Slave ship

For other uses, see Slave ship (disambiguation).

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Slave ships were large cargo ships specially converted for the purpose of transporting slaves, especially newly purchased African slaves to the Americas.

The most significant routes of the slave ships led from the north-western and western coasts of Africa to South America and the south-east coast of what is today the United States, and the Caribbean. As many as 20 million Africans were transported by ship. The transportation of slaves from Africa to America was known as the Middle Passage.

The African slave trade was outlawed in 1807, by a law passed jointly in the United States of America and the United Kingdom. The applicable UK act was the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act and outlawed slavery throughout the British Empire. The US law took effect on January 1, 1808.

After that date all US and English slave ships leaving Africa were legally pirate vessels subject to capture by the United States Navy or Royal Navy. In 1815, at the Council of Vienna, Spain, Portugal, France, and the Netherlands also agreed to abolish their slave trade. During this time, the slave ships became smaller and more cramped in exchange for improved performance in their new role as smuggling craft and blockade runners.

Atlantic slave trade

Only a few decades after the discovery of America by Europeans, demand for cheap labour to work plantations made slave-trading a profitable business. The peak time of slave ships to the Atlantic passage was between the 17th and 18th century when large plantations developed in the British colonies of North America.

In order to achieve profit, the owners of the ships divided their hulls into holds with little headroom, so they could transport as many slaves as possible. Unhygienic conditions, dehydration, dysentery and scurvy led to a high mortality rate, on average 15% and up to a third of captives. Only the most resilient survived the transport. Often the ships, also known as Guineamen, transported hundreds of slaves, who were chained tightly to plank beds. For example, the slave ship Henrietta Marie carried about 200 slaves on the long Middle Passage. They were confined to cargo holds with each slave chained with little room to move.

List of slave ships

Cross section of decks, "tight packing" of slaves, storage areas. This ship sailed from La Rochelle in 1784, picked up about 500 Africans from north of the Congo River, and sold its slaves in Saint Domingue.

La Rochelle slave ship Le Saphir ex-voto, 1741.

Brookes slave ship plan

Images showing how the slaves were transported on the ships

Turner's The Slave Ship

• Adelaide, French slave ship, sank 1714 near Cuba.
• Antelope, Spanish slave ship captured near Florida in 1820 with 283 slaves aboard, 120 of whom were sent to Liberia in 1827.
• Aurore, along with the Duc du Maine, the first French slave ships that brought the first slaves to Louisiana.
• La Amistad, cargo ship which sometimes carried slaves (see note below).
• Braunfisch, a Brandenburgian slave ship lost in 1688 in a revolt.
• Brookes, sailing in the 1780s.
• Clotilde, burned and sunk at Mobile, in autumn 1859.
• Cora, captured by the USS Constellation in 1860.
• Creole, involved in the United States coastwise slave trade and the scene of a slave rebellion in 1841, leading to the Creole case.
• Desire, first American slave ship.
• Elisabeth, sailing from Jamaica for West Africa.
• Duc du Maine, along with the Aurore, the first French slave ships that brought the first slaves to Louisiana.
• Fredensborg, Danish slave ship, sank in 1768 off Tromøy in Norway, after a journey in the triangular trade. Leif Svalesen has written a book about the journey.
• Guerrero, Spanish slave ship wrecked in the Florida Keys in 1827 carrying 561 Africans.
• Hannibal. An English slaver of the Atlantic slave trade.
• Henrietta Marie. Sank 1700 near Marquesas Keys, Florida, excavated in 1980s.
• Hope, American brig which brought slaves to Rhode Island
• Jesus of Lübeck 700-ton ship used on the second voyage of John Hawkins to transport 400 captured Africans in 1564. Queen Elizabeth I was his partner and rented him the vessel.
• Kron-Printzen, Danish slave ship, sank in 1706 with 820 slaves on board.
• Le Concord. Slave ship turned pirate ship aka Queen Anne's Revenge. Sank 1717.
• Lord Ligonier. See Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley.
• Don Francisco. Slave ship captured in 1837. Sold as a colonial trader renamed James Matthews. Excavated by Western Australian Museum in 1974
• Madre de Deus (Mother of God), 1567. John Hawkins captured this ship and transported 400 Africans.
• Manuela, built as clipper ship Sunny South, captured by HMS Brisk in Mozambique Channel with over 800 slaves aboard.
• Margaret Scott confiscated and sunk as part of the Stone fleet in 1862
• Meermin, a Dutch East India Company ship active beween southern Africa and Madagascar, whose final voyage in 1766 ended in mutiny by the slaves: around half the crew and nearly 30 Malagasy died, and the ship was destroyed.
• Nightingale, clipper ship captured by Saratoga near Cabinda, Angola in 1861 with 961 slaves aboard.
• Pons, American built barque captured by the USS Yorktown 1 December 1845 with 850-900 slaves.
• Salamander, Brandenburgian slave ship.
• Sally, of Newport, Rhode Island - reviewed in the Report of the Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice.
• Tecora, Portuguese slave ship that transported the slaves who would later revolt aboard La Amistad.
• Triton captured by the USS Constellation 1861.
• Trouvadore, wrecked in Turks and Caicos 1841. 193 slaves survived. Project commenced in 2004 to locate the ship.
• Wanderer, formerly last slave ship to the U.S. (November 1858) until Clotilde reported in 1859 or 1860.
• Wildfire, a barque, arrested off the Florida coast by the US Navy in 1860; carrying 450 slaves.
• Whydah Gally, slave ship turned into pirate ship-sank 1717.
• Zong, a British slave ship infamous for the 1781 massacre of 132 sick and dying slaves who were thrown overboard to in an attempt to guarantee that the ship's owners could collect on their cargo insurance.

Note: While La Amistad is often called a slave ship, it was in fact a general purpose cargo ship, which occasionally carried slaves. See the article about the ship, and the resulting court case, for more information.

See also

• William Fly
• Slave Coast, Gorée ("Slave island")
• Slave trade
• Hell ship

Further reading

• Baroja, Pio (2002). Los pilotos de altura. Madrid: Anaya. ISBN 8466716815. http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0836/2003429983-d.html. 
• Rediker, Marcus (2007). The Slave Ship: A Human History. New York: Viking. ISBN 978-0670018239. http://www.marcusrediker.com/Books/Slave_Ship/Synopsis_of_Slave_Ship.htm. 
• James Walvin: The Zong. A Massacre, the Law and the End of Slavery. Yale University Press, New Haven/London 2011. ISBN 978-0-300-12555-9

External links

• Voyages — The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database
• Report of the Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice
• UNESCO — The Slave Route
• Scotland and the Abolition of the Slave Trade - schools resource
• Paper about German Transatlantic Trade including a list of slave ships (PDF in German)