in 1698, Parliament opened the trade to all merchantmen, the increase of the trade was considered "so Highly Beneficial and Advantageous to this Kingdom" that efforts were made to secure the slave traffic of the Spanish islands also, and with success. The most valued feature of the Peace of Utrecht (March 13, 1713) was the Assiento by which Spain agreed to permit England to send not less than 4800 slaves every year thereafter to the Spanish colonies.
With Spanish as well as all English West India islands open to the trade of the New England slavers, it is interesting to note that one port soon forged ahead of all others in the number of ships engaged in the traffic. Rhode Island merchants secured a much greater share of it than those of other parts of the coast. Their success appears to have been due in part to geographical conditions. Thus the people of Massachusetts led those of Rhode Island in the fisheries because they lived nearer the Banks, but they had no advantage in carrying forest and farm products to the West Indies. In fact, Newport was measurably nearer to Barbados than Boston was; her ships did not have to risk the dangers of Cape Cod. This was a small advantage, but all the more interesting on that account. Boston gave her attention chiefly to fish; Newport perforce made a specialty of something else, and of all the products of the soil used in trade, within her reach, there was nothing that gave so large a profit as molasses, when it was the raw material for the manufacture of rum. Newport thought to fish, at one time; a bounty was paid on whale-oil taken by ships of the colony. But the production of rum needed no artificial stimulation. Molasses cost thirteen or fourteen pennies a gallon, and Rhode Island distillers became so expert that some of them made a gallon of rum from one of molasses, though the ordinary product was 96 gallons in 100. Rum was not only cheap, it was satisfying. Even the French Canadians bought rum, instead of brandy from their native land.
Gaining the lead in the manufacture of rum gave the Newport merchants the lead in the slave trade, for of all goods carried by enlightened and civilized white men to the degraded heathen of Africa nothing proved so tempting as this deadly stupefier.
Many stories of the early slave trade remain, but none shows the conditions as they were better than that of a voyage made by Captain David Lindsay, in the 40-ton brigantine Sanderson, belonging to William Johnson & Co., of Newport, in 1752. She sailed for the black coast on August 22, at 11.32 o'clock, the exact minute being noted on an astrologer's chart which the captain had obtained as a guide. The chief part of her cargo consisted of "80 hhds. six bbs. and 3 tierces of rum, containing 8220 gals." Lumber and staves for sale at Barbados, as well as for use in making the slave deck, were also carried, but in small quantities. A partial description of the vessel before sailing says she was "tite as yet." In a letter dated "Anamaboe 28th Feb. 1753," Captain Lindsay reports progress:—
"I have got 13 or 14 hhds of Rum yet left a board & God noes when I shall get clear of it. Ye traid is so dull it is actually a noof to make a man Creasy." Officers and men had been sick, one was likely to die, "and wors than yt have wore out my small cable & have been obliged to buy one heare. … I beg you not blaime me in so doeing. I should be glad I could come rite home with my slaves for my vesiel will not last to proceed farr. We can see day Lite al round her bow under deck."
In his next report (Barbadoes, June 17, 1759), the captain says:—
"These are to acqt you of my arivel heare ye day before yesterday from anamaboe. I met on my passage 22 days of very squaly winds & continued Rains so that it beat my sails alto piceses. … My slaves is not landed as yet: they are 56 in number for owners all in helth & fatt. … I've got 40 ounces gould dust & eight or nine hundred weight maligabar pepper for owners."
As we see it the trade was horrible, but consider the courage and fortitude of the captain and crew who, after seeing "day Lite al round her bow under deck," headed away across the ocean on a passage lasting ten weeks, during which, for twenty-two days, they faced storms which beat the sails to pieces and poured floods of water through the open seams.
A report of the consignee shows that forty-seven of the slaves sold for £1432 12s. 6d. The usual price of a slave on the African coast was 110 gallons of rum. After deducting expenses, the consignees credited the owners of the ship with £1324. After adding the gold dust, the pepper, and the small sums received for the lumber and staves, one sees that the dividend on the cost of the Sanderson (£450) was large. Of the price received for the remaining negroes, and the profit on the molasses which was probably carried home, nothing is said in the record. (See Am. Hist. Record, August and September, 1872).
The income of the slaver captain was large for that day. In addition to the ordinary monthly wages, he received several commissions. "You are to have four out of 104 for your coast commission," wrote the owner of the schooner Sierra Leone, in which Captain Lindsay made a voyage in 1754, "& five per cent for the sale of your cargo in the West Indies & five per cent for the goods you purchase for return cargo. You are to have five slaves Privilege, your cheafe mate Two, if he can purchase them, & your second mate two."
The "Privilege" was the "private venture" of the trade. The foremast hands had no "privilege." Their pay was about £3 per month.
As a matter of record, to show something of the way business was done by the ship-owners of the day, here is a copy of a bill of lading, followed by a letter of instructions to a captain about to sail in the slave trade:—
"Shipped by the Grace of God in good order and well conditioned, by William Johnson & Co., owners of the Sierra Leone, in & upon the said Schooner Sierra Leone, where of is master under God for this present voyage David Lindsay, & now riding at Anchor in Harbour of Newport, and by God's Grace bound for the Coast of Africa: To say, Thirty-four hogsheads, Tenn Tierces, Eight barrels & six half barrels Rum, one barrel Sugar, sixty Musketts, six half barrels Powder, one box beads, Three boxes Snuff, Two barrels Tallow, Twenty-one barrels Beef, Pork and Mutton, 14 cwt. 1 qr. 22 lbs. bread, one barrel mackerel, six shirts, five Jacketts, one piece blue Calico, one piece Chex, one mill, shackles, handcuffs &c.
"Being marked and numbered as in the Margent; & are to be delivered in like good Order & well conditioned, at the aforesaid port of the coast of Affrica (the Dangers of the Seas only excepted) unto the said David Lindsay or to his assigns, he or they paying Freight for the said Goods, nothing, with Primage and Average accustomed. In Witness whereof, the master or purser of the said Schooner hath affirmed unto three Bills of Lading: all of this Tenor and date: one of which Three Bills of Lading being accomplished the other two stand void. And so God send the good Schooner to her desired Port in Safety: Amen."
The enormous profits of the slave trade were made in spite of active competition. In 1750 there were 101 Liverpool merchants in it, while London had 135, and Bristol 157. The English slavers were much larger than the American, on the average, being able to carry 300. Nevertheless, New Rhode Island held her own well. In 1740 she had, according to The American Slave Trade, 120 vessels in the trade, and in 1770 the number was 150.
An interesting view of the seafaring people of New England in the seventeenth century is found in the autobiography of the Rev. John Barnard, who served Marblehead well, beginning in 1714. He says that upon his arrival in the place "there was not so much as one proper carpenter nor mason nor tailor nor butcher in the town. The people contented themselves to be the slaves that digged in the mines [figuratively speaking] and left the merchants of Boston, Salem and Europe to carry away the gains; by which means the town was always in dismally poor circumstances, involved in debt to the merchants more than they were worth; … and they were generally as rude, swearing, drunken and fighting a crew as they were poor.
"I soon saw that the town had a price in its hands, and it was a pity they had not a heart to improve it. I therefore laid myself out to get acquainted with the English masters of vessels that I might by them be let into the mystery of the fish trade; and in a little time I gained a pretty thorough understanding of it. When I saw the advantages of it I thought it my duty to stir up my people … that they might reap the benefit of it. … But alas! I could inspire no man with courage and resolution enough to engage in it, till I met with Mr. Joseph Swet, a young man of strick justice, great industry, enterprising genius, quick apprehension and firm resolution, but of small fortune. To him I opened myself fully,