben

efit to the English Caribbean territories if they took part in the transac

tion. The Spaniards informed the representatives from Barbados thatthe market price for enslaved Africans in such New World territories as

Peru was as high, in some cases, as 1,000 pieces-of-eight (about

200-250 per person). Apart from this price that the Spanish them

selves might get for these individuals in the Peruvian and other markets,

it appears that they were willing to pay up to 140 pieces-of-eight for

each person and, additionally, ten per cent duty.30 It is surprising that

they would have let on that the prices in the Peruvian market were sohigh and, equally, that their Barbadian hosts did not immediately seize

the opportunity to bargain for much higher rates. Perhaps, in the case

of the host's expectations, the roughly 31 per person that the Spanish

were offering was almost twice what these slave traders would have

received in the local Barbadian market.31

The Spaniards also indicated that they were ready to invest about

100,000 at once. This suggested an immediate market requirement of

about 3,225 enslaved persons. In addition to these estimates, they dan

gled the carrot of a trade worth five million pieces-of-eight yearly.

While this trade did not necessarily consist only of enslaved Africans,

the trade between Barbados and the Spanish colonies, to the tune of

25,000 enslaved persons annually, seems to have been a major part of

this proposed expenditure. Given the fact that the transportation ofenslaved Africans throughout the region also involved a vigorous smug

gling trade, the projections for the traffic between the English

and Spanish colonies might have understated the potential for human

suffering.


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The Barbados Council was reluctant to enter into a formal arrange

ment which would clearly run afoul of the Navigation Acts, but the

President had no such misgivings and gave the Spanish permission topurchase 400 enslaved Africans. The official figures indicate that the

price the Spanish were willing to pay might not represent the reality of

the trade. Graft and outright misappropriation of funds were factors

that tended to inflate the price. It may be noted, also, that some of the

enslaved Africans shipped in this intra-regional trade were looked upon

as refuse, that is, enslaved persons that merchants and planters had

not purchased at the first stop in the English islands. Instead, speculators often purchased them, paying anything from one to five pounds

per person, hoping to nurse the individuals back to some degree of

health. Often, the enslaved Africans were shaved to hide evidence of

advancing years, and their skin was oiled to hide defects. This was done

to induce the purchaser to pay more than the going rate. Certainly, this

might explain why, just a few months after the Spanish purchased the

first enslaved Africans from Barbados at 140 pieces-of-eight each, they

were purchasing others at 220 pieces-of-eight (44) per head.32

The profits that accrued to Barbadian speculators in this trade

offered a strong temptation to officials to defraud the royal treasury. On

8 April 1663, according to the Minutes of the Barbados Council, the

President reported a receipt of 1,000 from the last Spanish ship that

had been permitted to trade. However, just a few months later, theProvost-Marshall issued a warrant to take Henry Walrond into custody

until he accounted for payments received from the Spanish. In 1683,

Governor Dutton of Barbados was accused of receiving a payment of

24s per head for permitting the sale of 1,000 enslaved Africans to

Spanish agents.

The potential for considerable benefits to the royal treasury was not

lost on the king himself. As early as 1663, following the first overtures

of the Spanish to the Barbados Council, he wrote to the governor, con

firming that he had decided *[t]hereby [to] grant license to Spanish

agents in America, to purchase from the Caribee islands and Jamaica,

supplies of negro slaves and such other European commodities as their

own plantations [might] want on payment of customs for the same, for

every Negro five pieces of eight at the rate of four shillings sterling forevery piece of eight'.33It is quite likely that the favourable response of

the Crown was a factor in the constant agitation of various Jamaican

governors for free trade. Philip Curtin's estimate that Jamaica was

responsible for the re-export of some 206,200 enslaved Africans, over


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62Pedro L. V. Welch

the period 1701 to 1807, indicates that the intra-regional trade in

enslaved persons represented a significant aspect of the slave trade from

Africa. It is more than likely that the statistics for the Barbados re-exporttrade exceeded these estimates.

The foregoing discussion on the Anglo-Spanish trade serves to illus

trate the necessity of considering the intra-New World trade, if a clearer

picture is to be derived of the trauma of the slave trade experience. At

each stop, misery was multiplied as the enslaved persons lost contact

with kin and shipmates - all were swallowed up in the regional dias

pora. Perhaps Herbert Klein's observations come closest to identifying

the activity in this trade. He notes the possibility of local intra-

Caribbean shipping distributing to several islands the newly arrived

African slaves from one entrept island'. He also informs us that "sev

eral of the British islands seemed to have served this purpose, and in the

1790s even Jamaica reported intra-Caribbean shipping to Havana which

sometimes carried 100 slaves per voyage".34

Other Connections in the Intra-Regional Slave Trade

There were other elements of the intra-regional trade that must also be

taken into consideration. We have already noted Jamaica's agitation for

free trade, but we might also note that, in Britain, some persons looked

with favour on such requests, and others looked with favour on the possibility of granting free-port status to various regional ports. In this way,

the British colonizers hoped to counter the mercantilist aims of their

competitors by siphoning off some of their trade. The apogee of the free

port system came in the 1760s when the British, Danish, Dutch and

French enacted legislation opening up selected ports to foreign traders.

The British Free Port Act of 1766 opened four ports in Jamaica and two

in Dominica. Later, Grenada would also be granted free-port status.35In

the case of Dominica, Donnan notes that "the greater part of the slaves

. . . were purchased by the French and Spaniards".36A 1770 comment

by a local merchant expands this picture, to the effect that Dominica's

free-port status had facilitated the trade between that colony on the one

hand, and Martinique and Guadeloupe on the other.37

Quite apart from the Anglo-Spanish and Anglo-French trades thathave been identified, we might bear in mind that there were other play

ers, such as the Danish, the Dutch, and Swedish, who participated in the

intra-regional trade. We have already noted the place of the Dutch

colony of Curaao in the supply of slave labour to the Spanish colonies.


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In the case of the Danes, Sven Green-Pedersen has estimated that about

43,000 enslaved persons were re-exported from St Croix and St Thomas

over the period 1733 to 1802. Moreover, with the granting of free-portstatus to St Thomas, a not-inconsequential transit trade developed. His

estimate, that over 26,000 enslaved persons were traded from St Thomas

over the period 1785 to 1807, reveals something of the scale of the trans

portation of enslaved persons.38

Neville Hall's research on the slave society of the Danish West Indies

also indicates that the free-port status of St Thomas stimulated a tran

sit trade in enslaved persons. It also indicates that other free ports at

Kingston, St Georges, Grenada, Bridgetown and Nassau participated in

such a trade.39However, as we have pointed out earlier, the existence of

a vigorous contraband trade suggests that the scale of human suffering

far surpassed anything that the raw statistics might indicate. In addition

to these observations on the transit trade in the Danish West Indies, we

might note that some North American ports functioned as transit points

in an intra state trade. As a result of a growing market for enslaved

persons in North America after the 1740s, New Jersey became an impor

tant transit centre for other states. As the governor of New Jersey

wrote in 1762, large numbers of enslaved persons were landed in New

Jersey, 'to be run into New York and Pennsylvania".40 Indeed, a New

Jersey-West Indies nexus may also be identified, in which traders in

the anglophone Caribbean were advised to use New Jersey as a tradingcentre to avoid the duties paid on enslaved persons elsewhere in the

North American market.41

Our survey, therefore, has identified some of the major transit points

and routes along which enslaved persons were transported over the

period between the first entry of Europeans and the early nineteenth

century. We will end our discussion by returning to the question of the

intra-regional trade in the British Caribbean territories after 1807, par

ticularly since our discussion is set in the context of a commemoration

of the abolition of the British slave trade in 1807.

The Post-1807 Intra-Colonial Slave Trade

The period between 1807 and 1834 was one of dynamic activism onthe part of anti-slavery forces. The Danes had abolished the slave trade

in 1803. They were followed by the British, who passed an act in 1807

(that came into effect in 1808) to abolish the trade and then launched an

international effort to persuade other European countries to abolish


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64Pedro L. V. Welch

their own trade in enslaved Africans. The Americans also passed legis

lation to abolish the trade. For our purposes, however, the task is to

assess the course of the intra-colonial trade in this period of abolitionism. In each case, the passage of legislation was one thing; the issue of

policing the system was another. In the case of the Danes, Hugh Thomas

informs us that, even after 1808, ships continued to conduct the slave

trade under Danish flags, and, in the case of the Americans, no special

machinery was set up to enforce the abolition of the trade.42In short, for

all the legislative statements of the various authorities, the misery of

the intra-colonial trade continued for some time.

British abolition, likewise, did not mean an immediate end to the

sufferings, under the British hand, of newly enslaved Africans. In this

context, we might note Professor Hilary Beckles's discussion on the

post-1807, intra-Caribbean slave trade. In his examination of the contri

butions that Williams and Eltis made to this area of historical enquiry,

he observes that neither of them included in their calculations the thousands of 'liberated Africans', persons captured on the seas from illegal

slavers by the British Navy and employed as apprentices in labor-starved

colonies".43Beckles's observations remind us that, the statistical argu

ment apart, what was represented in the trade was continued despair

for countless thousands of persons who had been separated from loved

ones either from their place of origin in Africa or, in the case of enslaved

Creoles, from their colonial residences.Barry Higman has also paid some attention to the post-1807, intra-

Caribbean slave trade, noting that Eltis's statistics do not cover the

period after 1830, and that some transit points were not included in the

latter's examination of the trade. Thus, he identifies the Virgin Islands,

Montserrat, Nevis and Anguilla as missing from Eltis's statistical survey,

with the Virgin Islands emerging as significant suppliers" to TVinidad.44

Higman's estimate of 13,500 enslaved Africans being shipped to

Trinidad and Demerara-Essequibo from other Caribbean transit points,

in the period between 1808 and 1825, provides some additional basis for

considering the cost in human suffering. When we take the various esti

mates that first Williams, and later Eltis and Higman, provided, and

link them with the "thousands of liberated Africans" that Beckles iden

tified as requiring inclusion in such estimates, it is clear that the postabolition situation for the intra-Caribbean slave trade requires closer

examination of what exactly was achieved by abolition in 1807.


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Notes

1. See David Eltis et al., The Transatlantic Slave Trade: A Database on CD-ROM

(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 5-6. They refer to higher

estimates of about fifteen million, although they suggest that the data tend

towards downward revision. However, whether the lower or higher esti

mates are used, the acknowledgement of fairly large mortalities in Africa,

on the march towards the coast and on the Middle Passage, as well as the

fact that much of the trade was simply not reported, might support consid

erable upward revision.2. Elizabeth Donnan, Documents Illustrative of the Slave Trade, 3 vols. (New

York: Octagon Books, 1969).

3. Philip Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census (London: University of

Wisconsin Press, 1969), 57.

4. See Eric Williams, The British West Indian Slave Trade after its Abolition

in 1807', Journal of Negro History 27, no. 2. (1942): 175-91; David Eltis,

"The TVaffic in Slaves between the British West Indian Colonies,1807-1833',Economic History Review25, no. 1 (1972): 55-64.

5. Wiliams, 'British West Indian Slave Trade", 178.

6. Ibid., 191.

7. Eltis, "lYaffic in Slaves', 56.

8. James A. Rawley, The Transatlantic Slave Trade(New York: Norton, 1981),

52-53.

9. K.G. Davies, The Royal African Company(London: Longmans, 1960), 144.

10. Donnan, Documents, 2:241.1 have modernized the spellings in the passage

in the interest of consistency.

11. Ibid.

12. Ibid., 241.

13. George Pinckard,Notes on the West Indies(London: Longmans, 1806), 1:443.

14. Barbados National Archives: Data extracted from the Naval Office Shipping

Lists for 1733.

15. Barbados National Archives: Petition of Bridgetown merchants to theBarbados Council, Minutes of the Council, 20 October 1772.

16. British National Archives: Colonial Office (CO) 28/61/120, Bridgetown

Merchants' Petition to the Board of TVade, 18 December 1787.

17. Ian K. Steele, The English Atlantic 1655-1806 (London: Oxford University

Press, 1986), 27-28.

18. David Galenson, Traders, Merchants, and Slaves: Market Behaviour in Early

English America(London: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 36.

19. See Jeunes B. Hedges, The Browns of Providence Plantations (Providence:

Brown University Press, 1968), 74-80.

20. See Virginia B. Platt, 'And Don't Forget the Guinea Voyage: The Slave TVade

of Aaron Lopez of Newport*, William and Mary Quarterly,3rd ser., 2, no. 4

(1975): 601-18.


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66Pedro L.V. Welch

21. Eltis, 'The TVaffic in Slaves", 59-64.

22. Joanna Brooks, ed., The Life of Olaudah Equiano (Chicago: Lakeside Press,

2004), 151.

23. Ibid., 236.

24. "The Blind African Slave, or Memoirs of Boyrereau Brinch, Nick-named

Jeffrey Brace, http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/brinch/brinch.html (last

accessed on 31 March 2008).

25. Donnan,Documents,1:107.

26. Ibid., 108.

27. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series,122, note 414.

28. Donnan,Documents,1:108-9.

29. Ibid., 109.

30. W. Noel Sainsbury, ed., Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series: America and

the West Indies, 1661-1678,note 123; see also Donnan,Documents,1:110).

31. Figures provided by K.G. Davies (in The Royal African Company,364), show

that the prices in Barbados for the 1670s averaged just over 14 per

enslaved person. Prices in Jamaica were a little higher, averaging about

18.32. Sainsbury, Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series,note 122.

33. Ibid.

34. See Herbert S. Klein, 'The Cuban Slave Trade, 1790-1843", La Traite des

Noirs par IAtlantique: Nouvelles Approches (Paris: Socit Franaise

D'Histori D'Outre-Mer et Librarie Orientaliste Paul Geunthnder S.A,

1976), 67-89.

35. Rawley, Transatlantic Slave Trade,250.

36. Donnan,Documents,2:524.

37. Rawley, Transatlantic Slave Trade,121.

38. See Svend Erik Green-Pedersen, "The History of the Danish Negro Slave

TVade, 1733-1807", in Klein, 'Cuban Slave TVade", 196-220.

39. Neville Hall, Slave Society in the Danish West Indies(Kingston: University of

the West Indies Press, 1992), 22-23.

40. Quoted in Rawley, Transatlantic Slave Trade,391.

41. Ibid.42. Hugh Thomas, The Slave Trade: The History of the Atlantic Slave Trade

1440-1870(London: Picador, 1997), 526, 551.

43. Hilary Mc.D Beckles, ' 'An Unfeeling TVaffick': The Intercolonial

Movement of Slaves in the British Caribbean, 1807-1833, in The Chattel

Principle: Internal Slave Trades in the Americas, ed. Walter Johnson (New

Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 256-275.

44. B.W. Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean 1807-1834

(Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, University of the West

Indies, 1995), 81.
http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/brinch/brinch.htmlhttp://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/brinch/brinch.html


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Notes on Contributors

Heather Cateau is Lecturer in History at the University of the West

Indies, St Augustine Campus, lYinidad and Tobago.

Alan Cobley is Professor of History at the University of the West

Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados.

Claudius Fergus is Lecturer in History at the University of the West

Indies, St Augustine Campus, Trinidad and Tobago.

Richard Goodridge is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of

the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados.

Verene A. Shepherd is Professor of History at the University of the

West Indies, Mona Campus, Jamaica.

Alvin O. Thompson is Emeritus Professor of History at the

University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados.

Pedro Welch is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of the

West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados.

Welch, Pedro L v - Intra-American and Caribbean Destinations and Transit Points for the Slave Trade

Documents

Transcript of Welch, Pedro L v - Intra-American and Caribbean Destinations and Transit Points for the Slave Trade