CAPTURE OF THE SLAVE-BARQUE “PONS”—SLAVES LANDED AT MONROVIA—CAPTURE OF THE SLAVE-EQUIPPED VESSELS “PANTHER,” “ROBERT WILSON,” “CHANCELLOR,” ETC.—LETTER FROM THE “JAMESTOWN” IN REFERENCE TO LIBERIA—AFFAIR WITH THE NATIVES NEAR CAPE PALMAS—SEIZURE AND CONDEMNATION OF THE SLAVER “H. N. GAMBRILL.”
On the 30th of November, the Yorktown, Commander Bell, captured the American bark “Pons,” off Kabenda, on the south coast, with eight hundred and ninety-six slaves on board. This vessel had been at Kabenda about twenty days before, during which she had been closely watched by the British cruiser “Cygnet.” The Cygnet, leaving one morning, the master of the Pons, James Berry, immediately gave up the ship to Gallano, the Portuguese master. During the day, so expeditious had they been, that water and provisions were received on board, and nine hundred and three slaves were embarked; and at eight o’clock the same evening, the Pons was under way. Instead of standing out to sea, she kept in with the coast during the night; and in the morning discovering the British cruiser, furled sails, and drifted so close to the shore that the negroes came down to the beach in hopes of her being wrecked. She thus eluded detection. When clear of the Cygnet, she stood out to sea, and two days afterwards was captured by the Yorktown.
Commander Bell says: “The captain took us for an English man-of-war, and hoisted the American colors; and no doubt had papers to correspond.” These he threw overboard. “As soon as the slaves were recaptured, they gave a shout that could have been heard a mile.”
During the night eighteen of the slaves had died, and one jumped overboard. The master accounted for the number dying from the necessity of his sending below all the slaves on deck, and closing the hatches, when he fell in with the Yorktown, in order to escape detection. Ought not every such death to be regarded as murder?
Commander Bell says: “The vessel has no slave-deck, and upwards of eight hundred and fifty were piled, almost in bulk, on water-casks below. As the ship appeared to be less than three hundred and fifty tons, it seemed impossible that one-half could have lived to cross the Atlantic. About two hundred filled up the spar-deck alone when they were permitted to come up from below; and yet the captain assured me that it was his intention to have taken four hundred more on board, if he could have spared the time.
“The stench from below was so great that it was impossible to stand more than a few minutes near the hatchways. Our men who went below from curiosity, were forced up sick in a few minutes: then all the hatches were off. What must have been the sufferings of those poor wretches, when the hatches were closed! I am informed that very often in these cases, the stronger will strangle the weaker; and this was probably the reason why so many died, or rather were found dead the morning after the capture. None but an eye-witness can form a conception of the horrors these poor creatures must endure in their transit across the ocean.
“I regret to say, that most of this misery is produced by our own countrymen. They furnish the means of conveyance in spite of existing enactments; and although there are strong circumstances against Berry, the late master of the Pons, sufficient to induce me to detain him, if I should meet him, I fear neither he nor his employers can be reached by our present laws.”
In this letter to the Secretary of the Navy, Commander Bell further adds: “For twenty days did Berry wait in the roadstead of Kabenda, protected by the flag of his country, yet closely watched by a foreign man-of-war, who was certain of his intention: but the instant that cruiser is compelled to withdraw for a few hours, he springs at the opportunity of enriching himself and owners, and disgracing the flag which had protected him.”
The prize “Pons” was taken to Monrovia. There the slaves were landed, and gave the people a practical exhibition of the trade by which their ancestors had been torn from their homes. In the fourteen days intervening between the capture and arrival of the vessel at Monrovia, one hundred and fifty had died.
“The slaves,” says the Monrovia Herald of December 28th, “were much emaciated, and so debilitated that many of them found difficulty in getting out of the boats. Such a spectacle of misery and wretchedness, inflicted by a lawless and ferocious cupidity, so excited our people, that it became unsafe for the captain of the slaver, who had come to look on, to remain on the beach. Eight slaves died in harbor before they were landed, and the bodies were thrown overboard.”
The slaves, who were from eight to thirty years of age, came starved and thirsting from on board. Caution was required in giving them food. “When it was supposed that the danger of depletion was over, water was poured into a long canoe, into which they plunged like hungry pigs into a trough—the stronger faring the best.”
Still, the kindness of human nature had not altogether been obliterated by length and intensity of suffering. Two boys, brothers, had found beside them a younger boy of the same tribe, who was ill. They contrived to nestle together on the deck, under such shelter as the cover of the long-boat offered them—a place where the pigs, if they are small enough, are generally stowed. There they made a bed of some oakum for their dying companion, and placed a piece of old canvas under his head. Night and day one was always awake to watch him. Hardship rendered their care fruitless: the night after the vessel anchored he died, and was thrown overboard.
The recaptured were apprenticed out, and kindly cared for by the Liberians. Several of them were found, when the Perry visited Monrovia, to have become members of churches, and others were attending Sunday-schools.
Several empty slavers were captured by the squadron about this period; they are thus noticed by the National Intelligencer:—“It is remarkable that within the same week, should have arrived in our ports as prizes to the American squadron, for having been engaged in the slave-trade—the Pons, above mentioned, captured by the Yorktown; the Panther, a prize of the same vessel, which arrived at Charleston on Monday; and the Robert Wilson, a prize to the sloop-of-war Jamestown, which reached Charleston on Thursday.”
In 1846, the sloop-of-war Marion, brigs Dolphin and Boxer, with the flag-ship United States, Commodore Read, constituted the squadron.
Sixty miles of additional sea-coast territory had been purchased by Governor Roberts, from the natives. The influence of traders, of the slave-trade, and even of England being thrown in the way of obtaining possession of the purchased territory, Governor Roberts made application to the commodore, that one of the vessels of the squadron might cruise for several weeks within the limited territory, for the purpose of facilitating negotiation. The Dolphin was assigned this service; her commander offered General Lewis, the agent, a passage to such points as he wished to visit, and otherwise rendered service as circumstances required.
The Dolphin was lying at Cape Mount, watching the suspicious American bark “Chancellor,” which was trading with a slave-dealer named Canot. The British cruiser “Favorite” was stationed off the Cape, and suggested to the chiefs, that as they were in treaty with his government for the suppression of the slave-trade, and as Canot was on their territory making preparations for slaving, they were bound to destroy his establishment. The chiefs accordingly burnt his premises, containing a large amount of goods he had shipped at New York. Canot having been by no means secure in conscience, had left with his family and taken up his residence in Monrovia.
The Dolphin proceeded to Porto Praya for stores, and the Chancellor was watched in the mean time by the British cruisers at the Cape and at the Gallinas. Among the traverses worked by the slave-traders, the practice had been adopted, to fill canoes with slaves and send them off the coast, to be picked up by vessels in search of a cargo, which, from the blockade, could not reach the shore. In one instance, fifty of these were found in a single canoe, and taken by a British cruiser. On the return of the Dolphin, the Chancellor was seized by Commander Pope as a prize, on the ground of having a slave-deck laid, and water-casks with rice on board sufficient for a slave cargo, and sent to the United States for adjudication.
The commodore, after having cruised along the entire extent of the slave-coast, rendering such service as American interests required, was relieved, in 1847, by the sloop-of-war Jamestown, Commodore Bolton. The frigate United States then proceeded to the Mediterranean station, to complete her cruise.
The commander of the Jamestown writes, in relation to Monrovia, “It was indeed to me a novel and interesting sight, although a southern man, to look upon these emancipated slaves legislating for themselves, and discussing freely, if not ably, the principles of human rights, on the very continent, and perhaps the very spot, where some of their ancestors were sold into slavery.... Liberia, I think, is now safe, and may be left after a while to stand alone. Would it not be advisable, then, for the Colonization Society to turn its attention to some other portion of the coast, and extend the area of Christian and philanthropic efforts to bettering the condition of the colored people of our country, by sowing on other parts of the coast some of the good seed which has produced so bountifully on the free soil of Liberia.... In no part of the world have I met with a more orderly, sober, religious and moral community than is to be found at Monrovia. On the Sabbath, it is truly a joyful sound to hear hymns of praise offered up to Him who doth promise, ‘where two or three are gathered together in His name, there He is in the midst of them;’ and a pleasure to observe how very general the attendance upon divine worship is among these people. I believe every man and woman in Monrovia, of any respectability, is a member of the church. If you take a family dinner with the President (and his hospitable door is always open to strangers), a blessing is asked upon the good things before you set to. Take a dinner at Colonel Hicks’s (who, by the way, keeps one of the very nicest tables), and ‘mine host,’ with his shiny, black, intelligent face, will ask a blessing on the tempting viands set before you.”
This may be considered a fair type of the views of persons generally who visit Liberia, judging the people comparatively. Our estimate of them ought not to be conformed to the standard of an American population.
The squadron confined mostly to the north coast, rendered such services as the commerce of the United States and the interest of its citizens required, and checked the perversion of the flag to the continuance of the slave-trade. The year following, the commodore was relieved by the Yorktown, bearing the broad pendant of Commodore Cooper, and with the flag-ship proceeded to the Mediterranean.
Commodore Cooper soon after assuming the command, suffering from ill-health, returned to the United States, and the African squadron was assigned to Commodore Gregory, who sailed in the summer of 1849, in the U. S. sloop-of-war Portsmouth. It consisted of the sloops-of-war John Adams, Dale, Yorktown, and the brigs Bainbridge, Porpoise and Perry. Three or four slavers were captured, the entire slave-coast closely examined, and such services rendered to our commercial interests as were required.
In 1851, Commodore Lavallette, with the Germantown, relieved Commodore Gregory. He made an active cruise, capturing one or two suspected slavers, and otherwise carrying out the views of the government in the establishment of the squadron. At the expiration of two years, the frigate Constitution arrived, bearing the broad pendant of Commodore Mayo, who now commands the squadron, consisting of the sloops-of-war Marion and Dale, with the brig Perry.
In visiting Cape Palmas in the summer of 1853, one of the unintelligible quarrels common to the coast was then raging between the Barbo people and their neighbors along the Cavally. Interfering to settle the matter was by no means acceptable. When the commodore proposed going on shore for the purpose, the proposal was met by an intimation to go away, or they would cut off his head. The launch was sent off well manned, with a howitzer. The natives assembled with a show of resistance, but a shot being thrown among them, brought the belligerents to terms. They apologized, and promised to reconcile their enmities, and took the oath of friendship.
The American schooner N. H. Gambrill, of Baltimore, attempting to re-awaken the small remains of slaving off the river Congo, was seized by the frigate Constitution on the 3d of December, arrived in New York in charge of a prize-officer, and on the 30th of January, 1854, was condemned in the U. S. Circuit Court, for having been engaged in the slave-trade.
Considering that we have had no steamers on the coast, and the number of vessels being small, the squadron has been efficient in fulfilling its duties. Its appearance alone had great influence. It showed a determination in our government to share in the naval charge of these vast seas and shores. Our country thus became present, as it were, in power to repress, and if need be, by punishment to avenge outrages on our citizens or their property. It checked, by important captures, the desecration of the American flag, and has had an essential agency towards removing the guilt of the slave-trade from the world. Had we no squadron on the African coast, American vessels would with impunity pursue the iniquitous traffic; our commerce would be exposed, and our citizens subject to outrage. The nature of the proceedings of this squadron, the circumstances of its experience, and the effect of its operations, will be more clearly apparent in the subsequent detail of the proceedings of the U. S. brig “Perry,” during the years 1850-1851. The following chapters will comprise a synopsis of these proceedings, and a compilation from the correspondence in relation to them.