Jack the Guinea Pig, 1790

"Jack the Guinea Pig," C. Sheppard, 1790, Bodleian Ballads Online.

The author of "Jack the Guinea Pig" wrote a cheerful and peppy ballad of the joys of life at sea, and how hardened sailors can revel in their difficulties. To accompany this piece, the prolific engraver C. Sheppard illustrated a party of tars drinking atop a rum or water cask, taking delight in the suffering of the nearby landsmen. As the ballad writer put it:

When we sail with a freshening breeze,
And landsmen all grow sick, sir,
The sailor lolls with his mind at ease,
And the song and the can go quick, sir.
Laughing here,
Quaffing there,
Steadily, readily,
Cheerily, merrily,
Still from care and thinking free, Is a sailor's life at sea.

Sure enough, these landsmen are having a miserable time.

The two landsmen in the left of the frame are without waistcoats. One wears a cocked hat, the other is hatless. The fellow in the background wears an unremarkable jacket and trousers that end at about the bottom of the calf with white stockings and shoes. His mate in the foreground wears a single breasted jacket with white buttons (possibly metal) and turned back cuffs with dark breeches or trousers.

To the right is a party of sailors on deck. Those that we can see have trousers. The sitting tars has close fitting trousers that show off his calves and a jacket with a single vent at the back and closed, scalloped mariner's cuffs. Though difficult to be certain, I think he is wearing a neckcloth around his neck. Certainly the other three wear neckcloths, but at least two of them are without waistcoats. All of them wear jackets and round hats with wider brims. Interestingly enough, the crowns of their round hats are both rounded and conical, showing a wider variety in round hat headgear than I've seen in any other single image.

Climbing aloft on the ratlines is a sailor on watch, wearing the same as his mates: a round hat, jacket, shirt without waistcoat, and dark trousers.

Repairing of Capt Cook's Ship in Endeavour River, 1770?

"Repairing of Capt Cook's Ship in Endeavour River," artist unknown, date unknown, National Maritime Museum.

The famous barque Endeavour was the trusty vessel that Captain James Cook commanded on his exploration expedition of 1769-1771. Captain Cook and his men faced numerous perils on their journey, and in this particular scene the Endeavour is being repaired after striking a reef off of Australia. Beside the shore where she was run up and repaired runs a river that now bears her name. This is the second time I have visited this storied shore.

Unfortunately, this piece is low resolution, and doesn't yield much, but there is still something to e said of the sailors in it.

At a pair of boats in the background, two sailors maneuver spars or oars. One, standing or sitting in the boat, wears a jockey style barge cap and jacket, with what appears to be the neckcloth hanging over his back. His mate wears a pair of trousers and a jacket.

In the foreground, a sailor cooks over a large cauldron while wearing a round hat, single breasted jacket, and plain trousers.

Inspecting the damage is a standing tar who wears a round hat, single breasted jacket, and what might be petticoat trousers or trousers. The cox wears the same, except he may be wearing breeches. And the oarsman is bare headed.

Penn's Treaty with the Indians, 1771-1772

Penn's Treaty with the Indians, Benjamin West, 1771-1772, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art via With Art Philadelphia.

Benjamin West was a Pennsylvania born artist who specialized in historical scenes. He is perhaps most famous for his "Death of General Wolfe," which I have featured here before.

West was a contemporary of General Wolfe, but not of William Penn. In this painting, West relates the famous treaty with the Lenape that was signed shortly after the establishment of the colony of Pennsylvania.

West illustrates the scene almost a century after it happened, but the clothing of both the Pennsylvania Quakers surrounding Penn and the sailors that carry their trade goods are apparently unchanged from West's own time.

This is not the first time an artist of the eighteenth century depicted sailors of the seventeenth in anachronistic clothing. Today's popular culture often depicts sailors as either pirates or whalers, with an implied idea that those sailors were wearing basically the same slop clothes throughout the centuries with little change. The concept of the rigidly unchanging tar's slop clothes appears to have existed in the past as well.

Though this painting depicts a scene from the seventeenth century, it depicts sailors in the clothing of the time it was painted, and so I will be tagging it and including it in my examination of common sailor's clothing of the mid to late eighteenth century.

At the center of the piece and kneeling beside Penn, a pair of sailors offer trade goods to Tamanend, a chief of the Turtle Clan of the Lenape.

The sailor in the background wears remarkably close cut hair, a white collared shirt, and a purple neckcloth with white spots. He also sports a blue jacket.

His mate wears a green waistcoat with a yellow neckcloth and white shirt. His plain petticoat trousers run down to below the knee, and a bright red cloth garter snakes out from beneath the hem. Our sailor's stockings are dark blue, and his shoes are black or brown.

In his compositional study for this painting, Benjamin West original depicted the sailor at center with a longer waistcoat, but shortened it in the final piece. Shortening the waistcoat serves to make it more appropriate to the fashions of the 1770's. This small detail supports the theory that they are depicted in clothes that are more contemporary with West than intended as strictly historical.

The first thing that should be addressed is whether these men are sailors at all. Short hair, petticoat trousers, and jackets with mariner's cuffs could certainly suggest that they are. Back when I wrote the piece on West's "Death of General Wolfe," there was some objection that those figures were sailors, as their clothing had some overlap with rangers. These men, however, are clearly shown resting over crates with more being hauled up by their mates from the Delaware River. There can be little doubt that these are indeed sailors.

Here's where it gets interesting.

Sitting in the foreground is a sailor showing off something I have never seen before: bare knees and thighs beneath petticoat trousers. There are many, many examples of sailors wearing breeches beneath their petticoat trousers. For quite some time there has been debate on whether or not sailors went without breeches beneath their petticoat trousers, and this painting adds a bit of fuel to the fire.

Could it be that this is exceptional? His sleeves are rolled up well above the elbow, and he's taking a break from hauling heavy cargo. Could this be a nod to the historical setting, with West presuming a different fashion for sailors in the seventeenth century? If so, he would probably have made some other changes to their slop clothes. Maybe West was unfamiliar with how sailors dressed and presumed they went without breeches? As a transatlantic traveler and resident of the two largest port cities in the British empire (London and Philadelphia), it seems unlikely that an artist with an eye as trained as West's would miss a basic fact about the physical appearance of sailors.

As this is the only image to depict sailors without breeches beneath their petticoat trousers, it would be unwise to draw any conclusions.

In any case, like his mates to the right, he wears blue stockings and red garters. His shoes are black with pointed toes and white metal buckles. Out of the slit pocket of our sailor's orange waistcoat with horizontal stripes with a blue handkerchief striped with white. Around his neck is a pink or purple neckcloth, matching that of the man immediately behind him.

This sailor wears a green jacket with buttoned downed mariner's cuffs and white metal buttons. He wears a white shirt, blue stockings, plain petticoat trousers, garters, and a neckcloth identical to his mate's.

The only other tar we can see clearly is hauling a crate over his left shoulder. His knees are bared as well, showing him without breeches either. Otherwise he wears a smock and dark blue stockings.

Industry and Idleness Rewarded, c.1775

Industry and Idleness Rewarded, artist unknown, c.1775, Colonial Williamsburg.

This decorative handkerchief is a morality tale of two servants, William Goodchild and Jack Idle. These Goofus and Gallant characters follow very different paths. Goodchild becomes a high ranking political figure, while Idle is put to death.

A trope of sailors in fiction is their inherent immorality. This predates the eighteenth century, as in the novel Robinson Crusoe, wherein the title character often laments his sinful life, but says little about what he did wrong besides ignoring his father's advice and becoming a sailor.

Such is the case here. Jack Idle goes to sea in a scene reminiscent of William Hogarth's "The Idle Prentice Turn'd Away and Sent to Sea."

Jacke Idle is shown being rowed to sea, and is directed to observe the gallows over the sea, bearing a corpse as a warning to sailors. Beneath this frame is a Biblical verse surrounded in a wreath: "The wise shall inherit Substance, but shame shall be ye promotion of fools." This is an interesting translation of Proverbs 3:35, which is usually translated (and was at the time in the King James' Version of the Bible) as "The wise shall inherit glory" or "honor." This translation, and indeed the print as a whole, links wealth and political success to virtue. Bad fortune and destitution, meanwhile, are linked to vice.

Sailors then, as low class laborers, are inherently vicious.

Jack Idle, furthest aft, wears his own curly hair cut fairly short over a dark neckcloth and single breasted jacket. The sailor standing amidships wears a cocked hat bound in white taps, a bob wig or bob wig style of hair, a light neckcloth and short jacket with slit cuffs. His shirt may be striped and he is without waistcoat. Around his waist are a pair of petticoat trousers. The oarsman wears  a plain cocked hat, short hair, a dark neckcloth, and a single breasted striped jacket.

At the base of the handkerchief is a pair of illustrations showing the further rewards awaiting idleness and virtue. Ont he left is "Trade & Commerce," showing William Goodchild shaking hands with a Spaniard, while a Dutchman smokes his pipe. A bound crate bearing his initials is ashore, and more goods are being carried there.

Jack Idle, had he not been hanged, would certainly have been transported as a convict servant to Virginia or Maryland. His fate was to be equated with the enslaved shown hoeing tobacco plants.

Revolt of the Marlborough: Underestimating the Enslaved

This is the conclusion of the Revolt of the Marlborough, part of the Race, Revolt, and Piracy series. You can find parts one, two, three, and four by following the links provided.

The story of the Marlborough is one of mariners consistently underestimating the agency of their enslaved human cargo. Captain Robert Codd brought some of the men onto the quarterdeck behind the barricado to help sail the ship, Captain Thomas Jones was cocky enough to try boarding even when he held an advantageous position to disable the Marlborough by his great guns with little risk, and John Harris assumed that they must surely be lost to the sea after sailing away from the Hawk's defeat.

The newly enslaved were capable and skilled. They could sail, they could work muskets and cannon, and they could row. What the Marlborough reminds us is that despite their horrifying condition, the enslaved were also thinkers.

Of the thirty five crew members that sailed the Marlborough, the captain, mates, armed sentries, and surgeon were the subjects of the most violence. The ship's boys, cooper, sailmaker, two common sailors, and the boatswain were spared. Given the boatswain's position as disciplinarian of the crew, it is possible that the slaves viewed him as necessary for keeping the remaining white sailors in line, or that they saw him as the only one to lay a hand on white men during the voyage, earning some degree of respect. The cooper and sailmaker possessed skills that kept them off watch and therefore less likely to abuse the enslaved, which may have ensured their survival. The ship's boys offered little threat to the enslaved. When offering mercy to the sailors hiding in the tops, they even called to Harris by name.

Not numbered among the surviving crew by Harris is the cook. There are two mentions of the cook in Harris' account: when the Africans retrieve his mall to beat the wounded and dying surgeon to death, and when the cook convinces the enslaved to let Harris lead the boat ashore. It is possible that the cook was of African descent himself, otherwise it is difficult to see how he would have had any sway. In any case, he too was spared. And Harris' omission in his account of the very man who saved his life is notable.[1]  

Those the formerly enslaved chose to spare demonstrate their understanding of shipboard hierarchy. Not only did they understand which crew members were most responsible for their suffering, but they also knew which were useful for their survival.

At that, the Africans were reversing the seemingly immutable formula of the slave trade: a relatively few European sailors would restrain a great number of Africans and choose who would live and who would be put to death. Now a great number of Africans would restrain a few Europeans. These sailors might be spared, they might be thrown overboard for the sharks, or they might be killed outright.

All of this illustrates what is well known to students of the Middle Passage: enslaved Africans were not obedient cattle to be herded into slave ships and resigned to their fate. They were skilled, they were smart, and they resisted.

---
[1]  John Harris, letter to his father, London Evening Post, April 5, 1753, page 4.

Revolt of the Marlborough: Battle at Sea

This is the fourth part of The Revolt of the Marlborough. Follow these links to Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

The Bonny Africans, formerly enslaved by the Europeans, had been put ashore, as had John Harris and possibly the rest of the ship's boys. Behind them death permeated the Marlborough, where most of her European crew was killed, and certainly a significant number of Africans. Bullet scars marked the tops, where the former slaves had kept up a heavy fire for hours on the first day of the revolt.

Captain Thomas Jones had just steered the Hawk to the Bonny coast, and it was immediately evident that something was not right on the Marlborough.[1] Captain Jones was on his second voyage as commander of the Hawk, which was making her fourth voyage to Africa.[2] He'd had enough time at sea to know how other vessels ought to look, and in particular how a fellow Bristol slaver should appear. Jones ordered his men to sail to the Marlborough.

Captain Jones may have had the well being of the European crew in mind, but there was a further motivation to retake the Marlborough. If she could be retaken, he and his crew could be rewarded with salvage rights. It was, after all, legally cargo that had risen up and taken the ship. He could take possession of those slaves and the ship, selling them to double his profits for the voyage.

John Harris was safe ashore for the fight, but related the events after the fact. Jones steered the Hawk under Marlborough's stern, the point of the ship most vulnerable to cannon fire. When sizing up the ships, the scales were tipped in favor of the Hawk. She mounted two more guns than the Marlborough, and came in somewhat heavier than her potential opponent.[3]

Hailing the Marlborough, the Hawk was told the captain and much of the crew were ashore, and that she was filled with a sick crew. Jones didn't believe the lie, and sent over a yawl to investigate. When his sailors could clearly see that the Gold Coast Africans had taken possession of the ship, the Hawk leapt into action.

Detail from "The Engagement between The Arethusa and La Belle Poule, 17 June 1778," 
Francis Swaine, c.1778-82, Royal Collection Trust.

Jones could have laid on their stern and pumped the Marlborough full of shot until the Africans aboard surrendered, but such a strategy would have doubtless killed many of them, damaged the ship, and further reduced his profit. Not to mention the likelihood of killing Europeans in the mix. Instead, he opted to board her in the night.[4]

As later related in newspapers across the British empire, "the Negroes were so expert at the Great Guns and Small Arms, that they soon repelled them."[5] The Hawk, despite having superior guns, was outmatched by the perhaps 150 former slaves who were fighting not for profit but for their very lives. At that, many enslaved men were taken in wars, and as such would have been trained soldiers with experience in handling small arms. Jones severely underestimated his prey.

The next morning the Marlborough's boatswain leapt over the side and swam to the Hawk, just before the Gold Coast Africans cut their cable and raised sail, leaving behind the humiliated Hawk and the now free Bonny Africans. Months later, the Gentleman's Magazine would commemorate the victory of the former slaves, relating that after the battle they "boldly put to sea, in order to regain their own country. How sweet is liberty!"[6]

This is the last sighting that Europeans had of the Marlborough, though Harris supposed them lost. It was inconceivable to him that they might attain their goal and regain their freedom. Unfortunately, we don't know whether they ever made it back to their homes, or if they were "lost or drove to Sea," as Harris thought.[7]

Next time: some final thoughts on the Marlborough.

---
[1] John Harris, letter to his father, The London Evening Post, April 5, 1753, page 4.
[2] Slave Voyages Database, accessed July 3, 2016.
[3] Bristol, Africa, and the Eighteenth Century Slave Trade to America, Volume 3: The Years of Decline, ed. Joseph Bettey, Britol Records Society: 1991, pages 49, 70.
[4] Harris, London Evening Post.
[5] The Maryland Gazette, May 10, 1753, page 2.
[6] Gentleman's Magazine, February 1, 1753.
[7] Harris, London Evening Post.

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.