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y In Search of the Cuban Slave DOS AMIGOS Dinizulu Gene Tinnie Co-Director The Dos Amigos/Fair Rosamond Slave Ship Replica Project

he year was 1830. The location was the bustling port of Havana, Cuba. There, aboard a sleek, low, Tblack-hulled , Captain Juan Ramón Mujica and his crew of 34 officers, men and boys completed final preparations for their departure. They loaded casks of water, firewood, food and supplies for a transatlantic voyage. On or Schematic drawing of the Spanish brigantine about July 13th, they weighed anchor. schooner Dos Amigos The vessel cut a striking profile as the breeze filled her sails as she made way across the harbor to the mouth of the port between the Morro Castle and the Castillo de la Punta, then out to the open sea. With her towering raked masts, long bowsprit, and a boom that extended well past her stern, she was clearly built for speed and was capable of carrying a great press of sail. The Dos Amigos at sea. Drawing by Henry This was a most beautifully designed ship, Rusk, from The History of American Sailing but she was built to serve a most ugly pur- by Howard I. Chapelle (:W.W. pose, which was only spoken of in knowing Norton. 1934) hints, coded phrases and convenient

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Stowage of captives aboard a 19th century slaving vessel: the Spanish schooner Josefa Maracayera

euphemisms by those who profited quite all an uncommon sight in the Port of handsomely from her nefarious business. Havana. They were often said to look, like Her name was the Dos Amigos, at least other ships of their time, “like swallows for this voyage (such was the devious nature among pigeons.”These vessels were the leg- of her commerce). Her destination was endary of the early Africa. Her supplies also included hundreds 1800s—sharp, fast-sailing two-masted of pairs of iron shackles, chains and other and —which found very implements of human restraint. She was a brisk markets in both Cuba and . slave ship, fully engaged in a traffic that had Those countries had high demands for an finally been declared illegal after more than incessant supply of unpaid forced labor to three and half centuries. It was not known fuel their rapidly expanding sugar then, but with this voyage she was destined economies. As a result, they kept the to make her mark on history, on the present, Baltimore shipyards, which were also highly and on the future, notably through an ambi- dependent on enslaved labor, busy at a fever tious Replica Project made possible by her pitch. surviving design plans. That future may be On sugar plantations, a so-called shaped significantly by assistance from the “prime male slave” (typically aged 15-25 people of Cuba today, both at home and years) was literally worked to death in only abroad, in retrieving and reconstructing the nine years, on average, after his arrival. In story of this important historical vessel. the harsh calculus of that business, it was simply far more profitable for plantation The Background owners to replace the deceased laborer with a newly arrived one, rather than to raise a Vessels like the Dos Amigos, with their new enslaved population through procre- very distinctive rakish profiles, were not at ation. In 1807, however, just as the demand

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for forced labor began increasing dramati- West Indies. By the treaty provisions, the cally in Cuba and Brazil, two other Squadron was authorized to seize any nations—Great Britain and the United Spanish slave vessels with captives aboard States—passed laws that abolished the cen- and to free the surviving captives in the West turies-old so-called Atlantic “slave trade”1 African colony of Sierra Leone, if the which began even before Columbus discov- Court there agreed that the ship was taken ered the western hemisphere in 1492. as a lawful prize. However, these laws did not abolish slavery Predictably, Cuban planters had no itself in their respective dominions. Their patience for the laws or treaties made in far- motives in passing these laws were as much away by people who had no real practical and economic as moral. understanding of the needs of the island. Certainly those laws responded to the As a result, the planters were determined to moral outrage that found its voice in the circumvent all restrictions by any means Abolition movement of the late 1700s, but necessary. The law of supply and demand there were other interests to be served as would trump all other laws, whatever the well. Slave owners in the were risks. Those risks were high –including dis- frightened to their very core by the success eases, revolts, capture, piratical attacks, and of the Haitian Revolution, which was main- natural disasters– but, for that very reason, ly carried out by African-born laborers who so were the profits. Thus was established a were newly imported onto the island. Great ready market for fast vessels, like the Dos Britain, for its part, felt the sting the sugar Amigos, which were built specifically for the competition from Cuba and Brazil was illegal but extremely profitable business of bringing to the planters in its own eluding British patrols with highly valued Caribbean colonies. British officials felt human cargo. that cutting off the labor supply to those These small, swift vessels could be easi- countries could reduce that competition ly hidden among the secluded islets, creeks significantly. For this reason, the British and bayous along the coast of Africa where government began working diligently to the clandestine traffic of human beings expand abolition by negotiating treaties flourished. They took to the sea with great with other nations. It was just a matter of speed, usually outrunning rather than out- time, given Great Britain’s predominant fighting (in the interest of profit) the slow- wealth and influence at the time, before er British that pursued them. abolition was implemented by Spain, of However, whatever advantages these vessels which Cuba was an “ever faithful colony,” gained in speed, they lost in heightened through a treaty with Britain signed in mortality rates amongst the captives, often 1821. The signing of this treaty roughly around 20 per cent. These specially coincided, as it turned out, with the end of designed 19th century vessels were quite dif- the Napoleonic wars. The end of these wars ferent from their “legal” counterparts of allowed the British Royal Navy to turn its previous centuries, which were usually ordi- attention to enforcement of the laws and nary merchant vessels, modified on the coast agreements pertaining to the high seas. As a of Africa for the trans-Atlantic crossing result, an Anti-Slave Trade Squadron was with their human cargo, and then modified deployed to the coast of Africa and to the again for their “homeward passage” laden

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with the products of slave labor. By con- trast, these newer vessels typically had much smaller spaces below decks, often with loose rough-sawn boards atop water casks instead of a solidly constructed “slave deck”(which greatly increased the suffering of the cap- tives), and were part of a traffic without even the pretext of enforceable legal regula- tions. Moreover, pirates, who were often indistinguishable from the slaving captains, regularly played a significant role in this business. They often attacked and raided other slave ships, fully laden and returning to Cuba or Brazil, rather than incurring the costs and risks of a journey all the way to Africa. It mattered not who delivered the “cargo” or how; it was all in the ultimate interest of “respectable” businessmen, whether slave dealers in Havana, ship- builders in Baltimore, financiers in New York, or investors from anywhere else.

The Last Slaving Voyage of the Dos Amigos

The voyage of the Dos Amigos in 1830 was both unique and typical in this entire drama. It was typical, for example, that she departed Havana during the summer months when the prevailing westerly winds were the strongest, and that she was only lightly armed –with a single cannon on a swivel, sixteen rifles and fifteen pistols,– in order to minimize weight. Furthermore, her crew was typically comprised predomi- The crew list of the Spanish slaver Dos Amigos, on nantly of Spanish-born “Peninsulares” and her last voyage before being captured by the British men of other nations rather than Cuban- born “Criollos.” What was unique about this slaving voyage was that this would be her last and would end in peculiar circum- stances. On Tuesday, November 9, 1830, almost four months after her departure from

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Havana, her sail was spotted at the early her at trial as an illegal slaver and ordered morning hour off the coast off Cameroon the vessel to be sold at auction. by the British pursuit vessel, H.M. Many other captured vessels which met Black Joke, a notoriously fast Baltimore- this same fate in court ended up being sold built former slaver from Brazil. Equally very cheaply right back into the slave trade aware that his ship had been spotted, under different, and sometimes even to the Captain Mujica attempted to make a fast same owners. A few of these fast vessels retreat up the Cameroons River, but the found new, nobler lives as Mediterranean winds were very light, and the chase was fruit transporters, where speed was impor- painstakingly slow.2 The crew of the Black tant. And a significant number, as if star- Joke, in pursuit, resorted to sweeps (large crossed at birth to serve some evil purpose oars) to move up the river, while the captain on the seas, became opium clippers in Asia. sent her smaller boats ahead, “manned and The excellently designed Dos Amigos, how- armed,” according to the ship’s Master’s ever, was promptly purchased by the Log. It was not until later the next day, a Commodore of the British Anti-Slave Trade full twenty-nine and a half hours later, that Squadron, Jonathan Hayes. She was con- the chase ended “off King Bell’s Town”, as verted to a pursuit vessel under the new the trading post of one of the more famous name Fair Rosamond to capture other Cameroonian middlemen traders, called slavers. She joined and eventually replaced local “kings,”was known. her own captor, the Black Joke, in establish- The capture was an unusual one. ing an impressive record of captures and Firstly, Cameroon had long since ceased to liberating many hundreds of captives in be a location of primary interest to slaving Sierra Leone. Yet, it should be pointed out captains, who generally preferred the more that far more slave ships escaped than were notorious and profitable ports to the west, captured, and many of those captured were in modern-day Benin and Nigeria. The 567 released on legal technicalities even with Africans aboard the Dos Amigos (who may their captives aboard. The Fair Rosamond had come from elsewhere) were somehow also was deployed for a time in the Royal hastily landed ashore, as Captain Mujica Navy’s North American and West Indies tried desperately to remove all evidence of (NAWI) station. She patrolled the waters his trafficking activity. By the stipulations around Cuba and once visited Antigua for of the Treaty between Britain and Spain, a repairs before she was finally worn out in ship with no captives aboard could not be 1843 and was ordered by the British seized, but a clause had been added to the Admiralty to be “taken to pieces”in Sierra Treaty for precisely the circumstance, in Leone, thus ending her story, or almost… which a ship might be empty but the Africans who had been aboard were seen by The Dos Amigos Today, and British eyewitnesses. The crew of the Black Tomorrow: The Replica Joke boarded the Dos Amigos“after a light Project resistance.”The vessel was taken as a cap- tured prize to Sierra Leone, where the As it turned out, the capture of the Dos Court of Mixed Commission condemned Amigos was a triple victory with an added bonus: a) a particularly effective slave vessel

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was removed from the barbaric trafficking of the specially designed slaving vessel and in human lives; b) the Royal Navy acquired her biography represents a case study of the a formidable weapon in its effort to suppress illegal slave trade era on both sides of the the trade; and c) 567 human beings were law. This traveling , which is a full- spared the horrors and deaths they would scale, three-dimensional, hands-on experi- have faced crossing the ocean to Cuba or ence, will present the story of the Middle even the voyage to Sierra Leone, which Passage, as the forced Atlantic crossing was would have been equally as long, had they known, in perhaps the only way that the remained aboard. The bonus was that not unspeakable can be spoken. This story is so only were the Dos Amigos’ official docu- far beyond the power of words or images ments which provided the names of her cap- alone to tell, but the life-size Replica can tain and crew captured and preserved, thus reach audiences in many different locations providing valuable historical records of the regardless of language differences or even voyage, but also, in the process of her con- their degree of literacy. version from slaver to slaver-catcher, she was taken to England and carefully measured Humanizing the Story: The and surveyed. That effort produced a par- Need for Information from ticularly rare and precious set of additional Cuba documents: virtually the only set of com- plete design plans of an actual slave ship –out of all the thousands of ships– that Much of the Dos Amigos’latter life as engaged in this nefarious “trade”for more the Royal Navy pursuit vessel Fair than four centuries before it finally ended. Rosamond is fairly well documented in The plans were first published by emi- British archival records, offering many spe- nent maritime historian Howard I. cific insights into the suppression effort and Chapelle3, and they serve us today as the the conditions aboard captured slavers. On valuable basis for constructing an histori- the other hand, the story of her earlier cally accurate Replica, which will operate as years as the Dos Amigos remain very much a an international traveling museum, educa- mystery that we hope people of Cuba can tional resource center and Ancestral memo- help to solve. Thanks to the Spanish docu- rial shrine, capable of sailing from port to ments aboard the ship at the time of her port, telling a story that must be told. As capture and are in British archives, we now interest in the subject grows, the rare plans have some limited information about her also have helped make the Dos Amigos one captain and crew and the date of departure of the best known and most documented of from Havana. However, we do not know, at all slave ships in recent years. The ship is this point, if the Dos Amigos had made featured in numerous publications, has other slaving voyages before 1830 (possibly inspired several models, and is to be promi- under a different name), how many of these nently featured in the National Slavery voyages there may have been, or the name of Museum being planned for Fredericksburg, her owner(s) or others involved. We do not Virginia. know which destinations she visited in This ship is all the more historically Africa or how many African survivors she significant because she belonged to the era may have clandestinely delivered to Cuban markets. Yet another set of questions is

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raised as to exactly how her ownership came Organization (UNESCO) International to be transferred from American (beginning Slave Route Project, which urges every in the Baltimore shipyards) to Spanish in nation touched by the “slave trade”to con- the first place. serve every artifact and memory of it, Completing this research is further including oral traditions, so that the stories complicated by the general lack of available are never “lost, forgotten or obfuscated.” records, and the deliberate falsifications of While the Slave Route Project has been records that do exist. This was typical of an specifically instrumental in assisting Cuba illegal activity such as this one. Aside from with its conservation of archival records, such intentional factors, there are the “nor- the mention of oral traditions deserves spe- mal” losses that occur due to carelessness, cial attention here. accidents, oversights, and natural phenome- Perhaps even more important than the na. For example, a fire at the American official records of ships like the Dos Amigos embassy in Havana destroyed many valuable is the African side of the story. This side has records, including many that might have rarely been recorded in print but has often pertained to the fraudulent use of the been best preserved in memories passed from American flag by Spanish slavers to evade generation to generation. Because Cuba, as British inspections. Another complication is one of the last nations to end the Atlantic the fact that not only did illegal slavers “slave trade,”was also one of the last loca- often carry multiple flags and sets of papers tions in the New World to receive African with different ship names, and several ships captives directly, it is possibly a more likely often used the same name. For example, Dos place to find such memories, as well as Amigos or “Two Friends”or its equivalent in important African cultural and linguistic other languages, was a fairly common name retentions. The African side of the story is for ships at the time. It suggests ownership not only important to know because it has by two partners, but this need not be the been so often neglected from our general case. knowledge, but also because it is the real Researchers who engaged in this type of story of the Middle Passage, as the forced “detective work”must rely on such objective Atlantic crossing was called. Far more sig- data as ship accurate descriptions, dimen- nificant than the unpunished crimes, vio- sions and tonnage; names of owners and lence, sufferings and deaths that were perpe- captains; dates, etc.(when these can be trated by this brutal traffic in human lives found), in order to confirm the identity of a was the indomitability of the human spirit, given ship. In recent years, the task of the strength and ability of those who researchers has been greatly helped by endured the horrors of the slave ships to resources like the Internet and by the great- resist and to affirm their humanity even ly increased worldwide interest in learning against the most overwhelming odds. more about this chapter of human history, The African World perspective on this especially from the African World perspec- chapter of history is not merely a fresh look tive which has been undisclosed for far too at previously hidden facts through another, long. An especially encouraging develop- more revealing lens. It is also a reconnec- ment has been the United Nations tion with a traditional knowledge system Educational, Scientific and Cultural which is beneficial to us all. Although the

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perpetrators of slavery regularly sought to locations known to be part of the Dos justify their position by denying that Africa Amigos/Fair Rosamond story. This story will had any scientific or philosophical system impart a real life to the Ship Replica, and it whatsoever that was worthy of serious con- will create an actual case study of the illegal sideration, we now know better, of course. slave trade operation and to make it under- Traditional African wisdom reminds us, for standable as a human experience. Unlike example, that there is only one universe of general commentaries and diagrams show- all things, and nothing ever leaves it. All of ing nameless silhouettes of African captives our departed Ancestors and future genera- or the abstract architectural lines and tions are alive in us today, and therefore we dimensions of a ship, this case study brings must be guided by our past and be responsi- about an understanding in real, individual ble toward our future. In a similar way, we human terms. At the same time, the living are also reminded that we are all products of story of this single ship will connect us to our shared history. Thus, we, in the modern the more than four whole centuries of histo- world, are all products of the Middle ry in which the Middle Passage shaped the Passage and its continuing aftermath. world. Furthermore, we are also reminded that land and history are inseparable. We are Conclusion made aware of the land where we are hold- ing this conversation, whose trees provide The so-called “slave trade”literally changed the paper upon which this article is printed the world in the nearly half millennium and the wood for the ships that transported during which it bloodied the Atlantic us. In this way we are also reconnected to Ocean. A constant supply of captive forced the Native people of these lands, whose near laborers was deemed absolutely essential to extermination (Cuba is a particular exam- the making of the Americas (with Cuba ple) was the prelude to the Middle Passage, being the last country to abolish the and to the wisdom and current struggles of “trade”). This genocidal traffic in human their surviving descendants. beings had an even more profound, opposite Equally important, as the late African effect on Africa, contributing greatly to its scholar Ibrahima Baba Kaké urged even up depopulation and subsequent continuing to the time of his death, is that the knowl- underdevelopment. The Triangular Trade edge of history, and of the Middle Passage route4 was the most profitable of all and, as in particular, is too important not to be historian Eric Williams5 famously demon- popularized. It belongs to everyone. It strated, was a major factor in making the must not be reserved only for a few scholars industrial revolution possible, ultimately in polite academic gatherings, for arcane producing the geopolitical distribution of books and treatises, or for and material wealth, military power and diplo- institutions with only limited public access. matic influence that we see in the world This popularization is indeed very much the today. Moreover, the Middle Passage was purpose of the Dos Amigos/Fair Rosamond the common denominator that unified all Slave Ship Replica Project. nations of the Americas, regardless of lan- The goal of all of this research is to guage, cultural or geographic differences. gather all sides of the story in all of the The horrifying human drama which took

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place aboard the tiny wooden islands at sea during the tens of thousands of voyages for NOTES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. “Slave trade” is placed in quotation marks more than four centuries continues to haunt because it is a misnomer. This was commerce in us today, and the unhealed wounds continue human beings, not “slaves,”which is an artificial, to fester. We are a single human family. Our wishful concept of people without human status similarities far outweigh our apparent eth- or rights. Furthermore, as the late scholar nic, cultural or political divisions. We are Walter Rodney has pointed out, such a practice of murderous raids, abuse and violations in order to all products of a world that the Middle provide captives for sale can hardly be called Passage made, and its lingering conse- legitimate “trade.” quences have only made our common human heritage more unified. 2. Mujica is also spelled as Mojica or Muxica in various archival records. The Cameroons River is The providentially surviving design known today as the Duala Estuary. plans and archival records of the Baltimore-built, Cuban-owned brigantine 3. Chapelle, Howard I. (1935). History of schooner called the Dos Amigos, which later American Sailing Ships. New York: W.W. Norton. became the British Fair Rosamond, provide 4. There were many triangular trading patterns us with a precious opportunity to under- which made voyages more profitable, but the stand the realities of the Atlantic “slave most profitable, which became known as The trade”and its attempted suppression in tan- Triangular Trade, took ships from their home gible ways that otherwise could never be ports in Europe or North America with cheap trading goods to Africa, then from Africa with possible, through the construction of a human captives to the Americas, and then back to replica which will serve as a museum, educa- their home ports with the products of enslaved tional resource and memorial shrine. labor (sugar, cotton, coffee, tobacco, indigo, etc.) Through this knowledge of yet another Ships departed their home ports on the “outward human holocaust, but more importantly, of passage” and returned on the “homeward pas- sage.” In the Triangular Trade route, the second human spirit’s indomitable will to be free, leg of the voyage, from Africa to the Americas, we ourselves are strengthened, and we pass was called the “middle passage.” on to future generations a more enlightened understanding of our place in history. The 5. Williams, Eric (1944). Capitalism & Slavery. and New York: Oxford University Press. island and the people of Cuba (at home and 1944 abroad) hold vital keys to the empowerment of this process, and will long be remem- bered for their invaluable contributions.

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