Revolt of the Marlborough: Return to Africa

This is a continuation of the Revolt of the Marlborough. Follow the links to find Part 1 and Part 2.

High aloft Captain Robert Codd hid in the fore top, over the bloodied deck where the few surviving crewmen of the Marlborough and hundreds of armed former slaves gathered. Codd could do nothing but helplessly watch as his sailors were put to work turning the Marlborough about and heading for the unseen shore.

Two tense days passed in peace while the Marlborough plowed toward the African coast.

"A Liverpool Slave Ship," William Jackson, 18th century,
Merseyside Maritime Museum.

Two days without food or water must have taken their toll on Captain Codd. His crew must have known they were close to the African shore. If they could hide him closer to the deck, where they might give him sustenance and care for any wounds he may have sustained, there was the chance he could survive. Convincing the former slaves that they needed to tend to the sails on the foremast, the sailors climbed aloft and remarkably rescued the captain from the top, hiding him in the forestay.

According to Harris' account, the very next morning the African coast rose on the horizon. That same morning, the former slaves also spotted Captain Codd's coat skirt peeking out of the sail in which he was hidden. Codd's punishment for killing hundreds and enslaving thousands was a swift one. "They...went to him, cut his belly open, and toss'd him over-board."

With the highest symbol of European oppression gone over the side, the Africans turned to reaching shore and their freedom.

Detail from "A Launch of Spaniards weighing an Anchor at Teneriff,"
Gabriel Bray, 1775, National Maritime Museum.

Though some distance from a windward shore, the "Gold Coast slaves" ordered the boats loaded so they could make for the coast. While Harris was dismissive of the idea of making the run in the small yawl and long boat, the coast was home to a number of slavers, and if those ships found the Africans in possession of the Marlborough, they would surely try to take it back, claiming the ship and her human cargo as salvage. Small boats might slip by undetected, or could be passed off as the legitimate possessions of the Africans.

Loading up the boats "as deep with Goods and small Slaves as she could swim," the Gold Coast Africans prepared to put in to shore. Now, seemingly safe from European intervention, the old cultural divisions came to the surface. The Bonny Africans refused to remain on the Marlborough, perhaps fearing the boats would not come back for them once ashore. When the Gold Coast Africans tried to prevent them from getting into the boats, a panic broke out, and the boats were sunk under the weight of panicked people.

Harris later stated that the Gold Coast Africans refused to let the drowning Bonny Africans back onto the boat, "which drown'd upwards of an hundred of them." Even allowing for the likely exaggeration, there was clearly a significant loss of life. Anger boiled over, and the two factions ignored their common goal to fight. Harris records that they fought all through that night, stopping only in the morning to eat before fighting again.

Somehow, peace was regained. The two sides clearly despised each other, but it must have been obvious that unless they worked together, none of them would return home. Once the fighting had stopped, the Marlborough was brought in close to shore. Though made nervous by the sight of gathered slave ships, the Africans decided to risk going ashore.

The punt, possibly the only surviving boat of the Marlborough, was put to work ferrying the Bonny Africans ashore. It is possible that this was part of a truce between the factions: the Bonny Africans would be put ashore as soon as possible to assuage their fears and allow for the Gold Coast Africans to make sail for their own home without any further, fruitless conflict. After some debate, Harris was loaded into the punt to help guide it to shore.[1]

Harris makes no mention of a daring escape, or that the Africans on the Marlborough expected him to return. It may be that as a white man, Harris was a tool used to cover the movement of former slaves under a veil of legitimacy right under the spyglasses of gathered slave ships, and then released. About eight sailors were kept aboard the Marlborough, likely to guide it to the Gold Coast.[2]

For a few days the Marlborough lay at anchor within sight of the slavers, though it is unclear why. The remaining Gold Coast Africans had command of the Marlborough now, and were about to face their next great challenge.

Next time: A sea battle between slavers and the Africans of the Marlborough.

---
[1] John Harris, letter to his father, London Evening Post, April 5, 1753, page 4.
[2] John Harris, letter to his father, Felix Farley’s Bristol Journal, March 24-31, 1753.

Revolt of the Marlborough: The Uprising

Part one of the story Revolt of the Marlborough can be found here.

Three days at sea after casting off from the coast of Africa, the crew and cargo of Captain Robert Codd's Marlborough were only just settling into a routine. Over three hundred enslaved people from Bonny (in modern day Nigeria) and the Gold Coast were confined aboard the ship, the ninth such voyage for Captain Codd.

It was October 14, 1752. An awning had been stretched over the deck to provide shade to the crew and possibly the enslaved as well. Codd was a slaver and used to the constancy of death among the enslaved, but he knew that his money would be made by delivering as many healthy slaves as possible.

To keep them presentable enough to be sold in the West Indies, Codd ordered that his human cargo be washed. Most of the crew took to the task of washing the enslaved with tubs and swabs on deck. A few were set aside as sentries behind the barricado.[1]

Precisely what happened next is unclear.

The first newspaper reports of the uprising state that "Capt. Codd had indulged 28 Gold Coast Negroes with their Liberty on Deck, for the Sake of their Assistance to navigate the Ship." There are many parts of this initial report that directly contradict the single eyewitness account that survives, and it is clearly unreliable. Codd, with his decade of experience in the slave trade, seems unlikely to have let nearly thirty enslaved men behind the barricado while keeping his sentries facing the opposite direction and the rest of his crew busily employed. It is, however, the only explanation of how the enslaved got to the other side of the barricado that survives. Perhaps there were only a few enslaved men on the quarterdeck behind the barricado, as that same newspaper report mentions that they "behaved, for a considerable Time, in a very Civil manner, and quite unsuspected of any Design of Mischief."[2]

"The Gold Coast slaves rose upon the Quarter Deck," John Harris, a young sailor, later wrote, "and alarm'd the whole Ship, knock'd the Centuries [sentries] down at the Barricado, and toss'd them over board."[3] Given sailors' notorious lack of swimming skill, and the sharks well known to follow slave ships, the sentries were as good as dead.[4]

"Representation of an Insurrection on board a Slave-Ship," Carl Wadstrom, 1787,
Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and University of Virginia

Captain Codd was the next target. Seizing a blunderbuss, perhaps from one of the sentries now in the ocean, one of the Gold Coast men struck the captain with the butt end. Despite being knocked down, Codd managed to recover and escape into the rigging making his way to the fore top further. How precisely he escaped from the quarterdeck in the stern to the fore top near the bow is unclear, but it could be that he was never actually on the quarterdeck, and in fact was supervising his crew in the washing.

The rest of the crew climbed up onto the awning itself to escape the slaves who rose up on their side of the now useless barricado. Armed with "but an empty Musket and a few Platform Boards," two more of the crew were killed (presumably by the guns the enslaved had secured) before the survivors climbed aloft to the main and mizzen tops.

Unable to easily get at the men aloft, the enslaved turned their attention to the crew left on deck. Two men climbed into the punt and tried to make their escape, but were shot and beaten to death. After killing the crew below, the men in the tops became targets to the enslaved once more. When the third mate was shot through the thigh, he descended the ratlines to the deck "and relied on their Mercy, when four of them cut him Limb from Limb."

The remaining crew crawled to the fore top and cross trees, sheltering there from the incessant fire of the men below. For two hours they endured musket fire, with John Harris himself having taken two musketballs. He later wrote, "I pass'd it off as light as I could; for if I had then behav'd otherwise, they would have thrown me over-board, as they did the rest of the Wounded."

Eventually the firing ceased. Maybe cooler heads prevailed, noting that the crew would be necessary to help sail the ship back to the coast, or that such a heavy rate of fire would exhaust what ammunition they had.

Calling out to the survivors, the Gold Coast slaves promised mercy if they came down. Notably, they called to Harris by name in promising safety. Captain Codd did not descend, either because he didn't trust the promise of mercy, or that it was never offered to him in particular.

Of the thirteen or so surviving crew, four were thrown into the sea, and the rest preserved.[4]

"Misery," Thomas Rowlandson, 1786, Royal Collection Trust.

It is easy to see why Harris viewed the revolt as "barbarous" and "cruel." Shot, stabbed, mutilated, beaten, and tossed into the sea, the crew of thirty five were reduced to about a mere nine survivors.

But this shocking violence was not random nor unprovoked. The sentries and ship's officers were the ones specifically targeted, with the greatest violence being brought down on the captain, surgeon, and mates. These were the men most directly responsible for the torture and violence that defined the slave trade, and formed the spear-point of societal efforts to reduce Africans to inhuman commodities.

By contrast, those who were spared are also notable for their position on the ship. Two were common sailors, and likely saved for their ability to reef and steer. The bosun was saved as well, perhaps because it was the bosun who delivered corporal punishment to the crew, and thus established himself as a tool for use against the crew. The cooper and sailmaker were also spared, both roles that would have had less contact with the enslaved than their shipmates. About half of the crew that were spared were boys, and less likely to engage in violence against the enslaved or pitied as children incapable of understanding their actions.[5]

The violence of the revolt was no less than the violence the enslaved suffered in their capture and torture. Indeed, it might well have been more discriminate than the violence they endured. If survival and freedom for yourself and hundreds of others meant beating a man to death, there were few who would not take the opportunity.

Now began the next and uneasy phase of the insurrection: two factions of Africans held the ship, with a small and terrified group of Europeans in their grasp.

Next time: A broken alliance, and the promise of the African shore.

---
[1] John Harris, letter to his father, London Evening Post, April 5, 1753, page 4.
[2] This piece was reprinted word for word in many newspapers from Britain through the colonies, but I took this quote from the Maryland Gazette, May 10, 1753, page 2.
[3] Harris, Evening Post.
[4] William Bosman, A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea, 1705, page 281-282.
[4] Harris, Evening Post.
[5] Harris, Felix Farley’s Bristol Journal, March 24-31, 1753.

Labor Day - The History of Navigation

Celebrate Labor Day by joining me to learn about the labors of the navigator!

Teaching the traverse board. Photo courtesy Tim Abbott.

As longtime followers well know by now, the history of navigation is a fascination of mine.

As part of the Schooner Woodwind's History Mondays series, I'll be climbing aboard to demonstrate reproduction navigational instruments. Learn about the use of the cross-staff, quadrant, backstaff, and sextant in latitudinal navigation, handle the chip log, traverse board, and compass used in dead reckoning, and check out other aids to navigation like the lead line.

Light snacks, beer, and wine are available for this two hour cruise out of Annapolis, Maryland onto the Severn River. Stop by and say ahoy!

Buy your tickets here.

Revolt of the Marlborough: The Toll of Captain Codd

'In the Morning, they seeing the Skirt of his Coat, went to him, cut his Belly open, and tossed him over-board.'

Anyone even passingly familiar with the transatlantic trade of the eighteenth century is well aware of the brutality of the Middle Passage. Millions of men, women, and children were shipped from Africa to the Caribbean, South, Central, and North America. Captain Robert Codd and his slaver Marlborough were among the more experienced veterans of this trade. In 1753, Codd was on his ninth voyage to the African coast.[1] The Bristol based Marlborough had even more experience than her captain. Built in 1711, she was a remarkably aged vessel by the mid-eighteenth century, and had sailed from Bristol to Africa then to the Caribbean (and once to Virginia) almost every year since 1728. She most often called in at St. Kitts, but sometimes to Jamaica as well.[2]

Codd was the fourth captain of the Marlborough, and the one who had captained her for the most voyages. Under his watch, approximately 2,600 people were bought in Africa, with about 2,100 surviving the trip across the Atlantic. This places the approximate death toll on Codd's Marlborough at 20%. It is difficult to estimate average mortality on the Middle Passage, but this death toll appears to be on the higher end of average.[3]

To Captain Codd this was perhaps just another voyage around the Atlantic to earn his pay and keep the West Indies sugar plantations working. Joining him was John Harris, a young man who may have been working aboard as a ship's boy, and thirty four other sailors. These men sailed to the Gold Coast and Bonny in West Africa, and embarked over 300 people.[4]

The sight that met the eyes of the enslaved was a one hundred ton ship mounting four guns.[5] Marlborough's quarterdeck was protected by a "barricado," a wooden wall that separated the crew's quarters, weapons, and wheel from the enslaved men and boys further forward. Fear of revolt was a constant for sailors and captains of the slave trade. Perhaps one in every ten slave voyages experienced an insurrection.[6] The threat of violent resistance was so prevalent that slave ships could be identified by these palisades. The sailors had certainly pierced the barricado with slits through which they could fire muskets at their human cargo.

"Vue du Cap Français et du navire La Marie Séraphique de Nantes,"
artist unknown, 1772-1773, Les abolitions de l'esclavage.

Adding to the trauma of the newly enslaved, mariners also used the barricado for an even more sinister reason. The barricado marked the line between male and female slaves. Such a barrier gave European sailors easy access to the enslaved women and girls, enabling the sexual abuse for which the slave trade is notorious.

"Coupe interne de La Marie Séraphique, artist unknown, c.1772-1773,
Les abolitions de l'esclavage.

Harris later described the ethnic divisions between the enslaved people of Bonny and the Gold Coast, one that turned violent at times. With physical and cultural barriers separating the enslaved, a large crew of armed European sailors, and an experienced captain, the crew of Marlborough let their guard down. This was a fatal mistake.

Next time: The enslaved spill blood for their liberty.

---
[1] Slave Voyages Database, accessed July 1, 2016. The search function of this website was used to identify the voyages captained by Robert Codd.
[2] Ibid., voyage identification number 26089, accessed July 1, 2016.
[3] Herbert S. Klein, et. al., Transoceanic Mortality: The Slave Trade in Comparative Perspective, Stanford University.
[4] Slave Voyages Database, voyage identification number 17322, accessed July 1, 2016.
[5] Bristol, Africa, and the Eighteenth Century Slave Trade to America, Volume 3: The Years of Decline, ed. Joseph Bettey, Britol Records Society: 1991, page 49.
[6] Marcus Rediker, The Slave Ship: A Human History, Penguin: 2007, page 300.

The Life and Surprizing Adventures of James Wyatt (Part 2), 1753

Copperplate engraving from The Life and Surprizing Adventures of James Wyatt, published 1753, Google Books.

Continuing the story of the privateer trumpeter James Wyatt, we follow the crews of the Revenge and (I believe that's the vessel in the background here) Hamburgh. By chance, the Revenge chased and caught up with what prove to be a fellow English privateer. Her captain told the Revenge he had successfully raided a wine cellar at Point Niger, and the only thing preventing him from taking more was that his boat was too heavily laden with plunder. At that, Point Niger was virtually defenseless and prime for another raid.

Hamburgh and Revenge sailed to the point and Wyatt was chosen as one of eleven sailors to accompany the master and second lieutenant ashore. Hamburgh's captain warned them against the raid, saying that the coast appeared to be more populated and well defended than their fellow privateer thought. On landing, they were opposed by the Spanish residents of the point, who threw stones at them, but made no organized effort to resist.

Wyatt and his mates were disappointed to find the wine cellar empty, except for some women's shifts which, for some reason, they put on over their slop clothes. Taking their time to seize other, less valuable plunder, the privateers were surprised to see "near an Hundred" residents gathered on the hills armed with rocks and some firearms. The two sides exchanged gunfire, and the sailors ran back to the boat. Unfortunately for them, the boat struck hard on a rock, and the sailors had to wade through four feet of water to clamber in. This soaked their powder, and the Spaniards closed it, pelting them with stones.

The master ordered Wyatt to the rudder, which he unshipped and used as a shield. Despite the dangerous situation, the shore party managed a narrow escape, and gave the Spanish three cheers before rowing back to their vessel.

The crew do not appear to be wearing the shifts they stole, except perhaps a larboard oarsman amidships. Instead, they wear jackets with cocked hats and at least one round hat. Wyatt can be see in the stern trying to shield himself and his mates in the water from the stones.

The Life and Surprizing Adventures of James Wyatt (Part 1), 1753

Copperplate engraving from The Life and Surprizing Adventures of James Wyatt, published 1753, Google Books.

Recommended long ago by follower Justin Jolly, I have finally gotten around to the copperplate engravings contained in the 1753 memoirs of James Wyatt.

A common sailor with an uncommon career, James Wyatt served as a privateer aboard the Revenge in the opening months of the War of Austrian Succession and (if this colorful account is to be believed) was captured by the Spanish, narrowly saved from execution, escaped, captured by the Barbary Pirates, and eventually rescued.

Wyatt had been enlisted as the privateer's trumpeter and, through some unnamed dispute, came to be challenged to a duel by the Master at Arms. James Parry, a fellow musician and author of a memoir entitled The True Anti-Pamela, demanded they fight with small swords, but none were to be had, and so the duel was called off. Hours later, despite receiving permission from the captain to go ashore, Parry declared Wyatt a deserter and ordered the sentry to shoot him. When the sentry hesitated, Parry took the weapon and fired at Wyatt himself.

Wyatt is oddly okay with the attempted murder, stating that Parry was drunk and unaware of what he was doing. Even so, the story finds its place as a copperplate engraving in Wyatt's memoirs.

In this engraving, three men are shown in the boat. Two hold oars and presumably were the bargemen ordered by the captain to bring Wyatt ashore. They wear long jackets with cocked hats and at least one has a long waistcoat. Their hair is in the bob wig style. It is difficult to say what the figure in the stern is wearing, aside from a rather nondescript jacket. Mr. Parry wears a frock coat and cocked hat, and just astern of him is a sailor in the rigging with a cocked hat, single breasted short jacket, and trousers.

Honest Ben, 1786

Honest Ben, printed by C. Sheppard, 1786, Bodleian Library Broadside Collection.

Today's entry in the sailor's farewell trope is a broadside ballad sang from the throat of a sailor heading gout to see. Ben shares a "parting glass" with his love Sue, while the boatswain calls for him to repair to the ship.

This is one of the very few images I have found explicitly depicting a boatswain. I can confidently say that this is the bosun depicted here, because unlike many engraves of broadside ballads, C. Sheppard appears to have custom illustrated his rather than reusing the same engravings for multiple songs. Unfortunately, the publicly available digital scan of "Honest Ben" is not high resolution.

The boatswain waves his rattan toward Ben, beckoning him to the waiting warship. It is difficult to make out much beyond that. It appears that he's wearing petticoat breeches and jacket, but I'm not even positive about the boatswain's hat.

I am slightly more confident about Ben's clothing. He wears a round hat with a conical crown bound in a lighter colored band. His jacket ends at the top of the thigh, features flap pockets, and closed mariner's cuffs. Under his arm is tucked his trusty stick. Ben's trousers end well above the ankle, but I am not sure if they are striped or plain. He also wears white stockings and pointed toe shoes.

The Ospray: A Case Study in the Transatlantic Trade

The transatlantic trade of the eighteenth century was the lifeblood of European empires. The Dutch, Spanish, French, and British nations all relied on the goods and people moved across the Atlantic to generate wealth. This wealth came at the cost of labor, unfree and otherwise.

In the 1764-1765 voyage of the brig Ospray, a slaver, we have a remarkably typical voyage through all the major points in this system.

Ospray was a Newport, Rhode Island based brig rigged vessel. Her captain Nathaniel Potter appears to have been experienced in intercolonial trade on his side of the Atlantic, based on various newspaper references to his voyages, but it appears this voyage was his first across the Atlantic.

Within the British Atlantic, the English dominated the slave trade. American colonists throughout most of North America relied on Liverpool slavers to deliver Africans. The most notable exception to this was Rhode Island. Newport and Providence funded, built, and crewed slavers to the West African coast regularly, and it was a profitable trade.

A plan of the town of Newport in Rhode Island, Charles Blazkowitz,
1777, Lewis Walpole Library.

Along with his first mate Richard Champlin and six other sailors, Champlin sailed out of Newport on April 23.

Detail from Newport Mercury, 1764 Apr 23, page 3

Most likely, the Ospray called in Britain and probably Madeira or the Azores on her way down to Africa. Four months had passed before she finally arrived and began trading at Cape Coast Castle, a major slave trading fort on the shores of what is now Ghana. The imposing fortress still stands today.

Cape Coast Castle, photograph by David Ley, Wikimedia Commons.

The small crew of Rhode Islanders loaded about one hundred enslaved people aboard their brig over long months. It is unclear precisely why they remained in Africa so long, but the delay took its toll. Captain Nathaniel Potter died aboard the Ospray sometime before their departure.

When she finally put Africa to her stern, Ospray made the crossing to Kingston, Jamaica, where she sold the surviving eighty or so enslaved people. 

Detail of "View of Port Royal and Kingston Harbours," Peter Mazell, 1774,
John Carter Brown Library: Archive of Early American Images

Although I don't yet know what cargo she took on, sugar was the cash crop of the time, and the most likely to have been taken aboard the Ospray. Champlin, who had taken command after the death of Potter, remained in port from February through the early days of May.

From there it was a speedy return to Newport, Rhode Island. For the first time in well over a year the sailors were returning to their homes and families. In this hope they were thwarted by the frigate Maidstone.

The Royal Navy had tasked the Maidstone to enforce the Navigation Acts along the North American coast, and in her pursuit of smugglers the frigate required men. Second Lieutenant William Jenkins pressed the sailors of the Ospray into naval service. This act so enraged the people of Newport that they rioted and burned one of the Maidstone's boats.

A typical voyage came to an unusual end, an end that will be explored on August 27th at the Newport Historical Society's event "Naval Impressment: A 1765 Reenactment in Colonial Newport." I'll be there to talk about life at sea and maritime navigation of the eighteenth century, so stop by and say hello!

Detail from "A Book of Drafts and Remarks," 1763

Detail from "A Book of Drafts and Remarks," Archibald Hamilton, 1763, National Maritime Museum. Found in Background to Discovery by Derek Howse, University of California Press, 1990, page 163.

Special thanks to Tom Apple for pointing out this fascinating image.

It will come as no surprise to regular readers here that I have a fascination with navigation in the eighteenth century. This sketch by Archibald Hamilton, a master's mate, depicts a fellow of the same rank (or perhaps the man himself) at work with an octant. At his feet are the tools of his trade: a lead line, compass, chip log, and traverse board. As Mr. Apple wrote not long ago, the latter three are essential to dead reckoning.

What is even more interesting about Hamilton's sketch is the figure it portrays. Master's mates were assistants to the master, who was responsible for the navigation of naval vessels in the eighteenth century. You can learn more about masters by reading Lena Mosser's excellent post on their role and rank in naval society. Hamilton and his fellow mates would rank as petty officers on the ship, exempt from standing watch, but shouldering more responsibility. They would have had to possess some skill in the art and science of navigation.

Hamilton's illustration accompanies a journal charting the voyage of the Surprize from England to the Portuguese island of Madeira.

Our mate wears a cocked hat with narrow brim bound in light colored tape. His hair is short, but not of a bob wig style. A black neckcloth hangs down over his chest, and he wears a fanciful jacket with a dark collar and cuffs. His mariner's cuffs, lapel, and vents all feature the same white metal or cloth covered buttons. Our master's mate's waistcoat is unfortunately not well detailed, but his trousers are striped with pockets cut well down the thigh. His trouser legs end above the ankle, revealing white stockings and round toed shoes with oval buckles.

Ann Mills, date unknown

Ann Mills, Served on Board the Maidstone Frigate, R. Graves after unknown artist, original date unknown, National Maritime Museum.

Ann Mills is a mystery. The only artistic depiction to survive, the one featured here, was a copy made decades after the original. Truth be told, Ann Mills may not even be a real person.

Vague recollections of some action around 1740 aboard a frigate named Maidstone (there were other vessels around the 1740's named Maidstone, but no frigate) are related generations after the supposed event, and give so little detail that there is virtually no trail to follow.

Mills offers us far less to go on than the famous Hannah Snell. It may be that Mills was a fiction inspired by the true life of that female marine, who fought at roughly the same time as Mills' supposed service.

Thankfully, Frank Felsenstein has taken an interest in Mills, and published a short piece on gender and national conflict entitled "Unravelling Ann Mills: Some Notes on Gender Construction and Naval Heroism" in McMaster University's journal Eighteenth Century Fiction.

Mills wears a cocked hat with a very short brim over short curled hair. He collarless jacket is double breasted with a remarkable number of buttons on he lapels and open mariner's cuffs. He waistcoat is plain, dark, and also double breasted. A white cravat is neatly tied and tucked into the waistcoat, which hangs above the plain white slops/petticoat trousers. He white stockings run to pointed toe shoes with fanciful rectangular buckles of white metal.

Shipping at Anchor in the Thames Estuary, Date Unknown

Shipping at Anchor in the Thames Estuary Near Wapping, Samuel Scott, date unknown, Sotheby's.

"When one goes into Wapping or Rotherhithe, which places are chiefly inhabited by sailors," wrote the author Sir John Fielding, "but that somewhat of the same language is spoken, a man would be apt to suspect himself in another country. Their manner of living, speaking, acting, dressing and behaving are so peculiar to themselves. Yet with all, they are perhaps the bravest and boldest fellows in all the world."[1]

British sailors living in and visiting Wapping were well aware of the paradoxical nature of a mariner's life. Both the revelry of a shore bound life and the constancy of death were on full display. If a seaman were to look past the gin shops and gibbeted bodies partially afloat at full tide, he would see the forest of masts and yards that Samuel Scott has so ably illustrated here.

Aloft on the ship at the center of the piece are some of those "bravest and boldest fellows in all the world." They wear brown and blue jackets with white and blue trousers. On the foretopsail a sailor wears a round hat with a narrow brim, At the main topsail the sailors wear caps, with the fellow standing by the mainmast wearing a cocked hat.

On deck are a variety of sailors wearing the full range of sailor's garments. Petticoat trousers/slops, trousers, blue, brown and red jackets, round hats, cocked hats, and caps. Standing by the wheel and ladder is a fancy man bowing to a lady in a fine dress, and interesting parallel to the labor being done by the sailors on the forecastle.

The ship's crew fires a salute to starboard, clouding the nearby brig in smoke. Rowing into that smoke is a longboat with a blue painted stern. Her coxswain and oarsmen wear jackets without waistcoats and round hats. One of the oarsmen has a pair of red breeches.

In the foreground, a sailor contents himself with his pipe while his mate pulls away on his oar. The smoking tar has a black round hat with a taller crown and narrow brim. His jacket has slash cuffs which are rolled back on his left arm, the same that supports his pipe. The oarsman appears to be wearing his sleeves rolled up as well, and is without a waistcoat.

The sloop to larboard has but three sailors aboard, who appear to be largely at their leisure. The man leaning against the mast appears to be smoking, as his mate might be further aft. They wear brown and blue jackets with brown slops/petticoat trousers and black caps, with the exception of the smoking man further forward who wears a round hat.

Astern of the large Dutchman is a barge of watermen moving lumber, and a boat of men hauling in an anchor. They wear yellow, red, brown, and blue jackets with caps. One fellow further forward wears a pair of brown or red breeches and a brown waistcoat with a black cocked hat.

---
[1] Quoted in Marcus Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700 - 1750, Cambridge University Press: 1987, page 11.

Pyrates in the Bay of Maryland: Race and Resistance in the Chesapeake

This post is a continuation of the "Race, Revolt, and Piracy" series. You can find parts one, two, and three here.

Slavery and convict servitude at times defined sailors in the eighteenth century Chesapeake. British sailors could negotiate wages[1] and hold merchant officers accountable if they stepped out of line.[2] While convict servants possessed some rights, enslaved sailors held virtually none. Both groups were subject to the whims of ship owners and sea captains.

Detail from "The Jovial Crew," Thomas Rowlandson,
1786, Royal Collection Trust.

Convict servants at least had a light at the end of the tunnel. Most were sentenced to seven years of servitude, after which they would be free. This guarantee of freedom also served as a bargaining chip to encourage proper behavior and deference from servants to masters. Some of these convicts went on to relative prominence. By way of example, William Logan was convicted of stealing muskets and rum from the ship Ruby in London and selling them in 1756. After his seven years of labor were up, he came to possess a barber shop, wharf, warehouse, and tavern on City Dock in Annapolis, the very same city the Hopewell cast off from.

An advertisement placed in the August 22, 1765 edition
of the Maryland Gazette, page 3.

Despite the opportunities, many convict servants were nonetheless bound to service and subject to the people who held them, and a good number were certainly physically and mentally abused. Logan himself ran away from his new master, peruke maker Andrew Buchanan, within a year of arriving in Maryland.[3]

Enslaved people suffered the same abuses convict servants endured, along with the added mental toll of perpetual, generational enslavement for them and their families. London Town, the seaport that George Cook hailed from, was home to 961 known enslaved people between its founding and 1788. Of these, only nine are known to have gone free.[4] Free communities in the eighteenth century Chesapeake were remarkably rare, and for some communities were unheard of.

How then did unfree mariners cope with their situation?

The convict servant John Wright and enslaved sailor Anthony Lewis responded with the full rejection of their status through violence. Their murder of Captain Curtis was a desperate bid at freedom, and perhaps even one they knew almost certainly could not succeed. Killing Curtis, kidnapping fellow sailors, and driving hard for the south was the most extreme version of resistance, one that held only two possible outcomes: death or freedom.

Subverting the system was another form of resistance. Lewis claiming himself to be a Portuguese man among white convict servants would have placed him in their class. Though convict servitude was not to be envied by many, the promise of eventual freedom and some basic protections under the law as a white man were very inviting to an enslaved man.

Resistance was a constant in North America and perhaps everywhere slavery was present, but not all forms of resistance were welcomed by the enslaved themselves. The enslaved mariner George Cook was forced by the runaways to travel south, and it is easy for us to imagine ourselves inviting such an abduction. The chance to escape to freedom not as a fugitive but as a blameless victim, removing the threat of punishment in the event of recapture, is appealing. This interpretation is, sadly, divorced from the context of the eighteenth century. In contrast to Lewis, who could pass as a white man, Cook is always described as a "Negro." With darker skin, there was no way for him to blend in with South Carolina's free society, much less the Caribbean. Chesapeake slaves were familiar with the particularly deadly conditions of West Indies plantations, and the frightening efficiency with which Carolinian slave holders put down rebellions and revolts. Lewis was trying to move up the social ladder, but Cook was being dragged down it.

Above all of these considerations loomed the very real threat of brutal punishment. In eighteenth century Maryland, people of color were far more likely to be sentenced to death than any other class. Once sentenced to death, convict servants were less likely to receive a pardon or reprieve than anyone else, including enslaved people.[5] The outlook for unfree people was very grim when brought to court.

Detail from "A Pirate hanged at Execution Dock," Robert Dodd,
late 18th century, National Maritime Museum.

Walking the line between inviting brutal and fatal punishment and resisting the oppressive order was a difficult task. The anger and frustration of unfree mariners sometimes boiled over into violence. By contrast, the violence consistently perpetrated against unfree people was relentless, and when they struck back the legal system was swift in reinforcing social and racial hierarchy.

The Hopewell Mutiny is just one case of maritime violence in the eighteenth century, but it provides us with an intersection of several degrees of slavery and convict servitude.

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[1] See N.A.M. Rodger's The Wooden World: An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy, W.W. Norton & Co., 1996. 
[2] See my post on Captain James Lowry.
[3] Maryland Gazette, September 22, 1757, page 3.
[4] Ryan Cox, "The African-American Experience," lecture, Maryland State Archives at Historic London Town and Gardens.
[5] "Percent Hanged, Pardoned, and Reprieved: Classes Compared, 1726-1775," appendixed to Seven Hangmen of Colonial Maryland, C. Ashley Ellefson, via Maryland State Archives.

Pyrates in the Bay of Maryland: Punishment

This post is a continuation of the "Race, Revolt, and Piracy" series. You can find parts one and two here.

For two months there was no sign of the murderous mutineers of the sloop Hopewell, but the pirates' luck wouldn't last.

Somehow, the pirates wound up at Capers' Island, a small bit of land about fifteen miles north of Charleston, South Carolina. Months after her capture, an advertisement was placed in the South Carolina Gazette by the Court of Admiralty, stating that the Hopewell was left "at Anchor, on the High Seas," by her mutinous crew.

South Carolina Gazette, July 4, 1754

According to a report in the New York Mercury, the Hopewell was brought in to the Carolina Bar and abandoned by her crew, who were "soon after taken up and secured"[1] except for the mutineer John Smith, who was captured a short while later. Smith immediately claimed not to have anything to do with the murder.

Did the kidnapped sailors raise an alarm? Were the pirates trying to sell or trade their cargo as smuggled goods? Perhaps they were merely taking on water and provisions for a trip further south before things went awry. Or maybe they had no intention of sailing to the Caribbean and thought they could blend into the Carolinas. There are many unanswered questions.

What can be said is that the three mutineers were arrested and brought before the Court of Admiralty. As mentioned in the advertisement above, the court believed the mutiny, kidnapping, and murder were all committed "on the High Seas, and within the Jurisdiction of the Court of Admiralty."  It is worth noting that George Cook and James Manshore, the kidnapped sailors, were not considered to be a party to the crimes of the mutineers, raising the possibility that it may have been them that turned in or revealed the crime of the pirates.

Silver Admiralty Oar of Massacussets, via
United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire

The record of the trial does not survive, but it is abundantly clear that John Smith turned evidence against his co-conspirators. John Wright, who actually committed the murder and took charge of the Hopewell, and Anthony Lewis, who had by this time shed his persona as a slave and passed as "a Portugese," should easily have been found guilty.

The Court, however, was forced to acquit. Apparently the judges were unfamiliar with the geography of the Chesapeake, perhaps evidenced by their referring to "a place called Choptank in Chesapeak Bay." Powerful though it was, the Admiralty Court had no jurisdiction in the "narrow seas" of Maryland. It would fall to a provincial Admiralty Court in Maryland to decide the fate of the mutineers.

Given the dangerous nature of the criminals, they were confined in irons aboard a Royal Navy frigate, the Shoreham, and transported North. Captain Legg, commander of the Shoreham, does not appear to have been bound for Maryland, but rather to Nova Scotia, and rather than make a long voyage to Annapolis and back out to the Atlantic again, dropped the prisoners off in Virginia. Robert Dinwiddie, governor of Virginia, wrote to Horatio Sharpe, governor of Maryland, to let him know that "I have order'd them into the public Prison in this City [Williamsburg]," until Sharpe could send a boat and guard to pick them up at Yorktown.[2] 

George Cook and James Manshore were returned to servitude in London Town, and the prisoners delivered up to Annapolis. After a brief trial, during which John Smith again testified against Wright and Lewis, the two were convicted and sentenced to hang.

Detail from "A view of the procession of John Swan and Elizabeth Jefferies,"
Bispham Dickinson, c.1752, British Museum.

Just outside the Annapolis City Gate, the two were hanged. Their bodies were then carried to Hackett's Point, at the mouth of Severn River, and displayed on gibbets in irons. Lewis and Wright's earthly remains became a grim reminder to sailors of the fate that awaited pirates in the Chesapeake.[3]

Next Time: What can we learn from the Hopewell mutineers, and what does this case tell us about the nature of race in the maritime Chesapeake of the eighteenth century?

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[1] New York Mercury, June 17, 1754, page 2.
[2] The Official Records of Robert Dinwiddie, Virginia Historical Society, 1933, Volume 1, Page 212. An interesting sidenote: that greatly renovated and restored prison still stands.
[3] Maryland Gazette, August 8, 1754.

Pyrates in the Bay of Maryland: Kidnapping on the Patuxent

This post is part of the series "Race, Revolt, and Piracy." Follow this link to find part one of the story "Pyrates in the Bay of Maryland."

The Hopewell's crew of three, two convict servants and an enslaved man, were making their way south. After murdering their captain, the mutineers steered toward the Capes of Virginia and the Atlantic, their only real chance at freedom. If the sloop could make it to the open ocean they might find their way to a more distant colony where word of their crime would have no effect. Perhaps they thought they could make a Spanish, French, or Dutch port in the Caribbean that they could disappear in and begin life anew.

Led by the convict servant and navigator John Wright (alias William Wilson), the trio had a good shot of making it out of the Chesapeake. Two main obstacles stood in their way: time and manpower.

Already an armed boat had been dispatched from Annapolis to bring the pirates to justice. Word was spreading of their bloody mutiny. The longer they spent in the Bay, the more likely it was that they would be caught. It was imperative that they reach the Atlantic as soon as possible.

Detail from drawing of a sloop, John Thomas Serres, 1789, British Museum.

The bigger problem was with the sloop itself. Throughout her career, the Hopewell's compliment of sailors was continually reduced. Her maiden voyage to Barbados was managed with six crew, including captain William Strachan. Now, with the murder of captain Curtis, she was reduced to three. Hopewell might have been manageable on the comparatively sheltered waters of the Chesapeake, but a voyage to the Caribbean required more hands.

The solution to the latter problem was aboard the brig Nancy. Captain William Strachan happened to be sailing the Nancy on the Patuxent River when the Hopewell's crew revolted. The mutineers had succeeded in outpacing word of their crime, and Strachan's crew was entirely unaware of the danger that came with sight of the Hopewell.

Perhaps it was a fond memory of how his former command had weathered a hurricane five years before, or maybe he was merely showing the respect that fellow mariners warranted. Whatever the reason, Strachan was convinced to help the Hopewell on her way. Two sailors, a convict servant owned by Strachan named James Manshore and an enslaved man named George Cook owned by the merchant James Dick, were dispatched in a small boat to carry bread to the pirates.

Detail from "The Press Gang," George Morland, 1790, Wikiart.

After Cook and Manshore climbed aboard, their boat was cut loose, the sails set, and the Hopewell slipped away. Strachan almost certainly pursued them, but with a head start and a swift vessel, the pirates escaped.

Soon the Hopewell had the Chesapeake to her stern, sinking with the horizon. Her three mutineers and two hostages had escaped. Maryland had no chance of recapturing the slaves and convicts, but as luck would have it, it was another colony that would deliver them up for eighteenth century justice.

Next time: The pirates and their victims wind up in a wholly unexpected place.

Pyrates in the Bay of Maryland: The Hopewell Mutiny

This post is part of a new series here at British Tars called "Race, Revolt, and Piracy."

"John Wright, have Pity upon me; spare my Life; for I have a wife and four children."[1]

The Hopewell was an unlucky sloop. She was constructed in Annapolis, the colonial capital of Maryland, in 1749 and owned by a local man named Patrick Creagh.

Almost immediately, Creagh's vessel ran into trouble. The London Town, Maryland based captain William Strachan was commanding the sloop to Barbados, but sailed into the teeth of an incredible storm.

Maryland Gazette, October 18, 1749

The Hopewell survived the ordeal, and led a rather unremarkable career for the next half decade running between Annapolis, the Caribbean, and the other North American colonies.

Her string of mundane voyages came to an end in 1754.

Captain William Curtis, who was master of the Hopewell for a short trip across the Chespeake Bay to Maryland's Eastern Shore, appears to have been pretty new to the business. I have only found one other reference to the man: a brief mention in the Virginia Gazette in 1752 in which he commanded a vessel named the Enterprize carrying food down to the Caribbean.[2] It appears that Curtis was a fresh and inexperienced captain.

Curtis was sailing the Hopewell from the small port of Choptank back to Annapolis, hauling a load of barrel heads and barrel staves, when the mutiny occurred.

The first the public heard of what befell Curtis and the Hopewell might have been this brief note in the Maryland Gazette.

Maryland Gazette, March 8, 1754

What they didn't yet know was how it really happened.

A feature of Chesapeake maritime culture is the number of unfree sailors. Enslaved men and convict servants could comprise entire crews, cutting the cost of labor per voyage to virtually nothing.

Among the forced sailors was a convict servant by the name of John Wright. In later papers, an alias is offered for him: William Wilson. I haven't yet been able to find the crime for which Wright/Wilson was convicted, but we do know that he was a navigator.

The sloop had only two other sailors, another convict servant named John Smith and an enslaved man of very light skin referred to as Toney. Toney's full name was Andrew Lewis, and he was known to pass himself as "a Portugeze."

Detail from "The Jovial Crew" by Thomas Rowlandson,
1786, Royal Collection Trust

Only a few hours out from Choptank, Wright bludgeoned Curtis with a handspike, and then struck him repeatedly with an axe after he had fallen. Andrew Lewis brought up a ballast stone and fastened it to the still living Curtis. Despite Curtis' pleas to spare his life for the sake of his wife and children, he was dumped over the side and sank into the Chesapeake.

Donning Curtis' clothes, Wright took command of the sloop and steered her south. Curtis' red suit was recognized by other mariners in the Chesapeake, and word spread of his likely murder. Annapolis mustered volunteers to man and arm a boat and set off in pursuit, but the Hopewell had a significant head start.

Next time: The mutineers have a plan for escape, and that plan involves kidnapping.

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[1] The Pennsylvania Gazette, June 13, 1754.
[2] The Virginia Gazette, September 15, 1752, page 3; October 20, 1752, page 2.