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The Long Middle Passage: the Enslavement of Africans and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, 1640-1808

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THE LONG MIDDLE PASSAGE: THE ENSLAVEMENT OF AFRICANS AND THE TRANS-ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE, 1640-1808 by Nicholas Radburn A dissertation submitted to Johns Hopkins University in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Baltimore, Maryland July 2016 ©2016 Nicholas Radburn All Rights Reserved Abstract This dissertation studies the enslavement of Africans through the trans-Atlantic slave trade. It focuses principally on the trans-Atlantic slave trade organized by Britons, a trade that involved 3.2 million enslaved people. Drawing principally on the records of slave trading merchants, this dissertation reconstructs the individual stages of an enslaved African’s tortuous journey into slavery, a multi-year “Long Middle Passage” that dwarfed the ten-week ocean voyage that has been the focus of so much scholarly attention to date. I break the Long Middle Passage into five distinct stages to each of which I devote a chapter: initial enslavement; sale on the African coast; the Middle Passage; sale in the Americas; and the “seasoning.” An African’s age, gender, and especially their health, shaped the direction that they took through the Long Middle Passage, because slave traders constantly sorted and sold people according to their physical attributes. The age and gender of enslaved Africans embarking on slave ships was shaped by the internal African slave trade, which resulted in varying proportions of men, women, and children moving to particular regions of the coast. European ship captains carefully selected enslaved people according to stringent criteria, and so Africans entering Atlantic slavery were typically young and healthy. The crowded and unsanitary conditions on slave ships, explored in the third chapter of this thesis, debilitated large numbers of people. As a result, as many as a fifth of the enslaved people arriving in the Americas were sickly depending on where in Africa enslaved people had been carried from. American slave traders sold arriving Africans by sorting them according to their age and health and then vending them to colonial buyers of varying economic stature. Adults and children, and the sickly and the healthy, subsequently took divergent paths into American slavery and ultimately faced very different seasoning regimes. This dissertation argues, therefore, that the individual processes that comprised the Long Middle Passage powerfully shaped the forced migration of enslaved Africans in the Americas. ii Advisor: Philip D. Morgan Readers: David Eltis, Jane I. Guyer, Pier M. Larson, Michael P. Johnson iii Acknowledgements My path to this dissertation has been an unconventional one, and I have been very grateful to the numerous people who have accompanied me on the way and guided me in the right direction. I immigrated to New Zealand in 2004 after quitting a short and unfulfilling career in accountancy and enrolled at Victoria University of Wellington. Fortunately, I took a number of Atlantic history courses taught by Steve Behrendt, whose enthusiasm and knowledge of the subject first encouraged me to study the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Under Steve’s guidance, I wrote honors and Masters’ thesis on the slave trade, and I will be forever grateful to him for first setting me on the road that led to this dissertation. I am also thankful for David Eltis for seeing promise in me at the 2008 Voyages launch conference. Without his guidance I would never have thought to have undertaken a Ph.D. in the United States, and I owe him a great deal for supporting me since. Philip D. Morgan has been a wonderful advisor. He encouraged me to think big from day one, and this project has been immeasurably improved as a result. He has also given insightful questions and suggestions throughout, and helped me to organize a sprawling and often incoherent set of sources. As I continue onto the next path, I will always remember the guidance that Steve, David, and Phil gave me along the way. I have been fortunate to have the friendship and support of numerous faculty and students at Hopkins. Pier Larson, Michael P. Johnson, and Michael Kwass helped me to shape my project when I took their courses in my first two years and they have subsequently been generous with their time whenever I have needed help. Gabriel Paquette and Toby Ditz have also been incredibly supportive. The seminar system at Hopkins has helped me think critically and to approach my project from many different view-points. The members of the Early American Seminar, in particular, patiently read many drafts of my work and provided perceptive iv comments. Special thanks to Cole Jones, Rachel Calvin Whitehead, Stephanie Gamble, Dave Schley, Claire Gherini, John Harris, Dexnell Peters, Alexey Krichtal, Sara Damiano, Katherine Arner, Christopher Consolino, and Jim Ashton. I was lucky to come into the Hopkins program with a great cohort of people and I particularly look forward to reminiscing about the old days with Joseph Clark, Emily Mokros, and Lauren MacDonald. I also lived with people who have been wonderful friends and companions at History House: Craig Hollander, Jonathan Gienapp, Sarah Templier, and Alvaro Caso Bello. A number of external bodies supported this project. The Kagan Foundation kindly provided me with additional funds for my first three years at Hopkins which helped me find my feet when I first arrived in Baltimore and supported numerous research trips to the United Kingdom. The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation and the Doris G. Quinn Foundation both funded me in my sixth and final year so that I could devote myself to writing; and Yu Wu kindly awarded me the inaugural prize in Atlantic history. The archivists at the Clements Library gave me access to the Tailyour Family Papers, which underpinned my first scholarly publication and helped me to develop many of the themes in this dissertation. My friends and family have carried me through this project. My mother, Naomi Radburn, encouraged me to follow David’s advice and apply to graduate programs in the United States, even though it meant leaving New Zealand. Mum and Dad have both been supportive since and have been wonderful hosts whenever I came home. I also owe a debt to my other friends and family throughout the globe. My friends in the United Kingdom—Chris Wright, Ad Barber, Andy Getaz, Oli and Imogen Radburn, Andy Tillet, Malcolm Craig, and Michael Devine—have always been free for a pint and provided me with lodging when I visited. Richard and Aimee Nash were fantastic friends over the last few years, and I will fondly remember our frequent v outings in Hampden. Although I have not visited New Zealand as much as I would have liked it has always been great to catch up with Geoff Heywood, James Campbell, Kate Jordan, and Scott Radburn. Finally, Katherine Smoak has been a generous reader of my work and has always offered insightful comments that have made me think about approaching my dissertation in new ways. Kat has been my constant companion throughout this project and I look forward to continuing on to the next stage of our lives together. vi Table of Contents List of Tables ............................................................................................................................... viii List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ ix Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1 Chapter 1- Enslavement in Africa ............................................................................ 18 Chapter 2- Sale on the African Coast ...................................................................... 66 Chapter 3- The Middle Passage .............................................................................114 Chapter 4- Sale in the Americas ............................................................................168 Chapter 5- Seasoning in the Americas ...................................................................230 Conclusion .............................................................................................................281 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 288 Curriculum Vitae ........................................................................................................................ 307 vii List of Tables Table 1.1 Enslaved Africans forcibly exported by region (thousands), 1601-1808 ..................... 21 Table 1.2: Enslaved Africans departing principal Biafran ports (thousands), 1651-1808 ............ 56 Table 1.3: Linguistic identity of enslaved Africans (percentages) departing principal Biafran ports, 1651-1808 ........................................................................................................................... 56 Table 1.4: Linguistic identity of enslaved Africans (thousands) departing principal Biafran ports, 1651-1808 ..................................................................................................................................... 57 Table 1.5: Enslaved men, women, boys and girls forcibly exported from the Bight of Biafra, and all other African regions (number), 1789-1793 ............................................................................ 62 Table 2.1: Enslaved Africans purchased per transaction by Richard Miles at three different slaving forts (number), 1771-1780 ..............................................................................................
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