Atlantic Biographies Atlantic World

Europe, Africa and the Americas, 1500–1830

Edited by Benjamin Schmidt University of Washington and Wim Klooster Clark University

VOLUME 27

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/aw Atlantic Biographies

Individuals and Peoples in the Atlantic World

Edited by Jeffrey A. Fortin & Mark Meuwese

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2014 Cover illustration: Carte de l’Océan Atlantique (Pierre Devaux, 1613), via Wikimedia Commons.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Atlantic biographies : individuals and peoples in the Atlantic world / edited by Jeffrey A. Fortin & Mark Meuwese. pages cm. -- (Atlantic world : Europe, Africa and the Americas, 1500-1830, ISSN 1570-0542 ; volume 27) Includes index. ISBN 978-90-04-25897-6 (hardback : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-90-04-25971-3 (e-book) 1. Atlantic Ocean Region--Biography. 2. Atlantic Ocean Region--History. I. Fortin, Jeffrey A. II. Meuwese, Mark.

D210.A768 2014 910.9163--dc23 [B]

2013030104

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ISSN 1570-0542 ISBN 978-90-04-25897-6 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-25971-3 (e-book)

Copyright 2014 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers and Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.

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CONTENTS

Preface ��ix Jeffrey A. Fortin

PART ONE ATLANTIC SOJOURNERS

1 Pierre Biard: Priest and Pirate of Mount Desert Island ��3 Laura M. Chmielewski

2 Thomas Morton �� 31 Charlotte Carrington

3 Alexander von Humboldt, His Scientific Expedition through the Americas and the Impact of His Atlantic Experiences �� 69 Sandra Rebok

PART TWO SLAVERY AND FREEDOM ON THE EDGES OF THE ATLANTIC WORLD

4 The Crossings of Occramar Marycoo, or Newport Gardner ��101 Edward E. Andrews

5 Constituting Value in A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, a Native of Africa ��125 Bryan Sinche

6 Enslaved Ship Pilots: Challenging Notions of Race and Slavery along the Peripheries of the Revolutionary Atlantic World ��143 Kevin Dawson

7 From Ireland to Africa: the Criminal Career and Punishment of Patrick Madan ��173 Emma Christopher

8 The Transatlantic Slave Trade and the Vulnerability of Free Blacks in Benguela, Angola, 1780–1830 ��193 Mariana P. Candido

vi contents

PART THREE FORGING ATLANTIC IDENTITIES

9 Indigenous Leaders and the Atlantic World: The Parallel Lives of Dom Antônio Filipe Camarão and Pieter Poty, 1600–1650 ��213 Mark Meuwese

10 Law and Colonial Reform in the 18th Century Spanish World: The Life of Francisco Xavier Gamboa, Mexican Lawyer ��235 Christopher Albi

11 Benkos Biohó: African Maroon Leadership in New Grenada ��263 Omar H. Ali

12 ‘Je me vois réduit…à la mendicité:’ Marine Veterans of New France and their New Atlantic World ��295 Christian Ayne Crouch

13 Paul Cuffe’s Journey from ‘Musta’ to Atlantic-African, 1778–1811 ��323 Jeffrey A. Fortin

Conclusion: Atlantic Lives and Atlantic History ��345 Mark Meuwese Index ��351

Joseph Moxon after Edward Wright, A plat of all the world [1657].

PREFACE

Jeffrey A. Fortin

The goal of Atlantic history and its practitioners is to consider the past from a perspective bound less by traditional fields of study, national borders, and staid pedagogy that inhibits new ways of thinking and interpreting. No longer a new field of inquiry, Atlantic history still offers seemingly limitless opportunities for scholars to approach the past in fresh and excit- ing ways. Atlantic Biographies: Individuals and Peoples in the Atlantic World does just that by incorporating a “biography as history” approach that illuminates the interconnectedness of the peoples of the Atlantic by highlighting individual – and where appropriate, small groups in the spirit of prosopography – experiences made possible by their connection to the littoral. Composed of chapters that span a broad chronological, topical and thematic range, Atlantic Biographies highlight the uniqueness of the Atlantic as a social, political, economic, and cultural theater bound together to illustrate what the Atlantic meant to those subjects of each chapter. This is a book about people. To paraphrase W. Jeffrey Bolster, the goal of this anthology is to put people back into Atlantic history.1 The explosive growth of the field has yielded enormous amounts of new data and scholarly studies that have truly reshaped our way of thinking about the past, yet this sometimes comes at the expense of the human side of Atlantic history. Marcus Rediker’s recent tome The Slave Ship: A Human History successfully injected the human element to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade through several biographical sketches in an attempt to make the reader intimate with the pain, suffering and death that built a capitalist driven Atlantic world.2 What can go missing in mountains of data, scores of examinations about race, economies, gender, politics, and numerous other topics are the individuals and small groups who proved central to

1 W. Jeffrey Bolster, “Putting the Ocean in Atlantic History: Maritime Communities and Marine Ecology in the Northwest Atlantic, 1500–1800,” American Historical Review, 113 (February 2008), 19–47. 2 Marcus Rediker, The Slave Ship: A Human History (New York: Viking, 2007). Rediker’s introduction thoroughly addresses the need to understand the slave trade as a “human history.”

x jeffrey a. fortin the development of the Atlantic world. Each chapter in Atlantic Biographies seeks to build on Rediker’s lead by engaging human history, bringing back to the center of the story many forgotten and understudied Atlantic denizens, as well as re-examining a few better known characters from the past. As the contributors to this anthology demonstrate, the Atlantic world was not composed of a one-way oceanic highway with actors and agents traveling westward exclusively. The field of Atlantic history has matured, as the chapters in Atlantic Biographies demonstrate, and is no longer focused on British North America, but inclusive of a “red” Atlantic, Iberian Atlantic, and the numerous other descriptors scholars have used to define the various components of the littoral. The various “Atlantics” are not isolated from one another in this volume. Rather, Atlantic Biographies seeks to present an integrated Atlantic world where the interconnectedness and intermingling of the southern, northern, eastern and western portions of the Atlantic can be seen. Atlantic Biographies calls attention to the dynamic individuals and small groups who routinely crossed the ideological, political and geographic boundaries that have come to be ascribed to this transnational theater of the Atlantic world by modern historians. Several anthologies exploring important themes and issues in the study of Atlantic history have been published in recent years, simultaneously demonstrating the strengths while highlighting two key weaknesses in the historiography. The first general category of anthologies concerns itself with definitions – what is Atlantic history? Why are scholars concerned with an Atlantic world? Does Atlantic history exist? – in an attempt to legitimate or lend credence to a relatively young field in historical scholarship. Bernard Bailyn, Nicholas Canny, Peter Coclanis, Paul Gilroy and others have debated the larger framework of the Atlantic and its usefulness in the study of history.3 Although it is important to chart where a field of study originated and to continually assess any field’s place in its broader intellectual context, anthologies of Atlantic history have engaged in a degree of self-reflection and assessment that make it important to move beyond our collective desire to answer the ‘what is Atlantic History’ question. In contrast, Atlantic Biographies allows the voices of people who

3 See Bernard Bailyn’s seminal article “The Idea of Atlantic History,” Itinerario, Vol. 20, Iss. 1 (1996), 19–44; Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993); Peter A. Coclanis, “Atlantic World or Atlantic/ World,” William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 63, Iss. 4 (2006), 725–742; and Nicholas Canny, “Writing Atlantic History; Or, Reconfiguring the History of Colonial British America,” The Journal of American History, Vol. 86, Iss. 3 (1999), 1093–1114.

preface xi

lived Atlantic history to be heard, letting them shape our definition and parameters of the field. Recently, in Atlantic History: A Critical Appraisal, Jack P. Greene and Philip D. Morgan propose that Atlantic history has arrived “as a full-blown field of study” with its own dedicated textbooks and “the institution of the subject in higher education” with the establishment of Harvard University’s International Seminar in Atlantic History.4 Greene and Morgan assert that Atlantic History is a field of study that now has established parameters, yet remains vibrant in its scope and innovation. Much like other anthologies on the Atlantic, Greene and Morgan endeavor to “present some of the rich variety of approaches and controversies that the Atlantic perspective has so far generated,” but in doing so they sacrifice cohesiveness and narrative.5 Atlantic Biographies intends to present the Atlantic as an important and thriving field of study, while addressing historiographical debates implicitly in the text. Rather than allow scholars to simply define what the Atlantic was in a given era or zone of interaction, contributors to Atlantic Biographies allow their subjects – the men and women living in the Atlantic world – to define the parameters of this transnational littoral, while also telling a story of survival, conviction and endurance.6 Biography as a serious, scholarly interpretive tool can improve our understanding of Atlantic communities, its peoples, social, economic, and political movements in two important and mutually supportive ways. Each contributor uses a biographical approach to expand and enhance

4 Jack P. Greene and Philip D. Morgan, eds. Atlantic History: A Critical Appraisal (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 4–5. For a textbook, see David R. Egerton, Alison Games, Jane G. Landers, Kris Lane, and Donald Wright, The Atlantic World: A History, 1400–1888. (Wheeling, Illinois: Harlan Davidson, 2007). 5 Greene and Morgan, Atlantic History, 24. Other edited collections confront similar challenges by attempting to present the extent of the diversity of scholarship in one volume. For example, see Toyin Falola and Kevin D. Roberts, eds. The Atlantic World, 1450–2000 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008). For a more classroom-oriented collection, see Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra and Eric R. Seeman, eds. The Atlantic in Global History, 1500– 2000 (New Jersey: Pearson-Prentice Hall, 2007). 6 The broad historiography of the Atlantic world includes important examples of biography: Robin Law and Paul Lovejoy’s joint project, The Biography of Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua: His Passage from Slavery to Freedom in Africa and America (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2007), profiles an individual voice in the midst of a cacophony of numbers and datasets collected in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database. Vincent Carretta’s well known biography, Equiano, the African: Biography of a Self-Made Man (New York: Penguin, 2007), uses biography as a method to understand how experiences in the African Diaspora – within the Atlantic world in this case – shaped a man’s identity, allowing the subject to construct a life history that may or not be completely factually accurate but certainly one that exhibits agency and self-fashioning by the former slave.

xii jeffrey a. fortin our perspectives of Atlantic history – a goal that may not be entirely unique, but certainly a key objective for any study of the Atlantic world. Additionally, each contributor uses an Atlantic approach to expand and enhance the history of biography. When these two goals are combined, contributors demonstrate that the Atlantic world dramatically impacted and shaped lives, while injecting the study of the Atlantic world into the field of biography – a genre uniquely suited for the limitless possibilities of transnational history. Atlantic Biographies adheres to a thematic organization that begins on the western side of the Atlantic with Pierre Biard’s journey to the strange lands of Maine and concluding with Paul Cuffe’s celebrated voyages in the early nineteenth century. Chapters are arranged to illuminate the diverse and variegated stories and intriguing lives of the featured Atlantic denizens, tying these biographies to important areas of debate in the field of Atlantic history. Part One, “Atlantic Sojourners,” considers an emerging Atlantic world where the ocean became a conduit for European adventur- ers, entrepreneurs, and politicians. Religious and intellectual debates combined with commercial exploitation of New World peoples and resources, illustrating how the flow of goods and ideas reinforced each other in the Atlantic world, inextricably linking commerce with ideology, exploitation with socio-political and cultural values. Laura Chmielewski, in Chapter One, examines a catholic missionary’s attempt to “harvest souls” along the Maine coast. Pierre Biard, the Jesuit- Pirate of early Maine, as Chmielewski describes him, was forced by the extreme and varied conditions of life in the Atlantic into roles that extended far beyond the priesthood, including a sailor, general contractor, labor organizer, spiritual technician, farmer, ethnographer, cultural medi- ator and pirate. As important as the people are in Biard’s story the various landscapes on which the story of Pierre Biard’s life plays out – whether in the court of Louis XIII, along the remote Maine islands, or aboard French and English ships slicing their way through the Atlantic’s chop – demonstrate the impact of the environment on Atlantic sojourners. In Chapter Two, Charlotte Carrington uses the life of Thomas Morton to explore authority and anti-authority in Puritan New England. A drunken, oft-banished Cavalier, Morton stood against slavery in advancing his ideals imported from Old England to New England, believing mercantilism to be to the development of his corner of the littoral. Crossing the Atlantic five or more times in his life, Morton’s ethnographic work and ideals that seemed to counter Puritan and Pilgrim society illustrates how troublesome one man could be to established authority. Sandra Rebok

preface xiii

re-examines a well-known character in Atlantic history, Alexander von Humboldt, in Chapter Three. Rebok explores how this Prussian traveler and scientist became an important intermediary in the transfer of ideas and knowledge between the Old and the New World. Humboldt emerged as one of the most respected scientists of his time based on his scientific observations in the Spanish colonies, historical research and vast collection of botanical and zoological specimens. Rebok focuses, in part, on the network Humboldt created with several key intellectuals in the New World, including Thomas Jefferson. Part Two, “Slavery and Freedom on the Edges of the Atlantic World,” explores the eastward movement of individuals from the Americas to Europe and Africa. Edward E. Andrews, Bryan Sinche, Kevin Dawson, Emma Christopher and Mariana Candido explore the sometimes melancholic, but often dramatic stories of exploitation in the Atlantic world, where the vulnerable and impoverished played key roles in the economies of the littoral. Importantly, as these contributions highlight, marginality did not mean passivity or acceptance of the their individual situations. Instead, the peoples featured in these chapters resisted exploitation through mobility, expressions of freedom – even if limited – and shaped unique identities for themselves within the constraints of a sometimes brutal Atlantic world. Edward Andrews writes of “The Crossings of Occramar Marycoo, or Newport Gardner” in Chapter Four, expressing his belief that few black slaves had experiences as variegated and complex as Marycoo. A slave in Newport, Rhode Island, one of the Atlantic world’s most culturally, religiously, and economically diverse port towns, Marycoo created a syncretic identity fusing African cultural rituals with Western practices and belief systems. His life story reveals the many crossings – physical and temporal, as well as cultural and social – that characterized the African Atlantic during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, making him not only a citizen in this world, but a vital pillar of it. In Chapter Five, Bryan Sinche explains that success was more difficult to come by for Venture Smith than other well-known and well-studied blacks, such as Olaudah Equiano. Sinche argues that the remarkable tale of Smith’s superhuman labor and concomitant economic ascent prefigures the Franklinian story of virtue and reward. Yet, the flexible citizenship of the Atlantic world enjoyed by men like Benjamin Franklin eluded Venture Smith, reminding readers that “success” and “freedom” are highly contingent terms, especially within a fluid space like the eighteenth century Black Atlantic. In Chapter Six, Kevin Dawson considers how enslaved pilots of African descent used

xiv jeffrey a. fortin their knowledge and skills to challenge Western perceptions of race and slavery. Mariners often had to employ local watermen as pilots to guide merchant, whaling, naval, and slave ships through dangerous waterways, like archipelagos, river mouths, channels, bays, and harbors, enabling these pilots to wield considerable authority when they assumed temporary command of a vessel. Emma Christopher’s chapter highlights the criminal side of the Atlantic in the early 1770s when London was plagued by an unprecedented crime wave, with gangs of conmen, pickpockets and shoplifters roaming the streets. Christopher focuses on notorious gangster Irishman Patrick Madan who went to sea at a young age and had taken up with the Spitalfields’ Weavers when he returned. Patrick Madan was captured and freed several times throughout his life, finally sailing for Africa as a prisoner aboard the slaver Recovery where he guarded slaves at Gorée Island who were destined for the Americas. Concluding this section, Mariana Candido’s chapter investigates the spread of violence during the height of the transatlantic slave trade in Benguela, a Portuguese colony in West Central Africa. In a prosopography of sorts, Candido examines the mechanisms of capture around Benguela and the ability of Africans to claim their original freedom with the collaboration of friends and loved ones, concocting strategies to challenge the legality of their capture. Candido’s work exemplifies how tenuous slavery and freedom were on the margins of the Atlantic world. Part Three, “Forging Atlantic Identities,” considers how Africans, indigenous and colonial peoples created new identities while confronted with the challenges of slavery war, and colonization. These chapters expand the concept of peripheries and center, illuminating how imperial authorities challenged the identities of peoples on the margins of empire.7 Beginning with Chapter Nine, Mark Meuwese contemplates the indigenous peoples of the Americas and their direct participation in the ocean- centered Atlantic world. Pieter Poty, a prominent member of the Potiguar people from coastal Brazil, demonstrates that American Indians understood how an interconnected Atlantic world shaped the fate of indigenous peoples of the New World. Poty and other Potiguars traveled to the Dutch Republic in 1625 to create an alliance with the Dutch West India Comp any (WIC) where he learned Dutch and seemed comfortable with Dutch

7 Amy Turner Bushnell and Jack P. Greene, “Peripheries, Centers, and the Construction of Early Modern American Empires: An Introduction,” in Negotiated Empires: Centers and Peripheries in the Americas, 1500–1820, eds. Christine Daniels and Michael V. Kennedy (New York: Routledge, 2002).

preface xv

Calvinist culture by the end of his nearly five year stay. Upon returning to Brazil to aid the WIC against the Portuguese, Poty was captured and remained a prisoner until his death in the 1650s. In Chapter Ten, Christopher Albi examines the life of Francisco Xavier Gamboa, a jurist and respected private lawyer, who also wrote an authoritative guide to mining law and served as a judge on the high court of Mexico. Albi reveals the importance of transatlantic connections in the Spanish world, and the power of informal ethnic patronage networks that often had greater influence than even the crown. A descendent of Basques, Gamboa gained power through the wide transatlantic network of Basque merchants, officials, and churchmen. Eschewing such networks, Benkos Biohó, the founder of Palenque de San Basilio in New Grenada – the first free black town in the Americas – built a maroon community unlike any other in the Atlantic world. Biohó’s settlement symbolized the struggle for freedom among the enslaved black populations of the South Atlantic, creating a world that attempted to evade metropolitan power and influence. The last two chapters of “Forging Atlantic Identities” consider men who used migration and the waterways of the Atlantic to refashion their public and personal selves. Christian Ayne Crouch demonstrates that Atlantic migrations – whether free or forced – were not limited to peoples moving from the eastern to the western side of the ocean. The story of the Marine Veterans of New France reveals this reverse trajectory of individuals vacating North America for Europe when in 1760 most of these men returned to France upon defeat in the Seven Years War. In discussing these veterans’ lives that spanned both sides of the Atlantic, Crouch illustrates the role of frontiers and imperial competition in shaping the lives of Atlantic disenfranchised denizens. Returning to France proved disap- pointing as these men who were forced back out into the waterways of the Atlantic. In the volume’s final chapter, Jeff Fortin re-examines the life of Paul Cuffe and his transformation from a multiracial person of Indian and African descent to Atlantic African. Building upon his financial success as a merchant mariner, Cuffe slowly began to conceive of himself as African, turning his back on his previous public exclamations of his multiracial heritage. At the beginning of the nineteenth century he had a vision that told him the only way to heal his broken heart was to aid his brethren in finding freedom. From that moment, Cuffe became the Atlantic world’s leading proponent of African colonization, virtually going broke in his pursuit of delivering African Americans to Africa. As vibrant and intriguing as this collection of biographies is, it is not intended to be comprehensive in its chronological or geographic coverage

xvi jeffrey a. fortin of the Atlantic world. Instead, these fourteen chapters offer the reader insights into how living within the organic parameters of the Atlantic world during fundamentally transformative centuries connected people to dynamic networks of trade and exchange that fostered the development of entirely new social and cultural constructions. The people highlighted in this collection of biographies not only helped build and define the Atlantic world; they were the Atlantic world. In considering Atlantic sojourners, those men and women who struggled within the confines of slavery and freedom on the edges of the Atlantic world, and those peo ples forging identities in the face of imperial and metropolitan authori ties, these scholars highlights one of the most important questions that Atlantic historians face: is the idea of Atlantic history a trendy, modern concept that was not relevant to those peoples who lived in the past? The contributions to this volume prove, as Joyce Chaplin suggests, “the concept of the ‘Atlantic’ was a meaningful one for many of the people who lived around the ocean.”8 The subjects of these biographical studies were inherently aware of their communities being connected to a larger Atlantic where ideas, commodities, politics, and culture collided on the paths of exchange, remaking old worlds, birthing new worlds, and reshaping the dynamics of power. Like their subjects, the contributors to this text come from a wide variety of backgrounds, institutions and continents. Much like the world we explore within the pages of this volume, contributors live and work in Canada, the United States, Australia, Great Britain and Spain. Our subjects – the men and women whose lives are “Atlantic” in scope – touched seemingly every corner of the Atlantic, whether Brazil, Sierra Leone, the Arctic, North America, Mexico, the Netherlands or Spain (plus the many places left off this truncated list). In search of their stories we have globetrotted, crossing the Atlantic perhaps less than our subjects but certainly frequently to mine archives, libraries and descendants for their information. In a sense, our subjects of study have transformed us from the old model of scholars ensconced in their regional or national studies, secluded geographically to their corner of the Atlantic, to (sometimes travel-weary) global citizens.

8 Joyce E. Chaplin, “The Atlantic Ocean and Its Contemporary Meanings, 1491–1808,” in Atlantic History: A Critical Appraisal (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 35.

PART ONE

ATLANTIC SOJOURNERS

In “Atlantic Sojourners,” Part One of Atlantic Biographies, common themes and issues are shared by a diverse collection of essays. Each chapter focuses on individuals who saw the Atlantic as their conduit to gaining wealth, whether financial, intellectual or religious. Each of these authors describes an Atlantic world where ideas, money, goods, and religion are exchanged often at the expense of New World peoples. Far from the familiar stories of European colonists dominating in a New World setting, the subjects in these biographies encountered the harsh realities of the Atlantic – difficult landscapes and environmental challenges, economic and political regulations, rigid religious doctrine, to name a few – while attempting to exploit the resources and peoples of the Americas. In the following stories the reader will see how the flow of goods, ideas and people sustained the creation – and continuation – of a new Atlantic world. CHAPTER ONE

PIERRE BIARD: PRIEST AND PIRATE OF MOUNT DESERT ISLAND

Laura M. Chmielewski

Framing human history “Atlantically” shows how the seemingly-limited range of experience of one well-documented individual can actually tells us a good deal about that person’s life and times. Biography can be narrow and rather antiquarian in its scope, offering few answers to questions of contextual significance. Exploring one person’s story within the context of the Atlantic World increases our understanding of the past far more than a straightforward set of biographical facts. Pierre Biard, a French Jesuit priest, was one of those people who experienced the complexity of Atlantic World movement and encounter first-hand. Perhaps the most important thing to know about Biard was that he was a Jesuit – that is, an ordained priest of a Roman Catholic religious order called the Society of Jesus – and was therefore one of many such priests, all well-educated and worldly, who were expected to travel to newly-“discovered” lands, study the inhabitants, and promote Christianity. It was this association that led him on an odyssey of voyages across the Atlantic, the founding of new colonies, encounters with Native peoples, New World religious wars, accusations of piracy, jail, and, perhaps surprisingly to modern readers, hospitality and tolerance from traditional enemies. The events Biard packed into a short period of time exceeded what most all of his European contemporaries would have experienced in a lifetime. His story, with all its surprising twists and turns, underscores the extreme uncertainty and unanticipated outcomes that greeted those who ventured onto the Atlantic Ocean. Baird was born, in 1567 or 1568, to Jean Biard, a royal notary and chate- laine of the town of Gières, near Grenoble in the country’s southwest corner.1 Nothing is known of Biard’s mother, Jeanne de Cluzel – perhaps a reflection of the relative paucity of sources on early modern women’s lives. One can infer more about his bureaucrat father, who with other local

1 “Pierre Biard,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography [hereafter “DCB”] (web version) biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=61&&PHPSESSID=lj30tn9j0pfpekut05062 3du07.

4 laura m. chmielewski elites, likely lobbied for positions to help manage the French king’s dominion on a local level.2 Though they could not compete with their peers in France’s larger cities, local elites such as the Biards probably led comfortable and privileged lives in accordance with their local standing. As a youngster, Pierre most likely showed both piety and intellectual ability, enough for his parents to send him to the Jesuits to be educated. This ability to attend such a college also confirmed both Biard’s status as local elites. As James Axtell notes, Biard and his classmates tended to be the sons of the professional, merchant and minor noble families.3 While these families appreciated the rewards of status that providing their sons with a learned education could afford, the sons themselves were often attracted to the type of religious life joining the Society afforded to them: the mandate to move within the world while resisting the lures that turned the faithful’s eyes away from the Divine.4 All of Biard’s training, which began at age sixteen at the Jesuit Collège at Tournon, at the Order’s school at Billom, and then at Lyon, took place less than 100 miles from his birthplace in Gìeres.5 As a student at Tournon in the late sixteenth century, the teenage Biard would have been entrenched in what the Jesuits termed the ratio studiorum, which emphasized study of Classic literature and languages, natural sciences, theology and philosophy. Study at a Jesuit college such as Tournon prepared youths and young men for lives that were both intellectual and active, with a firm, well-rounded grasp on both established academic disciplines as well as more contemporary scholarly trends, particularly in the sciences. To be in the world, but not of it, was one of the Society of Jesus’s basic ideals. This seemingly simple philosophy could only be embraced by those who had completed extensive training, given by Jesuits for future members of their order. This long “educational apprenticeship”, as Axtell calls it, was (and continues to be) based on the writings of the Society of Jesus’s founder, Ignatius Loyola. Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises were practiced by all Jesuits, apprentices and advanced members alike, providing a template for an active life of proselytizing, productive prayer, and esprit de corps among the priests, which sustained the Order’s endeavors even when the members themselves were widely dispersed and working either in very

2 Steven Gunn, “War, Religion, and the State” in ed. Euan Cameron, Early Modern Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 17. 3 James Axtell, The Invasion Within: The Contest of Cultures in Colonial North America (New York: Oxford, 1985), 76. 4 Ibid. 5 “Pierre Biard,” DCB (web version).

pierre biard: priest and pirate of mount desert island 5

small groups or alone.6 The Exercises fitted neatly into the Society’s Constitutions, the framework by which the Order was structured and governed. Ultimately, the Society of Jesus was meant at once to be highly ordered and highly flexible. Though this might seem contradictory, it actually worked remarkably well to ensure that individual Jesuits would be eager to accept orders that required them to work independently, all the while reporting back to their Superior (another term for the head of the Society), to educate their fellow members about failures and successes, and to reinforce a sense of common purpose.7 This was the intellectual and spiritual world that Biard entered as an adolescent: its expectations set the tone for the remainder of his life. The novel organization for a religious order coalesced around the Society’s founding generation, reflecting chiefly the vision of the charis- matic Ignatius of Loyola, who with his first companions pioneered methods of Godly works for pious men that extended beyond the walls of a monastery. Ignatius was born on the edge of the Atlantic World into a region of Spain that had been supporting ocean-born industry for years. The Loyolas were a noble family of Guipúzcoa, located in Spain’s Basque region. By the time of Loyola’s birth in 1491 – the year before Columbus left on his first Atlantic voyage – Basque fishermen had been braving the waters open Atlantic for decades, searching for codfish, whales, and other resources of value.8 Ignatius’s life, however, turned to the east instead of the western Atlantic coast, and he spent his early life as a courtier and a soldier, taking up arms for the Viceroy of Navarre. After his leg was shat- tered by a cannonball in the 1521 Battle of Pamplona, Ignatius experienced a religious epiphany and determined to devote his life to pious study and action. He spent several years traveling religious sites in Spain and beyond, including Jerusalem. Ignatius eventually made his way to the University of Paris, where he assembled a group of followers who shared his vision in the active spread of Catholic orthodoxy and the combating of Protestant ism. Such a mission required members to leave behind the concept of the monastery or cloister to embrace the world outside. Jesuits evange- lized through education, which ranged from the basics of Catholic doctrine to ancient languages, as well as complex theology and philosophy.

6 R. Po-Chia Hsia, The World of Catholic Renewal, 1540–1770 (New York: Cambridge, 1998), 31. 7 Hsia, World, 31. 8 Fagan, Fish on Friday: Feasting, Fasting and the Discovery of the New World (New York: Basic, 2006), 203–4.

6 laura m. chmielewski

These disciplines were at once traditionally scholastic yet also reflected the rebirth of classical learning that flowered in many parts of Europe. Loyola was part of a new generation of Europeans who came of age with a worldview shaped by two critical phenomena: knowledge of the existence of the New World, and the Protestant Reformation and its prolonged, multiple consequences. Ignatius’s followers made his vision a reality through travel, preaching, and the founding of schools in Europe and missions of Catholic Christian conversion abroad. “The world is our house,” proclaimed Jeronimo Nadal, one of the Society’s first members.9 Within thirty years of its founding, the Society reported members teaching and preaching throughout Europe and in Asia, African, and South America. As some of the most learned and literate people to traverse the Atlantic World, Jesuits were convinced they were making history. They also followed the dictates of their highly-structured, hierarchical order, which privileged the reporting of Jesuit successes and challenges and the need to keep records of their activities. In short, the Jesuits were writers. Modern readers may not know with precision what motivated them as individuals, but the Jesuits’ own writings do give us insights into what such men likely wanted their readers to know about them. Pierre Biard was not only literate, he was also eager to record his encounters in the New World and report them to a wide audience. What remains of his Atlantic life is his particularly detailed perspective, in a volume that few others could amass. But it is enough, at least for this essay, to capture the essence of what one particular man wanted his readers to know of his travels. Like any Jesuit who followed in Ignatius’s path, Pierre Biard was expected to make his own house in the world. His opportunity came in September 1610, when he and a fellow Jesuit, Énemond Massé, were sent by their superiors to act as missionaries at the new French settlement of Port-Royal (now Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia).10 *** His travels coincided with a particularly interesting juncture in Atlantic World history. After a century of Spanish domination of the New World, other Europeans were venturing forward more aggressively to stake their claims to the Americas’ riches and spread their own influence. The seventeenth century would witness a scramble to secure the east coast of North

9 John W. O’Malley, The First Jesuits (Cambridge: Harvard, 1993), 67. 10 “Biard,” DCB (web version).

pierre biard: priest and pirate of mount desert island 7

America between the English, the Dutch, and the French. Historians often (and not without accuracy) speak of the generalized experiences of demographic groups that inhabited the Atlantic littoral. For many Atlantic World travelers, however, religious identification played an equal, if not more dominant role, in the way they regarded their own place in the cosmic scheme of things, as well as the place of others. In Biard’s writings, modern readers see him struggle to fit these “others” – chiefly non-Christians and Protestants, who though Christians themselves had rejected the Catholic version – into the array of human interactions he encountered during his voyages. On one issue, however, there was initially no compromise: Protestan tism. Combating Protestantism was a universal goal for early modern Jesuits. This legacy of antipathy had deep historical roots, especially in France. The second half of the sixteenth century, the one into which Biard was born, was rife with conflict over the right to worship according to con- science. Religious tensions led to all-out war between faiths, including several notorious massacres, while Biard was still training for the priesthood. These tensions were supposed to have ended with the ascendancy of Henri IV, a Protestant who became a Catholic to assume the French throne and then used his influence to advocate for religious coexistence. As historian David Hackett Fischer has shown, the New World explorations that Henri IV sponsored were, in their idealized form, intended to reflect these values and bypass religious tensions in favor of corporate activity and common goals. Samuel de Champlain, the cartographer and explorer Henri IV engaged in his missions of exploration, was deeply committed to this ideal.11 The Society of Jesus, however, was committed to defending Catholi cism against the incursions of Protestantism and, where opportunities presented, rolling back Protestant influence wherever it hoped to gain traction. This included the New World. Given the spread of religious influence as a fundamental goal to just about all colonizing Europeans, Native Americans throughout North and South America, as well as the Caribbean Islands, were considered by Europeans to be the prime targets of evangelization. The Society of Jesus’s emphasis on intellectual achievement was intended to prepare its members for the rigors and challenges of the mission field. After decades of trial and error, New World Jesuits would come to know that success with converting Native Americans required several

11 David Hackett Fischer, Champlain’s Dream: The European Founding of North America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008), passim.

8 laura m. chmielewski skill sets. The ability to learn completely different tongues and participate in complex diplomatic rituals were for any Jesuit who wished to go to America (or anywhere else, for that matter), as a missionary. This was one reason why the Society sent only older, well-seasoned members, such as Biard, who was forty-two in 1611.12 Another desired asset was the ability to foreswear European-style conveniences and luxuries. Given that most Jesuits often came from less-than-humble circumstances and were encouraged to turn their minds to intellectual pursuits, these sacrifices entailed genuine hardship. Increasingly throughout the early seventeenth century, intellectual pursuits turned to effectively combating Protestantism, and troubles with Protestants were a factor that loomed throughout Pierre Biard’s Atlantic experience. Whereas some Catholic French men and women could live their entire lives without ever knowing a Protestant, a world traveler, such as Biard, was bound to encounter his share – especially in the landmasses surrounding the Atlantic. In the early seventeenth century, both Protes tants and Catholics saw the Americas as holding a special place in what Puritan New England minister John Eliot described as “God’s providential design.”13 Both Christianities competed fiercely to ensure that their faith vision was the one that realized that design. Back in Europe, committed Protestants exerted whatever means they had at their disposal to block the spread of Catholic influence in the New World – and Catholics did the same. These hostilities could take a deadly turn in the Americas, where settlements with small populations and few defenses could fall prey to larger, religiously-hostile neighbors. This was the case when a French Protestant colony, founded in what is now South Carolina in 1562, was obliterated by a Spanish force from nearby Catholic Florida.14 At the same time, English, Dutch and French pirates specifically attacked Catholic ships.15 During his travels, Pierre Biard would become a victim of these same impulses, which persisted, and in some ways gained strength, during the seventeenth century. Still, the capacity to interact civilly with the religious ‘other’ in the service of the Society of Jesus’s goals was a desirable talent. Protestants in

12 For the rudiments of Jesuit missionary training, see Axtell, Invasion, 75–6. 13 J.H. Eliot, Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in the Americas, 1492–1830 (New Haven: Yale, 2007), 184. 14 Mark Noll, The Old Religion in the New World: A History of North American Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 29. 15 Thomas Benjamin, The Atlantic World: Europeans, Africans, Indians and Their Shared History, 1400–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 226.

pierre biard: priest and pirate of mount desert island 9

Pierre Biard’s largely-Catholic France were afforded a degree of acceptance thanks to the tolerant Henri IV’s Edict of Nantes, which ended decades of brutal religious wars and granted these religious outsiders some civil liberties. France’s early New World endeavors were meant to include members of French society of both faiths, and some of the early explorers and settlers (most notably Pierre du Gua de Monts), were either Protestants themselves or accepted investments from Protestant investors.16 Some preferred to work with their co-religionists; others did not care. Still others found some Catholics to be acceptable business partners, but drew the line at people of other faiths. For some Protestants, Jesuits topped the list of undesirability. This reality was illustrated to Pierre Biard before his New World expedition ever left French shores. When Biard and his fellow Jesuit colleague, Énemond Massé, attempted to board a ship headed for Canada from the French port of Dieppe, they raised the ire of two of the owners, Protestant businessmen named du Chesne and du Jardin, who strenuously objected to carrying Jesuits across the ocean. As Biard reported it, du Chesne and du Jardin “were very obstinate, swearing with their loudest oaths, that, if the Jesuits had entered the ship, they would simply put nothing in it; that they would not refuse all other Priests are Ecclesiastics, and would even support them, but as to the Jesuits, they would not abide them.”17 Jesuit antipathy toward Protestantism, and Calvinism in particular, and the mutual feeling it inspired among Calvinists, informed the businessmen’s angry response. Du Chesne and du Jardin themselves were Huguenots, or French Calvinist who, though a minority, were common in France. Huguenots tended to live in communities on France’s north Atlantic coast and were major players in the maritime trades. In towns such as La Rochelle, Brouage, Honfleur and Dieppe, Huguenot businessmen owned and invested in transatlantic and Atlantic fishing vessels. They were well-represented among the merchants who traded in rigging, maritime hardware, and the specially-prepared foodstuffs that transatlantic voyages required, and were also mariners in their own right, who served alongside Catholic crew members. In short, it was difficult for any New World voyage to leave France to bypass Protestant investors or merchants who kept the ships well-stocked and seaworthy. Biard and Massé were no exception.

16 Mark Noll, A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1992), 21. 17 “Biard’s Relation,” in Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents [hereafter “JR”] (Cleveland: Burrows Brothers, 1896–1901), 3: 173.

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Interfaith tension did not derail the enterprise. Fortunately for the Jesuits, they had an advocate in Antoinette Pons, Madame de Guecherville. This powerful friend of the Henri VI and his colonial enterprise used the power at her disposal – money, in this case – to buy out the du Chesnes’s and du Jardin’s shares in the voyage and transfer them to the stranded Jesuits. In addition, these members of Guecherville’s favorite religious order received gifts and money from their powerful patron, who encouraged her friends to contribute as well. The friends obliged, and French elite women, including Henri IV’s widow, Queen Marie, who provided a viatica (a period term for travel money) of five hundred French écus. The Marquise de Vernueil’s supply of liturgical vessels and vestments, and Madame de Sourdis gave them gifts of linen, suitable for preparing an altar for Catholic liturgy.18 Such rich and generous gifts meant the Jesuits could honor God in the wilderness with familiar – and beautiful – religious tools. This rich trove came to the priests with the explicit goal of maintaining the familiar practices of Catholicism in unfamiliar spaces and to be used upon the ship and in Canada, where dedicated worship spaces were virtually nonexistent. The role of women in securing the Jesuits’ New World successes points to issues in gender and society that shaped the world of Pierre Biard. Madame de Guecherville, and pious Catholic women from across the spectrum of French society, looked to new movements within Catholicism to enhance their capacity to participate in the workings of faith. Yet they remained strictly confined, and pious practices or religious expressions that deviated from conventional female behaviors could attract the attention of the local Inquisition.19 Money, therefore, became a tool of religious self-realization for women of means. A case in point is Madame de Guecherville who, in financing Biard and Massé, not only scored a strike against Protestantism, which she despised, but also saw herself as a chief benefactor in a voyage to bring new souls to the Christian God. Biard himself recognized this when he described her as “ardently zealous for the glory of God and the conversion of souls.”20 But there was perhaps more to the marquise than piety: she had financial resources of her own at hand, and she used them for projects in which she stood to make a profit. The exclusively male colonizers of the early French Atlantic World knew their undertakings needed large amounts of

18 JR 3: 169. 19 Hsia, World, 138–51. 20 “Biard’s Relation of 1616,” JR 3: 167.

pierre biard: priest and pirate of mount desert island 11

capital, and they accepted investment when they could. Early modern French society remained intensely patriarchal, yet the need to finance colonies allowed powerful women to transcend these conventions and played a role in who planted settlements and where. Though married to the mayor of Paris, Madame de Guecherville seems to have controlled her own income, and used it at her own discretion. She, and she alone, is described by Biard as the principle investor in the voyages. The excite- ment of Atlantic voyages and their payoff in souls created numerous opportunities for married French women, who by law and custom could retain full ownership over property they brought into marriage, to spend their own money, in their own names, as they saw fit. Another fundraising initiative ran afoul of another Atlantic World hazard, the threat of fraud and loss of investment that would follow. The early date of these endeavors meant that few people on the ground could provide oversight and intervention regarding the money of investors. Would-be investors in the know, so to speak, approached investment oppor tunities with caution. The canny Madame de Guercherville was one of these. When the Sieur de Poutrincourt, who led the expedition and would run afoul of the Jesuits as well, could not give her adequate proof of his claims to New France’s resources, she gave the money instead directly to the Biard and Massé. This infuriated Poutrincourt, heightening tension between the missionaries and the colonial leadership.21 As with other issues affecting the development of the Atlantic World, events on the ocean’s eastern littoral could carry enormous consequences for those on the other side. Europe’s transatlantic travelers, like Biard and his colleague Massé, obviously relied heavily on ships to move themselves and their cargo safe across the sea. Preparing and outfitting vessels for overseas voyages took care and time – and a good deal of money. Yet a well-outfitted and appointed ship could in no way guarantee a comfortable voyage. Many if not most seafarers endured seasickness, tight quarters, bland or bad food, and the unsavory odors of livestock, naval stores, and fellow travelers with limited ability to keep themselves clean. Biard and Massé endured the same range of discomforts as any other ocean-going Jesuit: more than twenty years later, their colleague Paul LeJeune, noted “the size of our cab- ins was such that we could not stand upright, kneel, or sit down; and, what was worse, during the rain, the water fell at times upon my face.”22 Biard contrasted shipboard conditions to those he had enjoyed in France, where

21 JR 3: 231–3. 22 Ibid. 5: 15.

12 laura m. chmielewski he and other priests had had servants and novices to see to their daily needs. He reported ruefully “[the Jesuits on the voyage] had no servant during the entire voyage except their own hands and feet; if their linen was to be washed, their clothes cleaned and patched, if other needs had to be provided for, they had the privilege of doing it themselves.”23 The readers of Biard’s words would have recognized that it was unusual for the priests to care for themselves at this level but it was, as they would soon see, excellent preparation for the lifestyle of a Catholic missionary of the Atlantic World. That ships were cramped and lacked many of the comforts of land is a given, but the closeness that transatlantic voyages engendered had some benefits. One byproduct, according to the priest, was the opportunity to improve his acquaintance with the Protestants among them, namely the captain, Jean d’Aune and pilot, David des Bruges. Though Biard derided them as “both of the Pretended Religion,” (his derisive term for French Calvinism), he also used the intimacy of the ship to converse with them on religious matters. This had the benefit of softening the Protestants’ views of Jesuits, finding them contrary to stereotype to be “honest and courteous men, of good conduct and pure consciences.”24 Transatlantic voyages could last as long as several months. When Biard and Massé left Dieppe on January 26th, they would not tread on dry land until for four months. This led the priests and their shipmates to do what many others had done before them: create a community of faith on board the vessel, complete with regular worship services and marking the passage with Catholicism’s many holidays. These activities included Mass and a sermon on Sundays and holidays and assembling the crew for prayer twice a day. The voyage spanned Lent and Easter, and the priests marked it with special calls to piety for the crew, delivered three times a week.25 The limitations of Atlantic World travel demanded many improvised activities, including religious ones. Nevertheless, the priests strove to maintain a sense of the weekly rituals that Catholics on land used to punctuate their lives. Such rituals bound the voyage’s faithful together, and kept alive a sense of their common ties to Christianity and France. In addition, they laid the groundwork for the building of religious institutions, through continued community worship, once the vessel landed in New France. None of the seventeenth century Jesuits who crossed the Atlantic

23 Ibid. 3: 181. 24 3: 183. 25 Ibid.

pierre biard: priest and pirate of mount desert island 13

reported that they did so with the help of a dedicated space for worship. But the Jesuits were creative, and with the assent of the officers and often the help of the crew, devised shipboard spaces suitable for various religious activities. Establishing a predictable pattern of religious activity was a priority, and the Jesuits strove to maintain the Sabbath and feast days despite seaborne disruptions. In the throes of overwhelming seasickness, Pierre Biard wrote in 1611 that he and his companions “attempted to discharge the usual duties of our Society… Morning and evening, every day, the passengers were called together for prayer; on holidays certain Ecclesiastical services were held, [and] pious exhortations were made.”26 Occasionally diverting their interests from the spiritual life of their fellow passengers, the Jesuits who crossed the Atlantic took time away from chronicling their spiritual work to describe the natural world they encountered, increasing the body of knowledge about the Atlantic’s wonders. Indeed, chronicling this new natural world became something of a Jesuit specialty, with later Jesuits such as Joseph-François Lafitau and Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix achieved more fame from their reports of New World environments than on their successes as priests. Reporting new encounters appealed to the Jesuits’ intellectual training and also helped them make something so relentlessly foreign, such as the ocean, and a new continent, a bit less alien. The focus on topographical features, seascapes, animals and plants likely increased their readership by drawing the attention of Europe’s scientific community. Though his emphasis remained squarely in the spiritual realm, Pierre Biard was no exception to the order’s interest in the world around them. He reported his awe at ice- bergs in the North Atlantic “as if several castles were joined together, or, as you might say, as if the Church of Notre Dame in Paris, with part of its island, houses, and palaces should go floating out upon the water.”27 Biard’s experiences as a Frenchman who had previously traveled limited distances led him to translate the new findings of the natural world to landmarks that he and his readers could fathom. As knowledge of the French-claimed areas of the Atlantic World increased, however, so did the ability of later Jesuits to describe these new phenomena on their own terms. Thus passed the days of the priests – performing shipboard religious services, praying, and recording the new phenomena of the natural world – until they arrived safely in North America. But for Biard, the adventure had only just begun.

26 “Pierre Biard to the Reverend Father Provincial, at Paris,” (31 January, 1612), JR 2: 83. 27 JR 3: 181.

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*** Before examining the context of Pierre Biard’s experiences on the western rim of the Atlantic, it is important to map out the contours of a complicated story, which starts with landfall in what is now Canada when the Jesuits’ ship reached its destination, the tiny and young French settlement of Port-Royal, on May 22nd, 1611. With Madame de Guecherville’s buyout of the share of the voyage of the two Huguenot merchants, the priests were now partners with Jean de Biencourt de Poutrincourt et de Saint- Just, the French governor of Port-Royal and his son, Charles de Biencourt de Saint-Just. This partnership, however, was destined to be short-lived. The Jesuits (most notably Biard) spoke aggressively against the Poutrin courts’ claims of successful Christian evangelizing to native peoples. The Poutrincourts, in return, resented the Jesuits’ interference with their investment. Within months, the clear acrimony between Port Royal’s worldly and religious authorities caused even greater tension. At one point, Charles de Biencourt de Saint-Just held Biard captive on a vessel moored in Port-Royal’s harbor. The charge was Biard’s defense of a new Jesuit, Gabriel du Thet, who had recently arrived from France with Simon Imbert, an agent for Poutrincourt. Imbert had accused this new priest of defending regicide – the murder of a monarch, presumably for religious or political reasons – and Biard, knowing well how divisive such accusations could be, accused Imbert of slander.28 When Gabriel du Thet returned to France, he told Madame de Guecherville of the poor treatment the Jesuits had received. Again, this pious and well-connected woman saved the priests: a return vessel brought her agent, René de Coq de la Saussaye, across the Atlantic with a mandate to form a new partnership, and a new colony, with the Jesuits. In May of 1613, de la Saussaye arrived to evacuate the Jesuits from Port-Royal. The French splinter group traveled west from Port-Royal, across the Bay of Fundy and down the coast of Maine. For their new settlement they selected Mount Desert Island, which the Frenchmen christened “Saint Sauveur” (“Holy Redeemer”), predictably in gratitude for safety from their terrible colonial experiment. The island, which had a protected harbor and a stark natural beauty, fulfilled their conditions for a new settlement in terms of protection, resources, and proximity to Native Americans to whom the priests could promote Christianity. What appeared to have been a solution, however, caused even more problems for the New World Jesuits. Few of the new settlers at Saint- Sauveur got along with each other well enough to work productively to

28 “Pierre Biard,” DCB (web version).

pierre biard: priest and pirate of mount desert island 15

work on their new home. Thus, when in August, 1613 an English fleet, searching for cod, came upon this group of French-speaking fractious colonists, it wasted little time in destroying the little French settle ment. Worse, the controversial brother Gabriel du Thet was killed in the attack, and the English took the surviving Jesuits – Biard, Massé and Quentin – captive. The details of what happened next are disputed by historians, but this essay will rely on Biard’s description from his 1614 account. According to Biard, the existence of a French settlement on territory also claimed by the English crown led to accusation that Saint-Sauveur’s settlers were pirates. As accused outlaws, the Frenchmen were taken to Jamestown, England’s six-year-old settlement at the mouth of the James River in modern Virginia. At first, the English captain who seized them, Samuel Argall, intended to see them all hang, but he had a change of heart and pled the case for clemency to Jamestown Marshall Thomas Dale, a request that was granted. The Jesuits were still prisoners of the English, however, and they were forced to direct the English to the location of Port-Royal, which the Jamestown contingent promptly looted and burned.29 On the return to Jamestown, the English ship carrying Biard was blown off course in a gale. It took them first to the Azores, islands off the Atlantic coast of Africa, and then to the southern coast of Wales. After detention in England, Biard returned to Europe and resumed his life as a university professor.30 Few seventeenth century Europeans experienced as much of the Atlantic World as Pierre Biard. His adventures were set in motion thanks to the tensions between the priests and the colony’s secular founders, Jean de Biencourt de Poutrincourt et de Saint-Just and Charles de Biencourt de Saint-Just. Known respectively as “Poutrincourt” and “Biencourt,” these two men were most keenly interested in creating a profitable colony, with significant proceeds going to their own family and raising its prestige in French society. This was not an uncommon goal of European colonizers, whose family status, and striving for honor and glory, rivaled the man- dates of kings. Still, they had investors in their colonial enterprises to sat- isfy, and to that end, they sought to exploit whatever natural resources might turn a profit. Cod and furs were two candidates. The former was the source of fast-day food throughout much of Catholic Europe, and was highly desired for taste and consistency. An English traveler off Maine’s

29 “Samuel Argall,” DCB (web version). 30 “Énemond Massé,” DCB (web version).

16 laura m. chmielewski coast in 1605 reported that the local codfish were “well fed, fat, and sweet in taste.”31 Furs have a more obvious value of modern readers, yet those the French (and others) extracted from the New World were most often converted to a malleable felt that could be shaped into stylish headgear. Fish and fur: both commodities were very valuable, but both relied on additional resources to make them profitable. Fish required, among other things, a tremendous amount of salt for curing. And as the French were quick to realize, furs were best secured with the cooperation of Native American partners. Clearly not in the New World to turn a profit, the missionaries were tolerated, provided they did not interfere with the economic goals of the French governor and his son. But they did interfere, and their association ended with Biencourt threatening to hang Pierre Biard, and Pierre Biard denying Biencourt the sacraments of the Church (a terrible spiritual fate for an early modern Catholic).32 The Jesuit mandate as encapsulated in the Society’s motto, ad majorem Dei gloriam (“For the greater glory of God”) offered a perspective on New France that privileged salvation rather than goods. The supporters of the mission – most notably the deeply, actively pious Madame de Guecherville – demanded that bringing new souls to Catholic Christianity be an explicit goal of the colony and expected profits that were both worldly and spiritual. The Jesuits, as will be described later, accused Biencourt and his father of pursuing the former at the expense of the latter. Such a problem subverted the Jesuits’ reason for being: the animating spark of revitalized religion known in Catholic circles as the Catholic Reformation. Responding to Protestantism’s reorienta- tion of Christianity and the numbers it attracted, Catholicism experienced its own Reformation. This collection of reforms has long been called the “Counter Reformation,” which reflected a common belief that the remainder of Catholicism redefined itself in opposition to Protestantism in all ways. More recent scholars such as R. Po-Chia Hsia argue that Catholi cism’s reforms were much more complex and far-reaching, affecting doctrinal changes, religion and politics, social and cultural interactions, and Catholicism’s response to the religious and cultural “other.”33 Some of the most important innovations to the story of the Atlantic World came in the form of new religious orders, or groups of men and women drawn to the religious life. Some were ordained to the priesthood. Others, women

31 Qtd. in Bryan Fagan, Fish on Friday, 259. 32 “Pierre Biard,” DCB (web version). 33 Hsia, World, 174.

pierre biard: priest and pirate of mount desert island 17

and men alike, took voluntary vows to abstain from most worldly plea- sures and devote their lives to prayer and service to others. Enthused with new ideas that took religious people out of the monastery and into the world, men and women became missionaries, nurses, and educators who performed worldly services while spreading the word of God. Many, it turned out, would view the lands across the Atlantic Ocean as an outlet for their energies. The Jesuits were particularly eager to seek this kind of work. But colonization forced Jesuits to reassess what types of “work” they were actually suited for. Pierre Biard, for one, was forced to redefine his definition of work, not as a priest but as a French colonist as well. Now in a tiny colony, with limited defenses, food, or barriers to provide space for fraying tempers, the priests were needed to work as carpenters, labor organizers, and farmers. Priestly labors were still a priority, but missionary work in the New World required different skills than a parish priest back in France would have. Whereas most parish priests back in Europe maintained predictable parish rhythms in religious structures already in place among people who already identified as Roman Catholics, missionaries were often charged with building, or arranging for their work to be done, on new habitations and churches. The newness of the environment of alone was the source of much wonder and demanded much hard, physical labor. Among the Jesuits, the one who most cheerfully provided this labor was Énemond Massé, a graduate of the Collège of Tournon in France. Massé’s origins were more modest than Biard’s. His father was an independent baker, a respectable trade of modest status. Though also a Jesuit, Massé appears to have had less interest in scholarly learning than Biard. But Massé seems to have possessed a more sanguine temperament than his colleague, or perhaps greater fervor as a missionary in newly encountered lands. Where Biard was engaged in near-constant fights with colonial officials and “churlish heretics” to preserve the rights of the Jesuits and their supporters, Massé was determined to make himself useful to those he encountered, earning the nickname “Père Utile” (“Father Useful”).34 One biographer observed that he “wielded a tool more readily than a pen.”35 Biard reported that these very different men complemented each other well and that the priests’ diverse talents were apparently an object of curiosity to their fellow colonists. In response to observing Massé build a boat almost single-handedly, a colonist remarked, “Father Énemond can do

34 “Énemond Massé,” DCB (web version). 35 Ibid.

18 laura m. chmielewski anything; and in case of need he will be found to be a good Sawyer of planks, a good caulker, and a good Architect.” When asked how Biard could possibly contribute anything useful to the shipbuilding enterprise, the same colonist remarked “Dost thou not know that when the boat is done he will give it his blessing?”36 The contrast was clear: among their fellow colonists, Biard was perceived to pray with his hands while Massé put his to work. Still, all hands, and even those that lacked the skills needed for carpentry or animal husbandry, were needed in new colonial enterprises. Hands were also needed to cultivated new environments to sustain human life. Yet in many early colonial endeavors, Europeans were encountering environments that differed from the ones they knew at home, making the rhythms of crop cultivation difficult. As with any new colony, food shortages were therefore a frequent problem. While fish was plentiful in the waters surrounding Port-Royal, other foodstuffs were more difficult to come by. Europeans who traveled throughout the Atlantic World often took stores of food with them, supplementing their diets of local food with wine and bread made of imported flour. When the stores they brought from Europe were exhausted, settlers had little choice and few options. After a particularly harsh winter proceeded by an attack on the colony by marauding English, Biencourt and his men were even forced to live off roots and licking lichen on rocks.37 While settlers waited for provisioning vessels to arrive – the easiest way by far to get access to food – they bar- tered with local Indians for grain and vegetables or hunted, fished, and gathered. But shortages that coincided with the onset of the winter months could spell disaster. When Port Royal ran out of food, its inhabitants sought Indian corn from the Armouchiquois Indians, a Wabanaki people who lived near the Saco River in what is now Maine. The French knew where to get the food, but it was a major undertaking, involving a voyage of several weeks into territory that they did not know. Though they commented on local native peoples who impressed them with their eagerness to form an alliance to trade for furs, the Jesuits were interested in Indians as spiritual beings rather than trading partners.38 They were not, however, the first Catholic priests to attempt to convert them to Christianity. Before Biard and Massé, Abbé Jessé Fleché had accompanied Poutrincourt and his retinue to New France. Within a brief window of time, Fleché claimed credit for converting Membertou,

36 JR 3: 257. 37 “Charles de Biencourt de Saint-Just,” DCB (web version). 38 “Biard,” JR 3: 221–3.

pierre biard: priest and pirate of mount desert island 19

a powerful local M’ikmaq political leader and healer (called “sagamo” and “shaman,” respectively), who accepted Catholic baptism along with twenty members of his family.39 Such an alliance was a coup of some significance for the French, who were obviously overwhelmingly outnumbered by Native peoples and, at such an early stage of colonial enterprise. If early contact had been unproductive and truculent, the French could have found themselves displaced, or even killed. The conversion of Membertou, therefore, gave the little enterprise in Acadia a good degree of stability and welcome. And the intent on French alliance wrought by the conversion was explicit: in baptism, Membertou took the name “Henri,” his wife took “Marie,” and their son “Louis.” These were also the names of the French royal family, patrons of Poutrincourt and pres umptive monarchs over both France and Membertou’s Acadia. When Poutrincourt’s son, Biencourt, returned briefly to France, he took with him what purported to be a record of spiritual achievement in the New World: a register of baptisms that offered proof to the queen and ladies of the court that the spread of Catholicism was a top priority.40 But where Poutrincourt and Biencourt saw new Catholics who, to them, satisfied the standard for devotion to their new religion, the Jesuits saw routine baptisms recorded in a register for convenience, as though they were quintals of fish or bundles of furs. Fleché’s conversion techniques were clearly less rigorous than the more exacting, learned missionaries preferred. “The conversion of this country to the Gospel, and of these people to civilization is not a small undertaking nor free from great difficulties,” Biard warned his fellow Jesuits.41 Indeed, he had high expectations for knowledge and behavior among those recorded as converted by Abbé Fleché. But Biard questioned Fleché’s converts about Catholicism’s basic tenets and found they knew little. This proof that the Indians were Christianized in name only under Poutrincourt’s watch undermined Potrincourt’s official reports of his successes and jeopardized his hopes of using them to raise funds.42 Thus the spiritual demands of the Atlantic World’s indigenous people split these two professed Catholics, who clashed over the methods and meaning of Indian conversion. In the process of seeking to convert the Indians they encountered, it mattered little to Pierre Biard and the other Jesuits that les sauvages, as the

39 “Jessé Fleché,” DCB (web version). 40 “Biencourt,” DCB (web version). 41 JR 3: 137. 42 “Biard,” DCB (web version).

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French termed the peoples of America, had their own religious beliefs, their own explanations for the wonder-workings of the world and the spiritual nature of things. To this first round of missionaries, “civilization” by French standards and “Christianization” were inextricably intertwined.43 The Jesuits who followed them would find it necessary to reevaluate this posture, and question the European urge to destroy Native American culture. Indeed, some would find in the new people they encountered better examples of Christian behavior and understanding than among the French. Nevertheless, Biard met the convert sagamore, Henri Membertou, and was impressed by native leader’s physical appearance and character. He described Membertou as “the greatest, most renowned and most formidable savage within the memory of man: of a splendid physique, taller and larger-limbed than is usual among them, bearded like a Frenchman, though scarcely any others have hair upon the chin; grave and reserved, feeling a proper sense of dignity for his position as a commander.”44 This was high praise. Of course, describing Membertou as the greatest and most formidable chief yet to be encountered challenged the encounters of other Europeans, who tended to write about their Atlantic World adventures with flourish and exaggeration. The English at Jamestown, for one, claimed to have encountered a greatest and most formidable chief of their own in Wahunsenacawh (often called Powhatan), and his equally- impressive brother, Opechancanough, who ruled as paramount chiefs in Tsenacommacah. Other European observers used the same extreme language to describe the New World’s animals, plants, waterways, and topog- raphy.45 This might lead one to wonder if such descriptions can possibly have any use to modern scholars. At very least, however, these descriptions remain useful in part because they provide a capsule of European thought when encountering new peoples, places and objects. An interest in Membertou did not equal wholesale approval of Native American life, which Biard seems to have resisted encountering. It was ultimately the resourceful, good-natured Énemond Massé who chose to go first to live among the Indians. Biard’s description of his colleague’s adjustment to Indian life betrays his own Eurocentric assumptions about the baseline comforts of life. He clearly pitied Massé, who now led a life

43 Axtell, Invasion, 38. 44 JR 2: 23. 45 For a classic treatment of New World tropes, see Stephen Greenblatt’s Marvelous Possessions: The Wonders of the New World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).

pierre biard: priest and pirate of mount desert island 21

“without order and without daily fare, without bread, without salt, and often without anything; always moving on and changing, in the wind, in the air, and in bad weather; for roof, a wretched cabin; for couch, the earth; for rest and quite, odious cries and songs; for medicine, hunger and hard work. It was, in truth, a very painful mode of living.”46 Needless to say, conflict and cultural misunderstanding was rife and common. For example, Biard was angered when his Indian interpreter refused to carry water and fetch wood for the priest by claiming that such work “belongs to the women.”47 This puzzled the priest, who came from a culture with different ideas of gender and work. Nevertheless, this did not keep Biard from seeing positive attributes in his “savage” companion, whom he described as good-natured.48 Such contradictory attitudes can be viewed in two ways. One might regard Jesuit elitism as ironic, given the local Indians lived well while the French often suffered from hunger and cold. The opposite impression, however, supports the idea that friendship between individuals could develop despite seemingly insurmountable cultural boundaries. This is one of the pillars of Pierre Biard’s overall Atlantic World experience: the individual people he encountered often subverted stereotypical impressions of groups, and group behavior, leading to friendship, accommodation, and coexistence. The Jesuits administered not just to the needs of new Christians, but to the ones who crossed the Atlantic with them as well. Atlantic colonization was, for Europeans, marked by times of scarcity, uncertainty, instability, and fear. Facing these problems in an unfamiliar land, European Christians often turned to religious faith to get them through hard times. Old religious ideas and expressions were turned to new challenges. Biard used the opportunity of acute shortages to remind his coreligionists of the compas- sion Catholics imputed to the Virgin Mary and Jesus. The depth of winter provided a convenient time to remind “his Company to be in good cheer, and take the glorious Virgin Mary for an advocate with her compassionate Son in every need, spiritual and corporal, as through her intercession the wine of consolation would be wanting to want to have her as a guest and a mother.”49 Unable to harness technology to control the elements, the Jesuits and other New World Christians turned to meditation on religious sufferings as a way to cope with discomfort. Happily for the company, the

46 JR 3: 245–7. 47 3: 247. 48 Ibid. 49 3: 231.

22 laura m. chmielewski sea brought forth a provisioning ship within a weak, relieving the community’s hunger and adding credibility to Biard as a spiritual leader. Yet nature, and the sea in particular, brought numerous dangers into New France’s fragile colonies as well. Some were disease or more people to claim a share of already-strained resources. Others posed a special danger – in terms of ill-will – to the Jesuits themselves. One of the these was the so-called the “Anti-Coton,” a pamphlet claiming that a powerful Jesuit named Pierre Coton had orchestrated the murder of the French King Henri IV.50 This slim volume was imported by French sailors, who were likely Protestants, but could have been anti-Jesuit Catholics as well. Though the incident happened in 1626, long after Pierre Biard had returned to France, it poisoned Protestant-Catholic relations in the colony – at least among those Catholics who supported the Jesuits. As Jesuit Charles Lalement wrote his brother, Jêrome, the sensational pamphlet was circulated ‘from chamber to chamber’ throughout the colony.51 First produced in France and later disseminated throughout Europe, the “Anti-Coton” was alleged to be the work of a French Protestant minister, Pierre Dumoulin, and its dissemination inspired anti-Jesuit hostilities from Catholics and Protestants alike. Samuel de Champlain himself found it so threatening to maintaining the peace between New France’s religiously-diverse settlers that he ordered it publicly burned.52 Religiously divisive print material was carried in the same ships that brought the Jesuits, their supporters, and religious paraphernalia across the ocean. Though the overt religious purposes of some transatlantic voyages were clear, no one on the voyage that bore the “Anti-Coton” to America had found the need to audit the sea chests and stowed cargo for religiously fractious material. The safe arrival of the “Anti-Coton” in New France underscores several facts about New World travel. One was that, though people of certain religious beliefs or practices might be restricted from settlement, ideas that were tucked into sea chests, packed amid other cargo or tucked within the folds of clothing could not. It was not only Protestants who bore the priests ill will. In the close quarters of France’s infant Atlantic World settlements, Biard interacted closely with numerous colonial administrators, and ran afoul of many of them. His problems with Port-Royal’s leaders, Poutrincourt and Biencourt, began when the priest openly ridiculed the work of Jessé Fleché, the priest

50 4: 270n. 51 “Charles Lalemant to Jêrome Lalemant,” August 1 1626. JR 4: 255. 52 Fischer, Champlain’s, 380.

pierre biard: priest and pirate of mount desert island 23

whose claims of missionary success were so critically important to Poutrincourt’s claims of success – and hopes for future investment. Quarreling followed and in its wake threats and, ultimately, violent acts. At one point, Biencourt attempted to imprison Biard on a ship. Another Jesuit, who traveled back to Old France, reported abuse of the priests and the sham baptisms of Indians to Madame de Guecherville.53 She intervened again on the Jesuits’ behalf, empowering her agent, René le Coq de la Saussaye to found another colony and take the Jesuits with him. Thus the Jesuits secured safe passage away from Port-Royal and the many tensions that plagued their relationship with Bienville and his father. This conflict opens the last – and most action-packed – phase of the French Jesuits’ Atlantic World adventure. Biard, Massé, Quentin and du Thet sailed west with La Saussaye and other settlers down the coast of the Bay of Fundy. Their destination proved to be a large, sheltered island at the mouth of Frenchman Bay, in what is now Maine’s Acadia National Park. Struck by its stark, simple beauty, Samuel de Champlain had several years before christened the island “Ile des Mont Deserts,” or Mount Desert Island, the name it carries to this day. It was here that the priests hoped to truly build the world anew. They signaled their intentions by erecting a cross – a traditional method for Christian Europeans to show their thanks to God, as well as signal to or warn other Europeans of their presence.54 As can be expected, they thanked God for bringing them safely ashore and admired the island’s “large and beautiful port.”55 For the seventeenth century settler, life on Mount Desert Island was a far less pleasant prospect. Those who lived there suffered through frigid winters and warm, fly- ridden summers with limited capacity to exert control over either. For help, as well as potential converts, the Jesuits planned to pursue the local Wabanaki people. Biard and his companions were not the first Europeans in the area. Maine’s coast had recently been a source of curiosity for English explo rers, who considered its climate the most habitable of the lands that rimmed prime codfish territories. New World explorers were, after all, entrepreneurs who were looking for new routes for and sources of trade. Jamestown’s John Smith had yet to scout the region and assign the name New England, though he would less than a decade later. By the time Biard

53 “Pierre Biard,” DCB (web version). 54 JR 3: 265. 55 Ibid.

24 laura m. chmielewski and his company arrived, English captain George Weymouth had already been there, threatening the local population and kidnapping several Indians back to England. In 1607, the Englishman Sir John Popham attemp ted to create a permanent settlement on Monhegan Island (also near Maine). But Popham’s choice was ill-informed, illustrating a chronic problem with Atlantic explorations and the dissemination of knowledge, and they failed to anticipate the range of climate and length of winter. Popham’s group had very little idea of what awaited them, for in many cases, information on such places had yet to be collected and publicized. Other information was just plain wrong, or packaged for propagandistic purposes, or to deliberately mislead. Brought safely to the New World by a crew of diverse Christians, the Jesuits saw in Mount Desert’s stark beauty, natural concealments, and welcoming Penobscot Indians, the possibility for meeting all their goals as both French and religious men.56 Other portents were less promising, as infighting between the Jesuits and their settlers left the tiny settlement dangerously fragmented. When English sailors making an annual trek up the coast for cod discovered the settlement and determined to attack it, the missionaries and laypeople of Saint-Sauveur were unable to muster an organized defense. These English attackers came from Virginia. Their captain, Samuel Argall, claimed authority to attack the mission from the Council for New England, which had already laid claim to the territory and considered its defense a patriotic and moral duty that would pave the way for settlements populated by English fishermen.57 With little warning, Argall fired on the ship that housed the Jesuits and companions, killing Jesuit brother Gilbert du Thet. The survivors, who included Biard and Massé, revealed their identities as Catholic priests and plead for clemency. As they reported, our brethren approached [Argall]; frankly revealed themselves to him, as he was still ignorant of their identity; and begged him not, in elation over his easy victory, to adopt severe measures against their colony; they earnestly warned him to remember the conditions of human life, saying that just as he would wish his own interests mildly handled, if a similar calamity had fallen upon him, so he ought to act humanely in the case of others; moreover, that he should especially consider that he was dealing with innocent men, to whom no fault could be charged beyond the fact that, because of their

56 JR 3: 223. 57 Charles Clark, The Eastern Frontier: The Settlement of Northern New England, 1610–1763 (New York: Knopf, 1970), 16.

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blamelessness, they had been too careless in a peaceful spot. They were heard somewhat kindly by the Captain, and received with respectful address; the only thing of which he disapproved being that Fathers of the Society, who had commonly so good a reputation for piety and wisdom, should be among a band of runaways and pirates.58 In short, Argall accused all the French at Saint-Sauveur of piracy – squatting on land claimed by someone else with the intent to attack, steal, and subvert. The captain used this as he pretext for arresting Saint-Sauveur’s survivors, loading them onto his vessel, and transporting them back to Jamestown to meet with a no-doubt hostile judgment. Argall’s claim that Saint-Sauveur was a nest of pirates is of particular interest, as conviction for this crime carried the penalty of hanging throughout English territory. Pirates, after all, were perceived by their enemies of all legitimate power, people without honor, who used various guises and pretexts to legitimize plundering the property of others. In the Atlantic World, they were one of the worst manifestations of European rivalries in the New World, and while some were licensed by their monarch to raid, plunder and kidnap enemies, others worked as outlaws, or freebooters, of their own accord, and only in their own interest. As historian Marcus Rediker notes, piracy “represented ‘crime’ on a massive scale. It was a way of life voluntarily chosen, for the most part, by large numbers of men who directly challenged the ways of the society from which they excepted themselves.”59 Pirates were some of the Atlantic World’s most dangerous people, and accusing someone of piracy was often fatal for the accused. Certainly being carried to Virginia as a Frenchman, a Catholic priest and an accused pirate lessened Biard’s and Quentin’s chances of leaving the English colony alive considerably. But Biard and his fellow Jesuits were not pirates, and Argall recognized that. Though the assumption of guilt provided a good reason for keep ing the Frenchmen prisoners, Argall’s cooler head ultimately prevailed. And the English captain was neither closed-minded nor hard-hearted: he listened attentively to the Jesuits’ entreaties of their innocence and extended various courtesies to them, allowing them to bury their dead, offering the services of an English Catholic doctor, and inviting the captive priests to dine at his table.60 In a more unusual offer of interfaith

58 JR 2: 257. 59 Marcus Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-American World, 1700–1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 255. 60 JR 2: 253, 255.

26 laura m. chmielewski cooperation, a French-speaking Protestant pilot named Bailleur who navigated for Argall “came by night to Father Biard, and, taking him by the hand, with many protestations bade him and the other Fathers to expect from him, as far as faithfulness and devotion could go toward another, all the services of a Christian and a fellow-countryman, and to be persuaded that he would neglect nothing which might contribute to their safety; to employ his aid freely, and consider what they should decide upon, as to making their escape.”61 Argall’s reaction to the priests, and the courtesies he extended to them, are all the more remarkable when assessed again the conventional negative image that English Protestants harbored of Jesuits. New World’s English Protestants in particular feared and despised Jesuits, a reaction that would only fester and grow stronger as the seventeenth century wore on. Throughout the early modern period, English writers derided Jesuits as equivocators, liars, murderers and regicides who possessed supernatu- ral powers and dabbled enthusiastically in various dark arts, all aimed at destroying God’s true, Protestant church.62 Such biases were transported to the New World, and took on an even more-urgent meaning as a means of forming identity in Europe’s fragile, lightly-populated colonies. Why then, would an English Protestant, who held the power of life and death over these hated minions of the Church of Rome, feed them well, solicit their company, and promise to advocate for their fair treatment when they reached Jamestown? The possible answers are numerous. Yet perhaps the most compelling for the purposes of this essay is the idea that Argall was not unlike many Atlantic World sojourners whose travels provided opportunities to encounter their enemies face-to-face. Catholics and Protestants, Englishmen and Jesuits, were all oppositional tropes that existed on paper, speech and popular rhetoric. Yet the actual people behind these basic stereotypes often showed a different, more human reality. Opposition in print did not always lead to conflict in person. By the time they arrived in Virginia, the Jesuits had seemingly succeeded in converting Samuel Argall – not to Catholicism, but to the belief that the English had unjustly attacked a piece of land that had been consecrated to French religion and French interests.63 Upon arrival at Jamestown, the Protestant captain openly sided with the Jesuits against

61 2: 259. 62 For an extensive treatment of the tradition of anti-Jesuit rhetoric in early modern English literature, see Garry Wills, Witches and Jesuits: Shakespeare’s Macbeth (New York: Oxford, 1995). 63 JR 2: 267.

pierre biard: priest and pirate of mount desert island 27

his colony’s governor, Thomas Dale, who was prepared to deal harshly with the priests. In the end, the Anglican Argall’s defense won the priests liberation from the threat of the gallows – though not their freedom.64 But Argall’s support of the Jesuits likely had an ulterior motive, one in which he imagined the priests as partners in an English expedition to inflict even more damage on the French New World presence. Yes, the captain likely enjoyed the company of the erudite priests, and he came to pity their situation and regret the trauma he had inflicted upon their pers ons. Yet Biard and Quentin were also useful to use against their own French enemies – Biencourt and his partisans at Port-Royal – and could direct the English to that settlement, which the English, in turn, hoped to destroy.65 And destroy they did – though as Biard claimed, without his assistance to pilot the English to the places the French inhabited. The English, however, continued to lean on their Jesuit “pirates” with offers of freedom should they assist in attacking other French-occupied territory. Biard claimed he was promised that “we old prisoners should be placed in the company with those whose lives had thus been spared. Such was the decision.” But the priest added ominously, “God was on high, and, as you will hear, he decreed otherwise in regard to a number of things.”66 For Biard and Quentin, this meant more time at sea, and more threats to their lives. On their return trip to Jamestown, the Atlantic Ocean reasserted itself as the chief threat to the priests’ wellbeing. Blown off-course by a gale, the Jesuits bounced across the Atlantic in a storm so fierce that the captain “called together all his people, and took counsel with them upon the best way to save their lives.”67 Weather crises were eventually averted, but even in the best of times, food on the vessel was scarce, and Biard was despised by the new captain, a man named Turner, who regarded the priest as “an abominable rascal.”68 Still, the vessel, a looted French ship of Poutrincourt’s fittingly called the Jonas, managed to limp into the Azores, a group of islands off the Atlantic coast of North Africa. The priests were kept hidden on board as the vessel was provisioned; the next stop was the safely Protestant Welsh coastal port of Pembroke, and then eventually, England. It was in England that Biard’s unusual sequence of New World adventure ended. It did so with powerful insights into European Protestants at

64 2: 265. 65 “Samuel Argall,” DCB (web version). 66 JR 4: 33. 67 4: 53. 68 4: 51.

28 laura m. chmielewski home in Protestant Europe. What Biard saw of the Church of England amazed him. Of particular interest was English Protestantism’s retention of so many practices and structures of pre-Reformation Catholicism. “The English still have a great many things in common with the Catholic Church,” Biard, noted, “as the Order of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, Archbishops, Bishops, Priests, Archpriests, Archdeacons, Curates, Canons, etc.; the Episcopal laying on of hands in the ordination of Priests and lesser Orders, and in the confirmation of children; the Chrism and its ceremonies, the sign of the Cross, the Image of this and other things; the Psalmody and usual form of worship, the prescribed Saints’ days, the Vigils, Fasts, Lent, Abstinence from meat on Friday and Saturday.”69 He also observed the fractious nature of early seventeenth century English Protestantism in action, observing the differences between the mainstream Church of England and its more radical detractors: “And those who condemn all these things, as the Calvinists of France and of Scotland do, and call them damnable superstitions, and inventions of the Antichrist, are by the English called Puritans, and are detested by them as abominable plagues.”70 This was hardly the priest’s first brush with Calvinists, whom he clearly disliked. One senses, however, that his tolerance for the Church of England, with its clear compatibilities to Catholicism, was considerably higher. At any rate, its similarities reduced it to something comprehensi- ble for a man who, despite his learning and travel, was limited by his worldview as a seventeenth century European. It was a fitting end to the religiously-themed conflict that had plagued his life for several years: that Protestants and Catholics had similarities as well as differences, and that people of all faiths could, despite religious differences, welcomed displays of kindness and companionship, especially in a world with so many unknowns. By 1616, Pierre Biard had long been back in France, his freedom having been secured by French ambassadors to England. In France, Biard wrote his well-known “Epistola” (“letter” in Latin), and later his “Apologia” (“def ense”) to describe his half-decade of challenges and to vindicate himself from the unsavory descriptions of the Port-Royal affair by another well- known New World traveler, the French lawyer Marc Lescarbot.71 A friend of Poutrincourt and Biencourt and a prolific New World chroni- cler in his own right, Lescarbot was a Catholic who counted among his

69 4: 73. 70 4: 75. 71 “Pierre Biard,” DCB (web version); Marc Lescarbot, DCB (web version).

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friends Protestants and non-Christians. He was a great admirer of Acadia’s Mi’kmaq Indians (whom he called the “Souriquois”) and disapproved of Jesuit attempts to interfere in the Indians’ ways. A witty and sarcastic commentator, Lescarbot’s Histoire de la Nouvelle-France defended the reputations of his friends. But Biard, now home and comfortable (one senses, for the first time in years), could now deal with conflict in the comfort and safety of his quarters. In a final twist, though hardly an ironic one, the patient and good-natured “Père Utile,” Énemond Massé, remained in Canada to teach, evangelize, and work until he died in peace, in the Jesuit mission at Sillery. Historians continue to debate whether or not our modern description of an “Atlantic World” was a concept with which the people who actually lived between 1450 and the nineteenth century would have been familiar.72 But even if Pierre Biard never used the term, or gave much thought to the collective landmasses that rimmed the Atlantic Ocean, one can argue persuasively that he lived in an Atlantic World – one with boundaries that existed chiefly on paper, and where encounter with the “other” from diverse places from Europe and the Americas was more likely to happen than in the cosmopolitan centers of France. What enabled such intermingling, experience, and learning was the ocean that had separated diverse people for so long, now made seemingly smaller due to exploration, curiosity, power, and zeal. Students of Atlantic World might do well to ask whether the people who lived in these times and passed through these spaces “thought Atlantically.” Pierre Biard’s writings suggest a mind that did indeed think Atlantically: while retaining all aspects of his identity as a French Catholic priest, he transported himself into a part of the Atlantic World where the mechanisms that supported this identity did not exist. He was convinced that he could play a role in transplanting them, and that such a transplantation was a good and desirable thing. Pierre Biard had an idealized vision for the Atlantic World, and he inves ted his body, mind and soul – briefly, sometimes reluctantly, but usually stoically – into its realization.

72 For a succinct overview of the controversies of Atlantic history and theory, see Alison Games, “Introduction, Definitions, and Historiography: What is Atlantic History?” in Magazine of History (Bloomington, IN: Organization of American Historians), vol. 18(3) April 2004, 3–8.

CHAPTER TWO

THOMAS MORTON

Charlotte Carrington

Thomas Morton established the Ma-re Mount settlement, near modern- day Quincy, Massachusetts, in the 1620s. Morton, an Anglican gentleman and lawyer, freed the servants at the plantation in order to trade and plant as equals. The Mortonites erected a maypole and embraced Old English traditions, which vexed the Pilgrims and Puritans. Morton, who was banished from New England more than once, is primarily remembered as a marginal licentious anti-type to his Puritan opponents. This article addresses Morton’s disregarded side of the story, his numerous voyages across the Atlantic and the identities that he fashioned. In New England, Morton was a victim of Puritan persecution; he was arraigned fallaciously for trading guns to the American Indians and murder. He was whipped, imprisoned, banished and his property was sequestered. Morton operated entirely from outside of the ‘Puritan worldview’ and proffered an alternative vision for the New World. However, across the ocean, Morton employed his flair with a pen and legal dexterity to challenge the Colony’s charter and put himself in a position of authority. Therefore, in order to truly place Morton at the center of the narrative, we must examine the life of this sojourner on both sides of the Atlantic. This article follows the voyages of Thomas Morton across the Atlantic between Old and New England in the early seventeenth century. In terms of identity formation, Morton is of interest precisely because he defies easy categorization. Morton illustrates that identities in an Atlantic world were multi-faceted and tailored to circumstance. Depending upon the situat ion, Morton fashioned a number of identities, including an Anglican, gentleman, royalist, lawyer, sportsman, colonizer, entrepreneurial trader, poet and exile. Morton’s identity and his dissent from the ‘New England way’ are also notable because in an Atlantic context Morton was simultaneously a dissenter and criminal in New England, and a lawyer bringing other criminals to justice in Old England. Morton self-fashioned a number of identities, and used them freely when the circumstance called, depending on which side of the Atlantic he found himself on. This article will

32 charlotte carrington center on examining some of the identities that Morton upheld in different situations and at different points in his life; it will include Morton as a lawyer, husband, colonizer, entrepreneurial trader, royalist, purveyor of Old English culture, poet and author. Morton has remained an ambiguous and often misunderstood figure. When historians care to mention him, they cast aside his more serious credentials and Mortonia remains dominated by the prevailing cont emporaneous Pilgrim and Puritan depictions of a dangerous drunken troublemaker. For example, William Bradford argued that Morton was an ‘example of wickedness’ unto his ‘profane crew’ and Cotton Mather referred to Ma-re Mount as a ‘plantation of rude, lewd, mad English people.’1 Building upon this, traditional histories discredit Morton, depicting him as a villain or clown in the Puritan drama of New England.2 An especially telling sign of Morton’s disfavor is the fact that his name is frequently

1 Governor Thomas Dudley referred to Morton as ‘a proud insolent man.’ Edward Winslow described Morton as a ‘serpent’ to John Winthrop’ John Brown called him a ‘vyle person.’ William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation 1620–1647, ed. Samuel Eliot Morison, (New York: Knopf, 1953), 205; William Bradford, ‘A Copy of the Covenants’ in ‘Governor Bradford’s Letter Book,’ P. Watches, ed., Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, 1 ser., Vol. III. (1794), 61–2; ‘Governor T. Dudley to Lady Bridget, Countess of Lincoln, 1630,’ in Letters from New England. The Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1629–1638, ed. Everett Emerson, (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1976), 66–82; ‘Edward Winslow to John Winthrop, 7 January 1643/4,’ in The Winthrop Papers, ed., Allyn Forbes, 1638–1644. Vol. IV (Boston, MA: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1943), 428–9; ‘John Brown to John Winthrop, 26 June 1644,’ in Ibid., 464–5; Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana Vol. I (London: 1702), 59. 2 See for example, Charles Francis Adams, Three Episodes of Massachusetts History: The Settlement at Boston Bay, the Antinomian Controversy, and Study of Church and Town Government, (Vol. I. New York: Russell and Russell, 1965, original published in 1892); Charles Francis Adams, ed., Prince Society Edition of New English Canaan (New York: Burt Franklin, 1883); John D. Seelye, Prophetic Waters: The River in Early American Life and Literature (New York: Oxford University Press USA, 1977); Philip Ranlet, Enemies of the Bay Colony (New York: Peter Lang Pub Incorporated, 1995); Winton U. Solberg, Redeem the Time: The Puritan Sabbath in Early America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977); James Duncan Phillips, Salem in the Seventeenth Century (Boston MA and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1933), 28. Even though Richard Slotkin, Michael Zuckermann, John D’Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman offer slightly more positive depictions, they dismiss Morton as an Old English merry-making Cavalier or hedonist. Alden Vaughan and J. Gary Williams claim that Ma-re Mount was comprised of ‘brawling drunkards and unscrupulous traders.’ Richard Slotkin, Regeneration Through Violence: Mythology of the American Frontier 1600–1860 (Middletown, CT: University of Oklahoma Press, 1973), 58–62; Michael Zuckerman, ‘Pilgrims in the Wilderness: Community, Modernity, and the Maypole at Merry Mount,’ New England Quarterly, (Vol. 50, 1977), 255–77; John D’Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (New York: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 3; J. Gary Williams, ‘History in Hawthorne’s “The Maypole of Merry Mount”’ Essex Institute of Historical Collections, CVIII, 184–5; Alden Vaughan, New England Frontier, Puritans and Indians 1620–1675 (London: Little, Brown, 1965), 89.

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preceded by the adjective ‘notorious.’3 Historians are not the only schol ars to have noted Morton’s presence, and he has influenced verse, drama and spectacle.4 This article will consider various aspects of Morton’s life, in order to examine how one particular sojourner navigated the changing currents and tides of seventeenth-century life in Old and New England.

3 For example see James Truslow Adams, The Founding of New England (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1921), 148; Vaughan, New England Frontier, 148; David Bushnell, ‘The Treatment of the Indians in Plymouth Colony,’ New England Quarterly, Vol. 26 (1953), 201; Larzer Ziff, Puritanism in America: New Culture in a New World (New York: Viking, 1973), 41. B.F. De Costa’s article, written in the late nineteenth century, is slightly more sympathetic to Morton, as are Banks’ early twentieth century works. B.F. De Costa, ‘Morton of Merry Mount,’ Magazine of American History, VIII, 2 1882; Charles Edward Banks, ‘Thomas Morton of Merrymount’ (Including the Will of and early English records on Thomas Morton), Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, Vol. 58 (1925), 147–93; Charles Edward Banks, History of York, Maine. Vol. 1. (Boston, MA: Regional Pub. Co.: 1931), 49. More recently, Karen Kupperman, Edith Murphy, Neil Salisbury and Richard Drinnon have reconside red Morton’s career in a more positive light. See Karen Kupperman, ‘Thomas Morton, Historian,’ New England Quarterly, Vol. 50, (1977), 660–4; Neil Salisbury, Manitou and Providence: Indians, Europeans, and the Making of New England (New York: Oxford University Press USA: 1984), 92; Edith Murphy, ‘“A Rich Widow, Now to Be Tane Up or Laid Downe”: Solving the Riddle of Thomas Morton’s “Rise Oedipeus,”’ William and Mary Quarterly Vol. 53, (1996), 757; Richard Drinnon, Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian- Hating and Empire-Building (Minneapolis: University of Oklahoma Press, 1980), 9–14. 4 Donald Francis Connors has focused on the literary significance of New English Canaan and praises Morton’s humor and vividness, but fails to recognize Canaan as a valid historical source. See Donald Francis Connors, Thomas Morton (New York: Twayne, 1969). Jack Dempsey has recently looked into Morton’s life. See Jack Dempsey, Thomas Morton of “MerryMount” The Life and Renaissance of an Early American Poet (Scituate, MA: Digital Scanning, 2000). For a more detailed treatment of Morton in fiction see the following works: John P. McWilliams, Jr., ‘Fictions of Merry Mount,’ American Quarterly Vol. 29, No. 1 (1977), 3–30; Richard Clark Sterne, ‘Puritans at Merry Mount: Variations on a Theme,’ American Quarterly 22 (1970), 846–58; Robert J. Gangewere, ‘Thomas Morton: Character and Symbol in a Minor American Epic,’ in Discoveries & Considerations: Essays on Early American Literature & Aesthetics Presented to Harold Jantz, ed., Calvin Israel, (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1976), 189–203. The principle literary works that mention Morton are as follows: Washington Irving, The Works of Washington Irving, Vol. II (New York: G P Putnam’s Sons, 1980); Lydia Maria Child, Hobomok (Boston, MA: Cummings, Hilliard & Company, 1824), 37; Catherine Maria Sedgwick, Hope Leslie (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1827), II, 140–3; John Lothrop Motley, Merry Mount: A Romance of the Massachusetts Colony (Boston, MA: J. Munroe and Company, 1849), I, 13; Nathaniel Hawthorne, ‘The Maypole of Merry Mount’, in Works, Vol. I: Twice-Told Tales (Boston, MA: 1882 original, Kessinger Publishing, 2009), 70; Stephen Vincent Benét, The Devil and Daniel Webster (New York, Penguin USA, 1999), 44; L.S. Davidson, The Disturber (New York: Macmillan, 1964); Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ‘The Landlord’s Tale: The Rhyme of Sir Christopher,’ Poetical Works, Vol. IV: Tales of a Wayside Inn (Boston, MA: Houghton, Mifflin and company, 1886), 254; Richard L. Stokes and Howard Hanson, Merry Mount: An Opera in Four Acts and Five Scenes (New York: 1933); Stephen Vincent Benét, Western Star (New York: Harms, 1943), 166–7; Robert Lowell, Endecott and the Red Cross, the Old Glory (New York: American Place Theatre, 1965).

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Morton as a Lawyer

Morton was born in approximately 1576 in Devon, a place famed for its adherence to Old English folk customs and its cavalier, sea-faring sons, including Sir Francis Drake, Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh. Morton’s family, with at least two sons, must have been fairly wealthy to afford Morton’s education, and Morton must have had some means to own an interest, however small, in the Wollaston venture.5 Whether schooled at a grammar school or at home, Morton received an excellent education in Classics, rhetoric and field sports. In his book, New English Canaan, a metaphor is equally likely to come from the Gospels as Ovid. In 1593 Morton entered Clifford’s Inn to train as a lawyer.6 Clifford’s founded in 1345, was situated between Fleet Street and Fetter Lane in London. From the fourteenth century until 1642, the study of the common law usually began with at least eighteen months spent at an Inn of Chancery. The student would then either advance to an Inn of Court, or remain at an Inn of Chancery to practice as an attorney. The Inns of Chancery were attached to particular Inns of Court as dependent satel- lites, and Clifford’s was attached to the Inner Temple. Although the Inns of Court elected readers and monitored the activities of the Inns of Chancery, they were permitted to maintain their own rules and customs. Thus from 1505 Clifford’s selected a magister jocorum to organize the festive calendar, especially the twelve days of Christmas, with its feasts, masques and dances.7 Clifford’s had its own ways, including a tradition of treating servants well, and passing food to the poor from its feasts. In New England, Morton practiced these arts and values. In the light of such

5 It would have been injudicious for a known attorney to merely claim to be of that social rank. Furthermore, since Morton does not claim at any point that his father had come of gentry before soldiering, his father probably earned the rank, like many others did, through military service to the Crown. Thomas Morton, New English Canaan, Jack Dempsey, ed., (Scituate, MA: Digital Scanning Inc., 2000), 145. Inns of Court living ran up costs of at least a ‘very sizable’ forty pounds per annum. Keith Wrightson, English Society 1580–1680 (London: Routledge, 1982), 186–7. 6 Clifford’s Inn was part of the Inner Temple and the oldest Inn of Chancery. When Morton was a student, attorneys and solicitors were excluded from the Inns of Court. William Loftie, The Inns of Court and Chancery (New York: Seeley, 1893), 14; Wilfred Prest, The Inns of Court Under Elizabeth I and the Early Stuarts 1590–1640 (London: Prentice Hall Press, 1972), 197. 7 Clifford’s Inn, governed by a principal and twelve governors, was famous for its after- dinner ceremony, in which the principal took four loaves baked in the form of a cross, raised them above his head and dashed them onto the table three times before throwing them the length of the table. This ceremony continued into the nineteenth century.

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background, Morton’s actions in the New World seem more judicious and in concordance with his education. When Morton entered Clifford’s, the Inns were arguably less a school than a place of internship and more. Along with housing lawyers, clerks and officials, they were a combination of college, finishing school, gentleman’s club, trade union and cultural matrix. In many ways, the Inns were a portal to festivity, learning, charity and repartee. At the Inns, the aspiring and the elite intermingled, making advantageous associations, and embracing the Inns’ performance loving and rich literary milieu.8 Whilst in London, Morton may have devoted his time to finding patrons to further his ambitions, along with imbibing with Ben Jonson’s hedonistic tribe at the Mermaid Tavern.9 William Shakespeare commented on Inns’ life in Henry IV, Part II: ‘you had not such swinge-bucklers in all the inns o’court… we knew where the bona-robas were, and had the best of them all at commandment.’10 Charles Francis Adams described Morton as a ‘disreputable London lawyer…fonder of the tavern than of Chambers.’11 However, it would be erroneous to suggest that life at the Inns was always full of merriment, and studying could be demanding. It was only with a minimum of twelve years practice and good connections and fortune that a student might become a Bencher.12 When Morton attended the Inns, only 15 per cent of students actually passed the bar, due to the absence of any university- style structured teaching and curriculum, and the fact that many young men of high birth were never considering a legal career.13 Whilst 85 per cent did not attain that level, they were able to make the most of everything that the crossroads between King’s court, city, country and continent offered. At Clifford’s, Morton most likely kept notes in a ‘commonplace’ notebook, read the Fleet Street accounts, observed in Westminster courts and

8 Sir John Fortescue, who had been a member of Lincoln’s Inn in the 1420s, wrote fifty years later that: ‘In these inns…there is, besides the law school, a kind of academy of all the manners which inform gentlemen.’ Cited in John Hamilton Baker, An Inner Temple Miscellany (London: Masters of the Bench of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, 2004), 41. 9 He may even have taken part in the renowned ‘wit combats’ at the Mermaid. Peter Ackroyd, London: A Biography (New York: Vintage, 2001), 342. 10 Cited in William Heath, ‘Thomas Morton: From Merry Old England to New England,’ Journal of American Studies 41 (2007), 138–9. 11 Adams, Three Episodes, Vol. I, 172. 12 For a more detailed explanation see Prest, The Inns and Loftie, The Inns. 13 Dempsey, Thomas Morton, 48.

36 charlotte carrington attended sermons and talks by visiting barristers. He would have learned to maneuver in another language and code of play, in moots with peers and before the Benchers. Morton learned to be open to what new situations and gateways could offer him. Primarily oral instruction trained him to better match wits, deflect the personal aspect of conflict with fictional- izing tricks and to gain ground with witty allegorical stories. Morton was taught ‘the common law mind’ – the deep respect for the common law as the sentinel of the ancient constitution, and the authority of the relation between the king, parliament and subject.14 Such skills prepared Morton for his clashes with the New England authorities, instilling discipline, determination and the ability to hold his own. However, it must also be remembered that one of Morton’s primary enemies in the New World, John Winthrop, was also an Inns of Court trained lawyer. Winthrop attended Gray’s Inn, and obviously took a very different lesson away.15 Therefore, whilst not suggesting that Morton’s views and actions epitomized the ‘common law mind,’ it is clear that Morton frequently utilized this as a reference point when he encountered and interpreted the New World. Conversely, Winthrop’s New World identity was steeped in the Scriptures of his Puritan beliefs. Ultimately, Morton’s legal training was central to shaping Morton’s various identities and also his dissent from the ‘New England way.’ Morton made influential connections at the Inns, and his poetry and writing were also inspired by his time at Cliffords. His perceived dissent from the ‘Puritan Way’ stemmed in part from the manners and customs that he developed whilst at Cliffords, and without his legal training he would never have been able to challenge the Pilgrims and Puritans in the English courts.

Morton as a Husband

One aspect of Morton’s life that has been overlooked is his role as a husband. Morton married Alice Miller in November 1621. Alice, a widow of some means from Swallowfield, Berkshire, met Morton through her previous husband.16 George Miller (Alice’s first husband) made his will on 26 March 1616, stating his wife had a ‘life jointure’ in his sizeable estate, his children had certain annuities chargeable to various portions of the estate for their support until marriage, and the widow and her eldest son, were

14 Prest, The Inns, 221. 15 John Winthrop also matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge. 16 Morton had managed Alice’s legal affairs for around five years.

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appointed joint executors.17 Whilst Alice had seven children, it was her eldest son George, who caused difficulties between his mother and her new suitor.18 Following his father’s death, George Jr., feared for his inheritance. However, in practice, his mother’s ‘life jointure’ could not affect it. George argued that Morton would ‘shoe his owne cuninge and unlawful ends and to gaine the whole estate to himselfe.’19 However, George’s behavior towards the Phipps family, who had allowed the Millers to use their church pew, demonstrates his underhand behavior. When the Phipps family asked for the pew back, George refused and during a service he broke the pew door open and shouted ‘dost thou call me boy? Gods wounds! If I were in bed with thee thou shouldst knowe that I were no boye.’ George then ‘picked her [Mrs Phipps] up bodily and threw her over the railings into the aisle.’20 Other suits show that in dealing with his sisters’ legacies, George utilized a range of legal techniques to evade payment as executor, culminating in George being sued for redress.21 Prior to his mother’s remarriage, George convinced her to test Morton’s affections by leasing the property to him.22 After signing the lease Alice changed her mind, but her son refused to return the land.23 Alice was subjected to ‘scurrilous obscene and lascivious speeches,’ as well as ‘divers blowes…upon diverse partes of her body soe as shee being then with Child did shortly after miscarry thereof.’24 George ‘desireth nothing so much as her [his mother] Ruine ane the speedy endinge of her daies.’ Lack of concern for his family was nothing new to George, and previously he refused to fetch a physician for his dying father.25 Subsequently,

17 Life jointure is a legal provision for a wife after the death of her husband. Sir Edward Coke, defined it as ‘a competent livelihood of freehold for the wife, of lands or tenements, to take effect presently in possession or profit after the death of her husband for the life of the wife at least, if she herself be not the cause o determination or forfeiture of it.’ Banks, ‘Thomas Morton,’ 150, 180. 18 Alice had five daughters and two sons. 19 Star Chamber Proceedings, 3 June 1622. George Miller of Swallowfield vs. Thomas Moreton et al Roger Edwards, Thomas Waller Michael Titcombe John Cooke als. Edwardes. Banks, ‘Thomas Morton,’ 171. 20 Abstract of John Phipps vs. George Miller et al., Banks, ‘Thomas Morton’, 155. 21 Banks, ‘Thomas Morton’, 155–56, 188–93. 22 Miller undermined Morton’s character, accusing Morton of being ‘an importunate suitor… [intending] to sho[w] his own cuninge and unlawful ends and to gaine the whole estate to himself.’ Banks, ‘Thomas Morton’, 171. 23 George refused his mother access to Swallowfield’s kitchen facilities and well water, sold off her farm-produce and ‘made a show of being Maister.’ Ibid., 175. 24 Ibid., 167. 25 Star Chamber Proceedings, 3 June 1622. George Miller of Swallowfield vs. Thomas Moreton et al., Roger Edwards, Thomas Waller, Michael Titcombe, John Cooke als. Edwardes. Banks, ‘Thomas Morton,’ 175.

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Morton and Alice became embroiled in bitter litigation with George.26 Eventually, the Chancery Court awarded George and Alice separate farms. The court’s findings matched the legal verity from the start: Morton had ‘nothing in the premisses but in right of his wife…[and] if he should live asunder hee should suffer her to enjoy her own estate.’27 The court underscored Morton’s rather questionable behavior after the law suit, as he ‘sould all her [Alice’s] goode even to her wearing apparel and is fled and cannot be heard of since February.’28 Morton had decided to leave for the New World. He may have felt that after the miscarriage of his first child, his failed effort at making a sound domicile for himself and the resulting legal dispute, he would attempt to revitalize his fortunes through self-reinvention. Thus he elected to join the countless Devonians aspiring to make their American fortunes.29 Unfortunately, George Miller’s hatred came back to haunt Morton, as he spread the erroneous allegation that Morton left to escape a murder charge.30 Morton’s relations with Alice following his departure remain a mystery. There is no record of a planned return or divorce proceedings, and Alice died before his return. Morton’s role as a husband points to how Morton was not afraid to stand up to those who tried to take advantage of him. Moreover, George Miller’s treatment of Morton foreshadowed what would happen in the New World.

Morton as a Colonizer

In addition to his lawyerly credentials, an equally central facet of Morton’s self-fashioning was his dexterity as a colonizer. Morton first arrived in New England in 1625, as a minor partner of Captain Wollaston, in a pri vate colonizing venture.31 In exchange for his legal services, Morton was

26 Ibid., 171–9. 27 Chancery Decrees and Orders, Banks, ‘Thomas Morton,’ 180–8. 28 Ibid., 180–8. 29 Michael Oppenheim, The Maritime History of Devon (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1968), 28. 30 Ranlet, Enemies, 10. 31 It has been asserted by some and denied by others that a patent for land in this region had been granted to Morton and the others. Evidence of a patent was noted in Henry Gardiner’s New England Vindiction (London: 1660), 23. A patent for the settlement was also recorded in a letter written by Samuel Maverick to the Earl of Clarendon, ‘Clarendon Papers’, in New York Historical Society Collections, (1869), 40. On the other hand, in his edition of New English Canaan, Adams denied the existence of the patent, a view that Bradford also endorsed. Charles Francis Adams, Prince Society Edition of New English Canaan, 40.

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provided with transportation and adequate supplies. Humphrey Rastall, a merchant, met the need for workers in Virginia by selling the labor of indentured servants. Both Wollaston and Rastall were dubious characters who had engaged in suspect trading practices. Since the Unity’s basic mission was to supply and develop existing ventures on the land, the marketing of indentured men’s contracts was discretionary with the ship’s controlling officers and agents.32 The Unity with its cargo of indentured servants was originally bound for Virginia, but Rastall diverted it to New England. When Wollaston departed for Virginia with many of the company’s men, Morton persuaded the remaining few to stir themselves up before they were called. Rastall’s character, poor ship rations and other actions must have lessened the men’s faith in him. Moreover, printed accounts and rumors alike depicted the unpleased conditions awaiting Virginia’s indentures. Plymouth had publicized to its disgruntled servants since 1622 that the ‘hostile’ remains of the Powhatan ‘Confederacy’ encir- cled Virginia. Furthermore, in 1613 Spanish visitor Don Diego de Molina reported ‘slavery’ and ‘miserable’ rations in Virginia.33 If Virginia meant a high chance of being worked or bludgeoned to death, it is possible that Morton acted because he wanted to help these young men, mirroring the Inns Masters’ paternal concern for their subjects. Morton’s motives combined his alma mater’s ‘company of equals’ sociality with dispensing advice in his ‘clients’ and his own interests to benefit the trading ventures. Morton mostly persuaded them with examples from the kind of indenture-law that covered other ventures when men ‘broke up’ on the land, and were ‘given liberty to shift for themselves’ until they could re-coordinate with their managers.34 Moreover, cohabitation with American Indian women, trade between the races and cul tures and ‘revelry’ had been everyday elements in the America now being shared by a wide spectrum of peoples. In Native American societies, inter- tribal socializing, marriage and kinship were already the key contexts of trade and material exchange. Fishermen and fur traders had followed suit for 100 years. Morton was aware of this background, and he went further and sought to not only unite different races, but different ‘ranks.’

32 Examples of their contract, the averages servant’s expectations and their rights regarding conditions of life and labor are in Worthington Chauncey Ford, ‘Captain Wollaston, Humphrey Rasdall and Thomas Weston,’ Massachusetts Historical Society Publications, LL (1917–1918), 219–32. 33 Lyon Gardiner Tyler, ed., Narratives of Early Virginia 1606–1625 (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1907), 220. 34 Dempsey, Thomas Morton, 155–6.

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With the help of the other men, Morton overthrew the lieutenant left in charge and seized the plantation. Traditional Pilgrim and Puritan narratives portray Morton’s actions in a negative light: ‘[The Mortonites] thrust Lieutenant Fitcher out…fell to great licentiousness and led a dissolute life.’35 By freeing the servants, Morton’s behavior represented a significant challenge to the New England authorities’ worldview of social order and hierarchy. From a top-down perspective, this was Morton’s first act of dissent in New England and clearly marked him as an ‘outsider.’ However, it must be remembered that Anglicans and Puritans alike referred to God’s placing of each man in the social order as the ‘particular’ or personal calling.36 Thus, Morton’s actions were not solely offensive to Puritans. It is difficult to ascertain why exactly Morton freed the servants. However, we can speculate that whilst all of the players in this drama (except the Native Americans) had English backgrounds, Morton’s particular experiences in the Old World shaped his actions and reaction to this situation. There was a scarcity of food, and Morton as a lawyer, knew that by the terms of their indenture, servants were entitled to sufficient food. According to the law, indentured servants who had been mistreated could even be set free.37 Morton took this, and his experiences at the Inns, to a new level, which in some respects marked a betrayal of contemporary English traditions and social norms. Morton’s actions directly challenged his employers, Humphrey Rastall and Captain Wollaston. Rather than simply reporting the mistreatment of the servants to the appropriate authority, Morton took matters into his own hands and promoted a radical new vision for the New World. A pivotal detail that has been overlooked is that Rastall and Wollaston were attempting to sell the servants into slavery in Virginia. This oversight is more shocking when we consider that even William Bradford described Rastall and Wollaston’s actions in some depth: Captain Wollaston (a man of pretty parts) and with him three or four more of some eminency, who brought with them a great many servants…Having continued there [Mount Wollaston] for some time, and not finding things to answer their expectations nor profit to arise as they looked, Captain

35 Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, Morison ed., 205. 36 Timothy Hall Breen, ‘The Non-Existent Controversy: Puritan and Anglican Attitudes on Work and Wealth, 1600–1640,’ Church History, Vol. 35, No. 3 (Sept., 1966), 272–87. 37 For example, a court in Virginia released one of Rastall’s apprentices whose contract had been violated. Although, laws in Virginia and Massachusetts were not necessarily the same or interpreted in the same way. Ranlet, Enemies, 12.

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Wollaston takes a great part of the servants and transports them to Virginia, where he puts them off a good rates, selling their time to other men. Bradford elaborated that once in Virginia Wollaston ‘writes back to Mr. Rasdall…to bring another part of them to Virginia likewise, intending to put them off there as he had done the rest. And he, with the consent of the said Rasdall, appointed one Fitcher to be his Lieutenant and to govern…till he or Rasdall returned.’ It was at this point Morton stepped in, and even though Bradford’s account is clouded with distaste for Mine Host, he still recorded the basic tenet that Morton told the remaining servants ‘that many of your fellows are carried to Virginia and if you stay till this Rasdall return, you will also be carried away and sold for slaves with the rest.’38 The use of the word ‘slaves’ is significant. In light of this, it seems that Morton freed the servants to prevent them from being sold as slaves. When Europeans colonized the New World, they had multiple ideas of freedom as a collection of rights and privileges, many of which were reserved for a small portion of the population. One important idea of freedom was religious or moral, based on an individual’s decision to subordinate themself to the Christian God. Whilst Morton offered the Book of Common Prayer to a young Native American boy, there is no evidence that he enforced Anglicanism at his settlement. Secular ideas of freedom located liberty in individual obedience to law and acceptance of one’s rank and its duties within a rigid and extensive social hierarchy. This ranged from the urban poor and rural peasants at the bottom, to church officials, hereditary aristocrats and nobles, and kings and other members of the monarchy at the top. Inequality was built into all social relations; the king ruled by divine right, and superiors demanded deference from their social inferiors. In the Old World, few men enjoyed the freedom derived from economic independence, usually land ownership, and property qualifications for voting meant that few men could vote. Morton articulated a very particular vision for the ‘freedom’ that he wanted to bestow on the servants: ‘you will be free from service, and we will converse, plant, trade, and live together as equals and support and protect one another.’ The former servants were ‘free’ to come and go as they pleased, and Morton encouraged them to trade and take advantage of their economic freedom. Even though Bradford described Morton’s prevention of the servants being sold illegally into slavery, it did not prevent him from slighting Morton, ‘[Morton] had little respecte amongst

38 Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, Morison ed., 205.

42 charlotte carrington them [his company], and was sleghted by the meanest servants.’39 In practice, the servants respected Morton’s leadership and by following his direction, they gained their freedom and the settlement made significant economic gain. Morton renamed the settlement Ma-re Mount, and contemporaries and historians alike have deliberated over the name’s spelling and meaning.40 Morton’s settlement is almost never referred to by the name he gave it – Ma-re Mount – meaning mountain by the sea. Ma-re Mount is normally called ‘Merry Mount,’ illustrating the dominance of the Puritan story.41 Morton’s freeing of the servants demonstrates his manifest dissent from the New England authorities, and the nature of his settlement represents his unique vision as a colonizer. Another aspect of Morton’s colonizing persona was his genuine admiration of the New England landscape. Morton’s roots as a West Country gentleman, and his early love of nature and the outdoors, came into their element when he arrived in the ‘land of milk and honey.’ He avowed ‘the more I looked the more I liked it…I did not think that in all the knowne world it could be paralel’d.’42 Morton utilized cosmography to attest which geographical zone was best for human habitation, concluding that New England was the golden meane, the ‘Zone tempera.’43 Canaan repeatedly averred that New England’s fruits, fish or fowl were sweeter, better or big- ger than their Old English counterparts. In spite of Morton’s manifest exaggerations, Canaan is a key source on the natural history of New England. Whilst his descriptions are interesting and include mythological allusions, they are mainly written in an expository and factual manner,

39 Charles Francis Adams, following Bradford’s lead, described Ma-re Mount as the ‘resort of a most lawless class,’ full of ‘desperate characters, runaway servants, criminals.’ Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, Morison ed.; Adams, Three Episodes, 198. 40 In his work Morton used the spelling italicized ‘Ma-re,’ yet when Morton referred to the adjective meaning jovial, it was spelt as ‘merrie’ or ‘merry.’ John P. McWilliams avers that Morton intended the name to imply that the gaiety would last forever, however, some suggest that it was an attempt to goad his neighbors. Others propose that Morton played upon the double meaning of ‘mount’ along with the fourfold connotations of ‘mare.’ Female horse, matrimony, Mother of Christ and joyful. McWilliams, ‘Fictions of Merry Mount,’ 6. 41 For example see Slotkin, Regeneration Through Violence, 61; Vaughan, New England Frontier, 89. 42 The most potent biblical precedent of colonization resulting in profit was that of the Israelites entering the land of Canaan. Morton, New English Canaan, Dempsey ed., 53. 43 Writers of all religious opinions used the Canaan simile and they used it with care, as it involved two aspects. Firstly, that the Israelites were given a land flowing with milk and honey, with its allusion of a better life, and secondly, the assignment of the Canaanites to the ranks of people without rights, open to termination. Karen Kupperman, Settling with the Indians. The meeting of English and Indian Cultures in America, 1580–1640 (London: Rowman and Littlefield, 1980), 166–7; Morton, New English Canaan, Dempsey ed., 9–13, 91.

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which emphasizes Morton’s detailed knowledge and the seriousness of his commercial interest.44

Morton as an Entrepreneurial Trader

Morton was an active trader, which was directly linked to his role as a colonizer. By freeing the servants and making them economic and social equals, Morton demonstrated a laudable humanitarian side and con siderable financial vision. The fur-trade yielded returns of 600 to 700 per cent over the following four years.45 Whilst Ma-re Mount prospered, the Pilgrims struggled with their increasing debt to the English merchants.46 Charles Francis Adams mistakenly asserts that Morton’s aims in the New World were twofold, firstly to enjoy himself and secondly to profit, and he was ‘restrained by no scruples.’ In practice, Morton was not reckless in obtaining profit; his returns exemplify his astute planning.47 Evidently, Morton was determined in his quest for profit, but it is erroneous to charge him with lack of scruples. Such a contention forgets the Saints’ own lack of scruples in quelling rivals. Moreover, if Morton’s aims were simply enjoy- ment and profit, why did he free the servants from a life of slavery, a business venture he stood to gain significantly from? Morton’s supposed gun trade also caused problems. Native Americans were keen to acquire guns, and Morton’s pious neighbors believed that Morton ordered more guns from England for the Native Americans. Morton himself neither admitted nor denied the charge. In 1629 they inventoried Morton’s possessions, but uncovered only two guns, probably his personal weapons.48 In contrast to the absence of guns, nine pounds of gunpowder and a substantial supply of bullets and lead were discovered, along with tools used in the melting of lead into bullets. This was probably just a year’s supply for the two guns that Morton had, which he presumably needed to defend his settlement. The authorities took a different

44 Morton, New English Canaan, Dempsey ed., 55. 45 John P. McWilliams ambitiously estimates that this could have translated to as much as £1,000 per indentured servant. McWilliams, ‘Fictions of Merry Mount,’ 5. 46 Morton stated that the ‘The Separatists, envying the prosperity and hope of the plantation at Ma-re Mount [and] because Mine Host was a man that endeavored to advance the dignity of the Church of England…they resolved what he should suffer.’ Morton, New English Canaan, Dempsey ed., 141–2. 47 Adams, Three Episodes, Vol. I., 175, 195. 48 Worthington Chauncy Ford, ‘Morton of Merry Mount: Paid for Th: Morton,’ Massachusetts Historical Society, Vol. 45 (1911–12), 643.

44 charlotte carrington view, and remained convinced that Morton was trading guns, and Bradford worried that ‘neighbours and friends are daily killed by the Indians, or are in danger thereof and live but at the Indians’ mercy.’49 William Bradford was angry that Morton ‘employed some of them to hunt and fowl for him’ and that ‘the natives…can use [guns] with great dexterity, excelling our English therein.’50 Bradford stated that if something was not done about Morton’s gun trading ‘we shall be forced to quit the country, to our great grief.’51 Many scholars simply accept the Pilgrim contention that Morton was putting the plantation in grave danger. According to Charles Francis Adams, Morton ‘imperilled the very existence of the infant settlements.’52 Alden Vaughan maintains that it was Plymouth’s ‘duty’ to behave ‘respon- sibly’ as the sole party in the region capable of ‘interracial diplomacy’ (Vaughan’s phrase for keeping guns solely on the European side.)53 David Bushnell also accepts Plymouth’s view and exposition at face value.54 John McWilliams concurs, stating it was the ‘danger’ poised by his gun trading that was really behind the clash.55 Richard Drinnon avers that the ‘least trumped up and most serious [charge] of all…was that he sold guns to the Indians.’56 James Philips accepted both the fact that Morton traded guns, and the danger they poised: ‘but worse of all they [Morton’s company] took to selling firearms to the Indians and teaching them how to use them. This was a real danger.’57 Claudia Durst Johnson maintains that ‘the Puritans had some legitimate complaints against the Merry Mounters,’ who proffered ‘liquor and guns to the natives.’58 However, even if Morton did take his socializing with the American Indians too far and trade contraband items, he was simply maintaining long-established traditions and ones that would continue long after his death.59 In terms of worldly gain, Morton’s selling of guns can be seen as

49 Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, Morison, ed. 207. 50 ‘Bradford to Sir Ferdinando Gorges’ (June 1628) in ‘Governor Bradford’s Letter Book’ Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, 1 series, Vol. III (1794), 17; Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, Morison ed., 207. 51 ‘Bradford To the Right Honourable, his Majesty’s Council for New England’ (June 1628), Watches ed., ‘Governor Bradford’s Letter Book,’ 206. 52 Adams, Three Episodes, Vol. 1., 198. 53 Vaughan, New England Frontier, 89–90. 54 Bushnell, ‘The Treatment of the Indians,’ 201. 55 McWilliams, ‘Fictions of Merry Mount,’ 7. 56 Drinnon, Facing West, 12. 57 Phillips, Salem in the Seventeenth Century, 33. 58 Claudia Durst Johnson, Daily Life in Colonial New England (Westport, CT., and London: Greenwood, 2002), 130. 59 Morton, New English Canaan, Dempsey ed., 17.

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an extension of his trading skills and economic awareness. Morton asser ted that the 1622 Royal Proclamation did not have the force of law. Morton, in typical Inns of Court fashion, argued in 1627 that ‘the king [is] dead and his displeasure with him.’60 The emphasis of ancient constitutionalism should not be overlooked here. In practice, Morton’s claim does hold some truth, as in order to enforce King James’ proclamation, the Plymouth magistrates would have had recourse to King Charles’ Star Chamber; the last tribunal they would have wanted to appeal to. In Canaan, Morton admitted to selling liquor to the Native Americans, but only to sachems. Morton scorned individuals who freely traded alcohol, and lamented how ‘a Salvage desperately killed himself when he was drunk.’61 This does not mean that Morton and his company did not indulge in drinking, as his encouragement to ‘Drink and be merry’ testifies. However, drunkenness was reported all over New England, from the fishing stations in Maine to the residence halls of Harvard. In the worst possible light, Morton’s trading of guns and liquor made the competition with his neighbors unfair, but it certainly was not a moral error, in Morton’s eyes. Furthermore, even if Morton did provide the American Indians with guns, they were simply not the threat that the Pilgrims made out.62 Thus Plymouth advertised its actions in the name of communal safety, but it actually stood in no immediate danger. The Pilgrims, who proved adept at self-serving literary fabrication, were happy to stress the apparent ‘danger’ Morton was causing, if it led to his arraignment. This treatment was not limited to Morton, and the Wessaguset settlers were treated in a similar fashion. As Karen Kupperman notes, Morton himself wrote indignantly of the affair and Plymouth’s hidden motive of protecting the fur trade by killing the Native Americans.63

60 William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, Worthington Chauncey Ford ed. (Boston, MA: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1912), Vol. II, 55. 61 Morton, New English Canaan, Dempsey ed., 47. 62 It was unlikely that the Native American Indians would have destroyed the English plantations, and ultimately they failed to grasp the European notion of total war. Karen Kupperman has explored this notion in more detail. Kupperman, ‘Thomas Morton: Historian,’ 663. 63 Recently, historians including Francis Jennings, George Willison and Karen Kupperman have challenged the traditional interpretation, concluding that Winslow constructed the conspiracy story after the event, in an attempt to justify the colonists’ conduct to supporters in England. Kupperman, ‘Thomas Morton, Historian,’ 660–4; Francis Jennings, The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest (Chapel Hill, NC., The University of North Carolina Press, 1975); George F. Willison, Saints and Strangers: The Story of the Mayflower and the Plymouth Colony, rev. ed. (London: Transaction Publishers, 1966), 122–31.

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Morton was concerned with local trade with American Indians and exchanges as far-off as the Canary Islands, believing the English should be prompt in their exploitation of natural resources to prevent the Dutch from winning the trade ‘race.’ Morton wanted to build upon the existing wealth of nature, creating a great city fed by the milk and honey of the hills. His advertisement for New England depicted a place that was already well settled with diverse ‘staffage,’ including the American Indians, adven- turers, traders, servants and comical Puritans, such as Master Bubble, Captain Littleworth and Captain Shrimp. However, Morton felt that the ‘Christians’ had not made the most of the landscape in commercial and cultural terms. Morton’s aim to entice other like-minded Englishmen to migrate elucidates why Book II of Canaan is full of detailed accounts of the value and usefulness of the landscape and wildlife.64 Morton sought to correct previous surveys that were ‘superficiall’ and had ‘laboured to keepe both the practice of the people there, and the Reall worth of that eminent Country concealed from publicke knowledge.’65 Whilst Morton aspired to undermine previous reports (notably William Wood’s), he also wanted to provide a detailed and accurate account. Through self-fashioning as a ‘truth-teller’ Morton, the mercantilist and colonizer, utilized his book to expound his view for the evolution of the colonies.66 Morton saw his role in binary terms: he had to import the ambience of the metropolis, whilst exporting back a true depiction of New England and its potential. Morton wanted to create a ‘City Upon a hill,’ but his was a more practical vision, based upon commerce, in contrast to Winthrop’s vision for a biblical haven. Morton wanted to bring the mercantile buzz of the metropolis to his settlement. Although Morton was born in the West Country and was a keen outdoorsman, he was obviously influenced by his time in London. Whilst Winthrop’s hub was the meetinghouse, Morton’s nexus was his maypole and trading center. Morton wanted to create a fixed point for people who were passing through, a site for eating, drinking, sleeping and transacting business. Its lingua franca was the exchange of goods and services, and its promise of hospitality was inextricably linked to the dynamics of trade. Thus Morton’s ‘Canaan’ was not simply a utopian (or

64 Connors, Thomas Morton, 69. 65 Morton, New English Canaan, Dempsey ed., 3. 66 Round discusses the place of ‘truth-telling’ in the dialogue between Old and New England. Phillip H. Round, By Nature and By Custom Cursed: Transatlantic Civil Discourse and New England Cultural Production, 1620–1660 (Hanover, NH: Tufts, 1999).

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dystopian) antithesis to Winthrop’s vision, it was tribute to Old England’s capital.67 Morton’s role as a trader was intricately entwined with his colonizing aims, lawyerly training and his love of Old English culture. This again highlights that Morton is precisely of interest because of the different identities that he upheld, and their malleable nature.

Morton as a Royalist Purveyor of Old English Culture

Running through Morton’s aims as a colonizer and trader in the New World is his role as a royalist who sought to bring the culture of ‘Merry’ ‘Old’ England across the Atlantic. One of his most cited legacies is the May Day celebration of 1627, which was held to mark the coming of spring, the increasing trade and the renaming of the settlement. From the Puritan perspective, the revels manifestly marked Morton as an interloper. The festivities were characterized by the traditional pastimes of Merry England: drinking, dancing and frolicking around the maypole. Morton averred that the merrymaking was ‘harmlesse follie of the time…[it was a] lamentable spectacle to the precise separatists…They termed it an Idoll…threatning to make it a woefull mount and not a merry mount.’68 Conversely, William Bradford argued the event marked a fall into ‘great licenciousness’ and Morton emerged as the ‘Lord of Misrule.’69 Richard Stern belittles Ma-re Mount’s trading success, labeling it a ‘kind of Bohemian trading post.’70 One can argue that whilst Morton and his company enjoyed Old English revels, there was a more serious agenda. The maypole, dance and song all aimed to entice Native Americans and European traders to Ma-re Mount. In both Old and New England, economics were moving from a traditional and geographical locatable market place to a more ‘abstract’ system. Thus the eighty-foot maypole, a ‘fair sea mark for directions’ was part of Morton’s plan to establish Ma-re Mount as a lucrative and successful trading post. Morton, of course, refers to himself throughout Canaan as ‘Mine-Host,’ the welcoming proprietor of such an establishment. The maypole served as a beacon for coastal trading vessels and trans-Atlantic ships. He sought to attract New England’s oldest traders with a symbol of the carnivalesque Elizabethan fashion,

67 David Read, New World, Known World: Shaping Knowledge in Early Anglo-American Writing (Colombia, MO., and London: University of Missouri, 2005), 71–93. 68 Morton, New English Canaan, Dempsey ed., 136. 69 Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, Morison ed., 48. 70 Sterne, ‘Puritans at Merry Mount,’ 847.

48 charlotte carrington a recognizable community-based market place.71 Here again Morton’s shrewd business brain emerges behind the May 1627 revelry. Morton’s company used forms of court masque, such as the Lord of Misrule, country-dance and the maypole, as literal staging for their business. The celebrations offered a chance to attain closer trading status with the Native Americans, who also embraced festive ritual, elaborate dress, symbolic markers and music.72 Early fur traders had already learned that the Native Americans expected a certain amount of entertainment to accompany business transactions. In 1603 Martin Pring reported that a young man from their company played the guitar while the American Indians ‘danced twentie in a Ringe, and the Gitterne in the middest of them, using many Savage gestures, singing lo, la, lo, la, la, lo.’73 Morton was not alone in raising a maypole, and in 1622 upon arrival at Damariscove Island in Maine, Phineas Pratt found the men ‘that belong to the ship, ther fishing, had newly set up a may pole & weare very mery.’74 The maypole stood at the center of a cultural, political and religious battle that raged throughout the early-modern Atlantic World. Whilst the Plymouth Separatists disagreed with the Massachusetts Bay Puritans about whether English culture and religion could be reformed, they both concurred that the maypole, which epitomized the culture of Merry England, was incompatible with their mission. For Morton, maypole revelry served as a symbolic acknowledgement of the Crown’s transatlantic authority and was part of his identity as a trader. To its proponents, the maypole symbolized all that was good in traditional society. Like church ales, Whitsun processions and football, maypole reveling had been an intrinsic part of the communal sociability of English villages since the

71 Shannon Miller, ‘Consuming Mothers/Consuming Merchants: The Carnivalesque Economy of Jacobean City Comedy,’ Modern Language Studies, Vol. XXVI (1996), 53–72. 72 It is probable that other outsiders, such as Samuel Maverick, William Blackstone, David Thompson and William Jeffreys, along with fishermen, merchants, sailors and trap- pers also came to Ma-re Mount. Dempsey. Thomas Morton, 194. 73 Additionally, Edward Hayes, on Humphrey Gilbert’s 1583 voyage, reported that ‘for solace of our people, and allurement of the savages, we were provided of Musike in good variety: not omitting the least toyes as Morris-dancers, Hobby-horse, and Maylike conceits, to delight the Savage people, whom we intended to winne by all faire meanes possible.’ Martin Pring, ‘The Voyage of Martin Pring 1603,’ in Early English and French Voyages, 1534– 1608 Chiefly from Hakluyt, Henry S. Burrage ed., (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1906), 347; Edward Hayes, ‘A Report of the Voyages of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Knight, 1583,’ in Early English and French Voyages, 1534–1603, Henry S. Burrage, ed., (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1932), 192. 74 Phineas Pratt, ‘A Declaration of the Affairs of the English People that First Inhabited New England,’ Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 4th series, 4 (1858), 478.

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Middle Ages. Maypoles were a royalist symbol in England, and during the English Civil War Puritan military defeats were often celebrated by erecting maypoles. Furthermore, when Charles II was restored to the throne, maypoles were put up in observance.75 Whilst not denying the importance of the maypole, it is wrong to suggest, as Phillip Round does, that ‘in placing the maypole episode at the centre of his polemic, Morton shaped his account in such a way as to diminish the unappealing aspects of his colony (rampant individualism, selfishness, protodemocracy) by deflecting his argument into cultural politics.’ Round’s interpretation suggests that Morton was abashed, or even ashamed, by his individualism and mercantilist identity.76 Furthermore, to imply that Ma-re Mount was epitomized by ‘selfishness’ is erroneous; Morton sought to trade, plant and live as equally as possible. His virtuous neighbors, who clung to the stability of the English hierarchy of ‘sorts,’ perceived this to be a sign of degeneration.77 If we view Morton on his own terms, he aspired to be a trader, royalist, colonizer and purveyor of Old English culture simultaneously. These facets were at the crux of his multifaceted identity, and they were also at the core of why the New England authorities wanted to return Morton across the Atlantic.

Morton as a Poet and Author

New English Canaan tells Morton’s side of the clash and also exemplifies his complex identities that changed according to his purpose and location. Moreover, Morton’s use of the ornate stylistic preferences of the Cavaliers illustrates how American colonial writing was often produced against the backdrop of the English literary landscape. Morton’s stylistic tendencies varied from chapter to chapter, according to his particular aim. In places, Canaan brims with farce, spectacle, irony and wit. It contains laudable pictorial detail, pastoral imagery and stimulating references to Classical and Biblical literature.78

75 Round, By Nature and By Custom Cursed, 177, 273, 275, 283; Christopher Hill, Society and Puritanism in Pre-Revolutionary England (New York: St. Martin’s Press 1964), 184–6; David Underdown, Revel, Riot, and Rebellion: Popular Politics and Culture in England, 1603– 1660 (Oxford: Oxford Paperbacks, 1987). 76 Round, By Nature and By Custom Cursed, 49–51. 77 Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, 33; Adams, Three Episodes, Vol. 1, 240. 78 Dempsey and Connors concur that the metaphorical language, perplexing nick- names, opaque language and absence of dates veil the historical information within Canaan. On the other hand, like many Renaissance works, these allusions add to the lively nature of the report. Dempsey, Thomas Morton, 283–9; Connors, Thomas Morton, 82, 90.

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Morton’s writing was influenced by his time at the Inns, both by the official legal training and the extramural cultural environment. By acknow ledging the influence of other Inns fellows, we are able to read Canaan in a new light. Throughout the era, countless poets and poetaster from the Inns produced lewd doggerels and acerbic parodies.79 Jokes at the law and sex were part of the Inns’ culture, which ripple through Canaan. Morton’s contemporary, Ben Jonson had a flare for lyrics and lampooning, which influenced Canaan. In addition, John Donne’s erotic Elegies foreshadowed figures in Morton’s ‘Author’s Prologue.’ Thomas Lodge, almost twenty years Morton’s senior, also inspired Mine-Host.80 Lodge’s defense of entertainment and open challenge to its antagonists influenced Morton’s views, and foreshadowed his defiance in New England. Morton also learned much from Lodge’s poetic style, applying it to ‘The Poem’ in New English Canaan.81 Morton’s style provides an interesting contrast to William Bradford’s. Both works are highly rhetorical, but whereas Bradford used rhetoric to magnify God and humbly to minimize his poor persecuted people, Morton used it to satirize those same people and flaunt the superiority of his own wit and learning. Canaan can be termed ‘propaganda’ on two counts; firstly, the idyllic portrait of the land and the small number and hospitable nature of the Native Americans was intended to entice other Englishmen to enjoy the fruits of the New World. It was also an appeal to the Church of England’s leaders to pioneer a missionary attempt. One cannot escape this ‘propaganda’ and the fact that Morton did contrast the inhumanity of the Saints with the humanity of the Native Americans, yet his praise for the New World was genuine. Secondly, Morton’s satirical portrait of the New England Godly and the serious allegations made against them, were evidently intended to cultivate mockery and aid cessation of the charter. However, Book III’s final chapters are especially serious.82 In Book III

79 David Riggs, Ben Jonson: A Life (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 56; Robert Bald, John Donne: A Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970), 122. 80 Thomas Lodge’s ‘Reply,’ in defense of entertainments staged at the Inns and London’s public theatres, had already been produced when Morton met him. Lodge was resisting an ever-increasing antipathy towards arts and diversions. 81 Morton, New English Canaan, Dempsey ed., 130–8; Thomas Lodge, The Complete Works of Thomas Lodge (Glasgow: Hunterian Club, 1883). 82 Chapters 1–6 relate Morton’s account of New England events before his own arrival, beginning with Samoset’s and Squanto’s March approaches to Plymouth’s Pilgrims. Chapters 2–6 also detail Morton’s report of the ‘Weymouth affair’ of 1622–1623. Chapter 7 relates Morton’s American experiences as of 1624. Following this, 24 chapters describe events during his first exile (1628–1629, chapter 16) and second exile (1630–1645, chapters 23–31).

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Morton offered various ad hominem arguments in his indictment against key Pilgrim and Puritan characters, by using insinuation and forthright allegation.83 Aiming to enrage Archbishop Laud, Morton listed the twelve tenets of the Separatists’ beliefs and practices, concluding with the personal jibe that ‘they wink when they pray, because they think them selves so perfect in the high way to heaven that they can find it blindfold.’84 There are also explicit examples to support Morton’s claim that Plymouth and Massachusetts were imposing severe judgments on individual wrongdoers and were attempting to throw off allegiance to the mother country.85 Canaan, like the Renaissance itself, was breaking new ground that revived older bodies of knowledge, which had been hidden beneath Christian and English (particularly Puritan) supremacy and self-entitle- ment. Jack Dempsey argues that beyond the literary breakthrough in the presentation of American facts and standpoints, Morton had few serious practical proposals to offer, beyond the call for a general governor in New England; he offered only a specious wager that the familiar evangelical mission to follow up the conquest would fail.86 Dempsey’s interpretation neglects the important practical proposals that Morton offered for the use of New England’s commodities, his practice of living in a forward-thinking settlement, his pioneering trading skills and the very practical effect he put his legal skills to. Morton’s book was a genuine (and almost successful) effort to bring to pass the threat that he had made around the May pole and to attempt to set the record straight. Canaan is a valuable historical source, as the Wessagusset affair illustrates, and also offers a positive, detailed and accurate description of the New World and its Native American inhabitants. Throughout Canaan Morton sought to convince his English readers that he was better equipped to serve their national interests, rather than his Pilgrim and Puritan rivals. Morton was not the only person to challenge the Puritans and Pilgrims by writing a witty book brimming with allusion and allegory. An ‘armchair’

83 Episodes involving merchants, sachems, roguish planters, disgraced clerics, merry- makers and harsh distributors of root-and-branch justice between 1621 and 1634 are described in Book III. The first half of Book III examines the events that led up to Morton’s first banishment in 1628, and in this section a negative depiction of Puritan New England is offered, with the spectacle of the Mayday revels set in contrast to the dark and Stygian land. The later half of Book III examines events that happened between 1629 and 1634. 84 Morton commented that anyone who did not accept those tenets ‘they say is a very reprobate’. Morton, New English Canaan, Dempsey ed., 186–88. 85 Ibid., 177–80, 189–90. 86 Dempsey, Thomas Morton, 283.

52 charlotte carrington view of Boston was proffered by Englishman Edward Ward. A Trip to New- England observed that in Boston a ‘meritorious Christian’ was someone who ‘betrays his neighbour to a whipping post.’87 Whilst both Morton and Ward wrote disparagingly of the Puritans, there is a fundamental difference between the two authors. Ward, unlike Morton, never visited the land where his story was set. Unsurprisingly, both Morton and Ward’s books were not well received by the New England authorities. William Bradford described Canaan as ‘an infamouse and scurrilous booke against many godly and cheefe men of the cuntrie; full of lyes and slanders.’88 In contrast, Samuel Maverick, a West Country man, ‘Church of England’ aficionado and ‘gentleman of good estate’ dubbed Canaan ‘the truest discription of New England as then it was that euer I saw.’89 According to David Read, Canaan had ‘minuscule impact in the seventeenth century… In his own lifetime, Morton’s public success, as such, was…in getting himself thrown out of the colony. It was not achieved as an author.’90 Read’s view not only fails to appreciate Canaan’s impact, but it does not consider Canaan in its transatlantic context. By viewing Morton in a context that encompasses the British Atlantic, it is clear that at once he was both backed by Sir Ferdinando Gorges and the Laudian establishment, but also persecuted by the New England establishment. This conceptualization of Morton underscores the undecided and uncertain nature of author ity in the seventeenth century, which changed depending on time and location.

Morton as Envoy to Native Americans

Morton’s dealings with (and descriptions of) the American Indians underscore many of the key tenets of his own life. Morton was impressed with the Native American way of life, and did not simply use it as a referent culture to belittle Puritan mores. Canaan is an important ethnographical resource about the coastal Algonquians, and the first volume covers their

87 Edward Ward probably cobbled his tome together from earlier published travelogues, most notably The London Spy. Edward Ward, A Trip to New-England, With a Character of the Country and People, both English and Indians (London: 1699). 88 Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, Morison ed., 217. 89 John Josselyn commented that Maverick was the ‘only hospitable man in all the country, giving entertainment to all comers gratis.’ John Josselyn, An Account of Two Voyages to New England (London: 1672), 12; Samuel Maverick, ‘The Clarendon Papers,’ Letter to the Earl of Clarendon, New York Historical Collections (1869), 40–1. 90 Read, New World, Known World, 71–93.

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ancestors, language, beliefs, chieftains, hospitable nature, lifestyle and much more. Morton was an agent for empire and he viewed the Native Americans through the lens of his own English culture, claiming in true ‘Noble Savage’ language: ‘where two Nations meete, one must rule, and the other be ruled before a peace can be hoped for: and for a Christian to submit to the rule of a Salvage…is both shame and dishonor…and my practice was accordingly.’ His ethnocentrism, however, did not prevent him from being interested in Native American life. He was open to what the Native Americans could teach him, without losing his identity in reverse assimilation.91 Morton felt that the people of ‘civilized’ nations could learn from the Native Americans: ‘they pass away the time merrily, not regarding our pomp…but are better content with their own, which some men esteem so meanly of.’92 Morton argued that the American Indians were superior to England’s lower orders, who were languishing and idling. Conversely, the Native Americans demonstrated an entrepreneurial spirit that Morton saw within himself. Even if the objectivity and accuracy of a handful of Morton’s observations about the Native Americans are questionable and speculative, this does not undermine the overall informed nature of the report. The vast majority of his comments were made through personal encounter, or in consultation with other men of authority. Morton offered concrete examples, a broad spectrum of information and impressive detail, resulting in a vivid picture of Native American life. He invited the reader to ‘observe whether the Salvage people are not full of humanity, or whether they are a dangerous people as Master Bubble and the rest of his tribe would persuade you.’93 The powerful metaphor in ‘The Poem’ conveys Morton’s view of the land and American Indians.94 Detailed literary analysis of both ‘The Poem’ and ‘The Song’ has been undertaken by Jack Dempsey and Edith Murphy,

91 Morton was not the only reporter at the time to write in such depth about the Native American Indians’ way of life, and excellent detail was also offered by William Wood, John Josselyn, John Smith, Roger Williams, Edward Winslow and the anonymous Relation of Maryland. Whilst all of the authors sought to transmit what they perceived to be an accurate picture of Indian life, their works varied significantly, depending upon the interests, style and priorities of the author. 92 Thomas Hariot, like Morton, suggested the Native American Indians were ‘content with their state and livinge frendlye together’ and thus had long and healthy lives. Thomas Hariot, A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia (London: 1588), 423; Morton, New English Canaan, Dempsey ed., 50. 93 Morton, New English Canaan, Dempsey ed., 129. 94 Ibid., 135–6.

54 charlotte carrington and will not be attempted here.95 Morton’s attitude towards the plague presents modern readers with a paradox. Is it possible to reconcile the man who was pleased that the Native Americans had been wiped out, with the man who extolled their humanity and lifestyle? Ultimately, Morton’s attitude was influenced by his aims. One of Morton’s principal aspirations remained to promote the settlement of New England with likeminded Englishmen, and the sweeping away of the Native Americans aided this. At the same time, Morton believed that it was advantageous that some American Indians were left to impart their excellent abilities as husbandmen of the land. Color symbolism was important to seventeenth-century Englishmen.96 Morton, like other commentators, believed that American Indian infants were ‘of complexion white as our nation,’ and their darker color was produced by dipping infants in a bath of walnut leaves and husks that ‘will staine their skinne for ever.’97 The Native Americans were naturally white like the English, and therefore part of a similar racial stock.98 Morton, like William Wood, suggested that the American Indians’ dress was more suited to the New England climate and that they should not be encouraged to discard their traditional attire.99 Since clothes were the most import ant badge of identity for seventeenth-century Englishmen, Morton and Wood were advocating a significant policy change. Firstly, they were defending Native American methods of dressing as being well suited to the New England environment. Secondly, they were suggesting that the Native Americans were members of a separate culture, which should not be eradicated thoughtlessly. Morton believed that the American Indians were descended from the ‘scattered Trojans.’ Morton stated ‘Sir Christopher Gardiner, Knight… [and] David Tompson, a Scottish gentleman…(both Scholars and Travelers

95 Morton’s three objectives, to encourage English settlement, to teach the settlers to learn from the Native American Indians and to convince the English authorities of the ineptitude of the Pilgrims and Puritans, came together in an elaborate metaphor in ‘The Poem: Rise Oedipus.’ Dempsey, Thomas Morton; Murphy, “‘A Rich Widow,”’ 755–68; Morton, New English Canaan, Dempsey ed., 35–138. 96 It was important that the Native American Indians were not described as black, which was perceived to be the antithesis of purity, virtue and goodness. Don Cameron Allen, ‘Symbolic Color in the Literature of the English Renaissance,’ Philological Quarterly, Vol. 15 (1936), 81–3. Red was not used to describe the skin color of the Native American Indians before the end of the seventeenth century. Morton and his contemporaries can be acquitted of racism. For an interesting view see Drinnon, Facing West, xvi-xvii. 97 Morton, New English Canaan, Dempsey ed., 27. 98 Kupperman, Settling with the Indians, 36–7. 99 Morton, New English Canaan, Dempsey ed., 25–6.

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that were diligent in taking notice of these things)’ endorsed his theory. Notably both Gardiner and Tompson were ‘outsiders’ too.100 Morton, unlike Roger Williams and John Eliot, was willing to advocate classical origins for the Native Americans. This was because Williams and Eliot were steeped in Scripture, and refused to move away from a biblical origin. It is clear that the commentators’ backgrounds and beliefs were pivotal to their interpretation of the Native Americans. Canaan proposed that the American Indians had no religion, as it was too incomplete to be described as a religion.101 Morton felt that it was wrong to accept Native American religion, without fully understanding what it was.102 However, he offered one of the fullest descriptions of Native American religion.103 Morton can be compared to other contemporary writers in his description, but not his interpretation.104 Morton found much to admire in the American Indians, particularly their hospitality and humanity.105 Roger Williams, who also suffered at the hands of Puritan ‘justice,’ concurred with Morton that ‘I have found the Massachusetts Indians more full of humanity than the Christians, and have had much better quarter with them.’106 Morton contrasted the generosity of the Native Americans to that of the other English settlers. He was dismayed at his New England rivals’ failure to allow ‘carnal’ men like himself to bring ‘a little fresh victuals’ to weak new colonists, who were not witnessed members of church congregations.107 Morton, who was constantly aware of whether people around him were well fed, looked back to his time at Clifford’s Inn and found this an insult to his lifetime’s

100 He supported his findings with linguistic evidence that the Native Americans originated from around the Tropic of Cancer and had formerly worshiped the God Pan. Morton, New English Canaan, Dempsey ed., 14–18. 101 Morton stated that ‘I am more willing to believe that the Elephants (which are reported to be the most intelligible of all beasts) do worship the moon.’ Morton supported his view by referring to Sir William Alexander’s Encouragement to Colonies and by citing linguistic evidence that the American Indians once worshipped Pan, but now worshipped nothing. Morton, New English Canaan, Dempsey ed., 23–4; William Alexander, An encouragement to colonies (London: 1624), 54. 102 Adams, Prince Society Edition of New English Canaan, 139–40. 103 He described their knowledge of God ‘historically,’ their beliefs about the creation of man and his fall from grace, a universal flood in which most of mankind died and their views on the afterlife. He commented on their chief God, Kytan (as did many other European observers), who he considered to be the sun, and he believed that their priests (‘weak witches’) produced miracles. Ibid., 42–3. 104 Ibid., 29–31. 105 Morton, New English Canaan, Dempsey ed., 21–2. 106 Roger Williams, A Key into the Language of America (London: 1643), 16; Morton, New English Canaan, Dempsey ed., 113. 107 Morton, New English Canaan, Dempsey ed., 125–6.

56 charlotte carrington pursuit of neighborly reciprocity. Mine-Host was not the only Englishman to vex the Pilgrims with his attitude towards the Native Americans. William Bradford described Edward Ashley, a fur trader from Maine, as ‘a very profane young man, and had for some time lived among the Indians as a savage and went naked amongst them and used their manners.’ Ashley ‘committed uncleanness with Indian women,’ and he was detai ned for ‘trading powder and shot with the Indians’ and ‘sent home a prisoner.’108 The Godly were concerned with Morton’s apparent sexual dissipation. From a top-down perspective, Morton paraded his amorous escapades, essentially keeping an open house for Native American women. The Saints were aghast at what they perceived as the potential presage for the down- fall of European civility. According to Michael Zuckerman, ‘Morton’s offense was that he met the natives in a…more erotic mode’ than his neighbors. John Seelye has extended this theory to Canaan, describing it as ‘geopolitical pornography.’109 On the other hand, Morton’s references to American Indian woman were not always in a sensual manner. For example, Morton seemed sympathetic when describing an incident concerning a child of mixed blood, ‘this childe the father desired might have an English name because of the likeness of his eyes, which his father had in admiration because of novelty amongst their nation.’110 Kupperman asserts that the ideal version of the English-Native American relationship involved a tutelary relationship, with the English instructing and shaping the American Indians and their culture.111 However, although Morton offered the Book of Common Prayer to the Native Americans, he never attempted to make them dependent upon him, and he accepted their separate culture and the usefulness of that culture. Morton viewed the Native Americans in a pragmatic way: they were valuable trading, sexual and colonizing partners. Whilst the English would ultimately rule, Morton embraced the changes and independence that the New World offered, and aspired to live in the most equal society possible at the time.112

108 Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, Morison ed., 217. 109 Zuckerman, ‘Pilgrims in the Wilderness,’ 264–5; Seelye, Prophetic Waters, 170. 110 Morton, New English Canaan, Dempsey ed., 27. 111 Kupperman, Settling With the Indians, 170. 112 Richard White clarified the meaning of the middle ground, averring that he was trying to describe a process that arose from the ‘willingness of those who…[sought] to justify their own actions in terms of what they perceived to be their partner’s cultural premises.’ The actors sought out cultural ‘congruences, either perceived or actual,’ that ‘often seemed – and, indeed, were – results of misunderstandings or accidents.’ The middle ground was

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Morton as a Simultaneous Dissenter in New England and Upholder of Authority in Old England

William Bradford failed to concur with Morton about the reasons for Morton’s first arrest. According to Bradford, the authorities sought to stop Morton from trading guns. In contrast, Morton argued that Plymouth wanted to eliminate his successful beaver trade and practice of Anglican ism. Morton refused to accept James I’s Proclamation on the ‘illicit’ gun trade, and Plymouth resolved that ‘ther[e] was no way but to take him by force.’113 Spring 1628 witnessed no second (recorded) May Day revels, but in June, Captain Myles Standish and approximately eight men moved in on Plymouth’s behalf. Morton’s account of his capture is full of comedy, especially in the caricatures he draws. Morton maintained that he surrendered to avoid bloodshed, and no casualties are mentioned.114 In contrast, Bradford suggested that the Mortonites were too inebriated to put up a fight.115 No vessels passed through Plymouth during the summer of 1628, thus Morton was marooned on the Isle of Shoals. Morton’s company remained ‘free’ between his first and second arrests, suggesting that there must have been some hesitancy on the Pilgrims’ part that protected the former servants from immediate dispersal and reassignment. Thus Plymouth may have grudgingly recognized that Morton was acting within the law, and expected that he would return to his men, property and business with tacit support from court and council. By simply leaving Mine-Host on the Isle of Shoals, awaiting an outward-bound vessel and facing the spring weather with only ‘the thin suit’ on his back and only his bare hands to defend himself, the Plymouth authorities were hoping that he would either die or quit.116 After marooning Morton, the Plymouth authorities realized that their actions were questionable, and strove to avoid giving the English government further cause to vent fury on them.117 However, they could not fetch Morton back, and they most likely asked a group of Native Americans to deliver supplies.

thus a process of mutual and creative misunderstandings. Richard White, The middle ground, Indians, empire and republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Richard White, ‘Creative Misunderstandings and New Understandings,’ William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 63, No. 1 (January, 2006), 1–5. 113 Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, Adams and Ford, eds., Vol. II, 55. 114 Morton, New English Canaan, Dempsey ed., 143–6. 115 Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, Morison ed., 209–10. 116 Morton, New English Canaan, Dempsey ed., 148. 117 Dempsey, Thomas Morton, 209.

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After several months, a ship (also bearing John Oldham, a Plymouth affiliated planter and business agent) picked Morton up, and he was deported back to England for trial.118 Accordingly, the Council for New England tried Morton in London for selling guns to the Native Americans, a tactical error as the Governor of the Council was Sir Ferdinando Gorges. Gorges was a comrade of Archbishop Laud, and an impecunious Anglican Knight, who yearned for New England to be granted as his private fiefdom, purified of the Pilgrims. Gorges was the founder of Maine and very influential. By embracing the role of the devout Anglican, and upholding that his only felony had been to read the Book of Common Prayer, Morton used his dexterous legal abilities to pursue an effective defense strategy to ensure he was cleared. Whilst in England Mine-Host helped Isaac Allerton, the agent to Plymouth colony, to attain fur-trading rights on the Kennebec from Gorges, thus ingeniously purchasing the amity of his Pilgrim subjugator.119 Morton returned to New England after fifteen months away, holding the position of Allerton’s scribe. Allerton, who voyaged to the New World aboard the Mayflower, has been re-considered in Cynthia Van Zandt’s Brothers among Nations.120 Zandt suggests that Allerton’s success was due to his ability to negotiate and trade with a variety of groups, in this respect, he is comparable to Morton. Allerton, like Morton, was an intercultural broker and a man of the Atlantic. Allerton offered Morton, a fellow cosmopolitan, both the post as his scribe, and allowed Morton to stay with him, which caused more ire from the Pilgrim camp. Allerton eventually moved to Marblehead, where he built a fishing business. He evidently felt much more at home amongst the worldly fishermen, and he spent his remaining years voyag- ing between New Amsterdam and New Haven. Unsurprisingly, Bradford and his company were unhappy that Morton was once again at liberty. Morton’s plantation had survived, even though ‘Littleworth…the Cowkeeper of Salem’ had chopped down the Maypole. Morton had triumphed, (if only in the short-term) and John Endicott had only managed to rename the plantation ‘Mount Dagon.’ Following his

118 William Bradford was aware that Plymouth’s order was not that of standing statute or practice, thus a second set of letters went to Sir Ferdinando Gorges and the Council, by way of Oldham. Oldham and/or a second ‘agent’ was financed to inform the authorities and ‘prosecute’ Morton. Adams, Prince Society Edition of New English Canaan, 289; Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, Ford ed., Vol. II, 57. 119 McWilliams, ‘Fictions of Merry Mount,’ 8. 120 Cynthia Van Zandt, Brothers among Nations: The Pursuit of Intercultural Alliances in Early America, 1580–1660 (New York: Oxford University Press USA, 2008).

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return, Morton quickly roused the anger of the Pilgrims again. During a meeting at Salem in 1629, Morton and Endicott came to blows over the rights of the Salem colonists to enforce regulations on the beaver trade.121 Morton charged that all planters ‘old and new’ had a choice in signing the articles. Morton looking back to Old England, the common law and ancient constitution, refused to sign the new articles, unless he was assured that ‘nothing be done contrary…to the Lawes of the Kingdome of England.’ Morton’s motive was to defend his economic interests, and he claimed that the proposal was a screen for Endicott’s incompetence. Six months later the plan failed, whilst Morton’s profits as an independent trader escalated.122 Morton displayed astute legal skills in this decision, using his common law training to spot a possible trap for the credulous. Following the establishment of the Massachusetts Bay Company in 1630, the two colonies united to remove the unwanted firebrand. This led to Morton’s second deportation back across the Atlantic, following an indictment for murder by John Winthrop, William Bradford, Edward Winslow and Thomas Dudley.’123 As early as 1627, Winthrop had been informed that Morton had murdered a business associate, and fled to New England. If Morton were a murderer, then an arrest warrant would remove the agitator. The authorities used their powers to obtain the issuance of a warrant, and Winthrop brought the document to America in the 1630s, hoping to use it as soon as possible.124 Charles Francis Adams suggests that Winthrop had a warrant from the King’s Bench against Morton, which may have been a lettre de cachet.125 However, no accounts reveal that the ‘warrant’ was ever shown or seen by anybody then or after. The indict- ments and warrants issued on the authority of Chief Justice Hyde between 1627 and 1632 do not bring anything to light. Furthermore, the contempo- raneous Devon Session Records on gaol deliveries offer no clue of Morton’s name as an inmate.126 Edward Winslow and Thomas Wiggin, unaware of

121 Adams, Three Episodes, Vol. I, 216–27. 122 Morton, New English Canaan, Dempsey ed., 164–7. 123 Also, later Nathaniel Morton referenced the indictment. Records of the Court of Assistants of the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay, 1630–1692, John Noble, ed., (Boston, MA: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1904), Vol. II, 3–4; John Winthrop, Winthrop’s Journal. ‘History of New England’ 1630–1649, James Kendall Hosmer, ed., Vol. I, (New York: 1908), 53; Chronicles of First Planters of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, from 1623 to 1636, Alexander Young ed., (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1846), 321–2; ‘Notebook of cases before the Court of wards and liveries,’ November 21, 1627, Winthrop Papers, Allyn B. Forbes, ed., (Boston, MA: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1929–1947, Vol. II, 44. 124 Ranlet, Enemies, 16–17. 125 Adams, Three Episodes, Vol. I, 264. 126 Banks, ‘Thomas Morton,’ 156–7.

60 charlotte carrington the entire tale of Morton’s earlier legal fracas with George Miller, disclosed that Miller (who had become a Puritan aficionado) was the originator of the charge.127 In light of the origin of the murder charge, it can almost immediately be dismissed as part of Miller’s continued plans to undermine Morton. Morton provided the opportunity to use the warrant when fleeing from his Bay Colony antagonists. Morton attempted to borrow a ride across a river in a canoe belonging to some American Indians. In the ensuing mix up, Morton fired a shot. The Bay’s first court took place on 23 August 1630, and Morton was top of the court’s first action ‘by process.’128 The authorities averred that Morton had deliberately shot at the Native Americans, and on 7 September Morton was tried ‘for his many injuries offered to the Indians.’ Complying with the warrant, the court ordered that Morton should be sent back to England to answer the murder charge.129 Morton attempted to ‘decline’ the court’s jurisdiction, trusting that it respected the essential condition of the Crown’s grant: that they institute no legalities ‘repugnant’ to English law. However, the court enforced its orders, and Morton was duly convicted and banished. His sentence also included being set in stocks and being stripped of his properties.130 To add insult to injury, they delayed burning down Mine-Host’s house until his departure, forcing him to witness the scene as he set sail.131 Richard Drinnon’s obser- vation that Morton’s house was actually burned down for the many rights he had done for the Native Americans, is persuasive. Drinnon proposes that Morton had willfully violated the ‘racist core’ of the magistrates’ nascent code by hunting with the American Indians, trading guns, enjoying their culture, and dancing and sleeping with them. However, Drinnon’s negative depiction of the Puritan authorities is too far-fetched; whilst the Puritan authorities can be charged with numerous transgressions, racism is not one of them.132

127 Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, Ford ed., Vol. II, 76. 128 Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, ed. (Boston MA: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1853–1854), Vol. I, 74. 129 Records of the Court of Assistant, Noble ed., Vol. II, 3–4; Winthrop, Journal, Hosmer ed., Vol. I, 53. It was not until the next court session (28 September) that any laws were written against Native American Indian gun trading. 130 Such treatment was not restricted to Morton, and Samuel Gorton faced equally harsh punishment and underhand arraignment. Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, Ford ed., Vol. II, 74. 131 Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, Ford ed., Vol. II, 47; Morton, New English Canaan, Dempsey ed., 171. 132 Drinnon, Facing West, 17–20.

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Once in England, Morton turned the situation around. The deportation proved to be a tactical blunder; the Puritan leaders had razed the settlement, yet salvaged its leader. Consequently, Morton was able to utilize this as verification of his position as a persecuted Anglican, and the murder arraignment was dropped and Morton was freed by Sir Ferdinando Gorges. One of the long-term consequences was that Morton embraced the role of Gorges’ associate by upholding Gorges and Archbishop Laud’s policies for the following seven years. Acting as Gorges’ solicitor, Morton was able to recall the patent for the Bay Company. This move ensured that the Puritans were left without a legal claim to their settlement. Morton endorsed the re-issuing of all of Massachusetts’ grants to members of the Council for New England.133 We should note Morton’s legal flair. At this point the tables had turned; the Puritan authorities had provoked him, and now they were feeling the consequences of banishing an angry and skilled attorney back to a country whose leaders welcomed his stories. Morton’s agency as an outsider, and the serious threat that he represented to the New England Puritan mission was sealed. Once cleared of the groundless murder charge, Morton complained to Gorges and the Council for New England. Other dissidents, including Sir Christopher Gardiner and Philip Ratcliffe, supported Morton’s claim. Gardiner, a swashbuckling soldier and secret agent for Gorges, arrived in the Bay Colony with ‘a servant or two and a comely young woman whom he called his cousin; but it was suspected she, after the Indian manner, was his concubine.’134 Gardiner was hunted down because of his two extant marriages in Europe and his ‘cohabitation’ at Neponset with his servant. When the New England authorities found that Gardiner had fled his home near Ma-re Mount ‘they fired the place, and carried away the persons, and goods.’ Gardiner was eventually captured and led ‘to the governor’ by American Indians.135 Ratcliffe was treated far worse, accused of sedition, he was ‘whipped…his eares cutt of, fyned £40, & banished.’136 In the resultant historiography, Ratcliffe is generally characterized as he was by his contemporary enemies, as a ‘lunatic man.’137 Unfortunately,

133 McWilliams, ‘Fictions of Merry Mount,’ 10. 134 Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, 247. 135 William Wood, New Englands Prospect (London: 1634), 91. 136 Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, Ford ed., Vol. II, 138–40; Winthrop, Journal, Hosmer ed., Vol. I, 64. 137 For a discussion of Adams’, Ford’s and Deane’s views of Gardiner and Ratcliffe see Dempsey, Thomas Morton, 263–5; Winthrop, Journal, Hosmer ed., Vol. I, 56.

62 charlotte carrington there is only space here to set the record straight regarding our protagonist, and Ratcliffe and Gardiner must wait for similar redress elsewhere. Morton, Gardiner and Ratcliffe presented an extensive complaint to the Privy Council, which charged the Puritans with being hostile to the nation’s laws and Established Church. On 19 December 1632 the Privy Council appointed a special committee to examine the charges, but a month later it was decided that the colonies ‘had good cause to go on cherefully with their undertakings.’138 By 1634 the situation had dramatically changed, with the appointment of Archbishop Laud as head of the new Privy Council Commission for Foreign Plantations. Morton and company found an influential ally to support their quest, Laud aimed to fortify royal influence in the colonies; the Bay Company’s charter was a hin- drance to his design. Laud’s committee reassessed the complaints against the settlement. The mood was right in England for Morton’s assault. King Charles sought to ensure that the Puritans across the Atlantic never imagined themselves ‘liberated’ from his throne; Morton’s claims could be useful. With the combining of King Charles, Laud and Gorges’ aims, in February 1634 the physical return of the Massachusetts Bay charter was ordered.139 In testimony before the committee, Edward Winslow attempted to defend his company. He was forced to admit ‘having no Minister in 7 or 8 years at least, some of us must doe both or…we might have lost the life & face of Christianity.’140 Laud, angry that a layman was carrying out the duties of a cleric, jailed Winslow for over four months and the committee declared the charter void.141 Winthrop claimed the petition:

138 Acts of the Privy Council, Colonial Series, 1613–1783, William Grant ed., Vol. I, (Hereford: HMSO, 1908), 183–5. 139 By April the new Commission was established, and in May, Morton composed a provocative letter to the ‘old Weymouth planter,’ William Jeffreys, who took it straight to John Winthrop. Morton was delighted with his work, and commented that Ratcliffe ‘was comforted by their lordships with the cropping of Mr. Winthrop’s ears which shows what opinion is held among them of King Winthrop,’ the prospect may have delighted Morton as much as Ratcliffe. Jeffreys took the letter straight to Winthrop, who alerted the magistrates to Morton’s ‘railing speeches and threats against this plantation, and Mr. Winthrop in particular.’ Morton addressed Jeffreys as ‘My very good gossip,’ Morton was not using the word as a term of familiar acquaintance, as this was not the nature of his relations with Jeffreys, Morton was probably making a joke on Jeffreys’ character, using it to mean telltale. Morton to Jeffreys, 1 May, 1634 in Winthrop, Journal, Hosmer ed., Vol. II, 194–6. 140 ‘The Petition of Edward Winslow,’ Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, V (1860–1862), 131–3. 141 Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, 272–74; ‘The Petition of Edward Winslow,’ 131–3.

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contained many false accusations (and among some truths misrepeated,) accusing us to intend rebellion, to have cast off our allegiance, and be wholly separate from the church and laws of England; that our ministers and people did continually rail against the state, church, and bishops there.142

In May 1635 the Council for New England hired Morton to bring a quo warranto proceeding against the Massachusetts charter, and thus end the existence of the company that had created the Bay colony. Although the suit was brought under the name of the crown’s attorney general, in practice, it was the ‘Lord of Misrule’ who effectively carried out the legal work.143 Morton did not allow any opportunity to pass that offered a chance to vent his grievances against the Saints. For example, in 1636 in an English legal petition for the recovery of a minor debt, Morton stated that he had ‘of late [been] enforced from those forraigne parts by the mallitious practice of the separatists,’ and that they had ‘spightfully’ handled him and deprived him ‘of all he was possessed of in those parts, goods, monies and writeings.’144 In addition, Morton’s careful publication of Canaan in 1637 supported his case and built upon his legal tactics.145 Book III contains little humor and offers an epigrammatic defense of Morton’s actions, whilst condemning his godly neighbors. Canaan contains various explicit examples that illustrate that Plymouth and Massachusetts imposed sev ere judgments on individual wrongdoers and attempted to throw off allegiance to the mother country.146 Morton sought to prove the futility of searching for justice from the Puritans. As the political turmoil played out in England, the coin flipped to favor the Puritans and the charter remained secure. Thus Morton’s labor came to nothing in the end, but his efforts should not be overlooked. Whilst Morton continued with the assault on the Plymouth and Massachusetts colonists in Canaan, the English government and Sir Ferdinando Gorges were planning a new political structure for New England, which could combine the colonies to make them easier to

142 Winthrop, Journal, Hosmer ed.,Vol. I, 101. 143 Thomas Hutchinson, A Collection of Original Papers Relative to the History of the Colony of Massachusetts-Bay (Boston, MA: Thomas and John Fleet, 1769), Vol. I, 114–18. 144 ‘To the King’s Most Excellent Majesty’ (1636 English legal petition for recovery of a minor debt by Thomas Morton), Charles Banks ed., Massachusetts Historical Society Publications Vol. 59 (1925–26), 92–5. 145 For the quo warranto see Hutchinson, A Collection of Original, Vol. I, 114–18. 146 Ibid., 177–80, 189–90.

64 charlotte carrington defend. In 1640, Morton was employed to witness a minor-land grant.147 On 10 April 1641 Morton signed the charter for Agamenticus and the ‘letters of Incorporation’ were ‘committed’ to his lawyerly care.148 These gestures highlight Morton’s and Gorges’ concurrence that the best place for Morton, both as an individual and agent, was in America, with a form of Royalist protection. In New England, with protection, Morton could attempt to inspire the ‘King’s men.’ Yet, in spite of the outbreak of civil war, Morton remained in England.149 Although grudgingly granted the money by Thomas Gorges (Ferdinando’s cousin) Morton did not trust his will or ability to protect him, and continued to search for another patron to take him to America.150 Somehow, Morton attached himself to Alexander Rigby, a colonel in Cromwell’s Model Army, and an influential Member of Parliament. On 23 May Morton signed his name as witness of Rigby’s grant of lands around Casco Neck to George Cleeve.151 Cleeve’s plan, apparently, was to establish Rigby as governor and his people in a colony at Casco Bay, and then use them as a wedge to break what was left of Gorges’s power in Maine. This eventually happened in 1652, when Massachusetts annexed the province against the will of many of its residents. The New England authorities also disliked Cleeve, and Edward Winslow called him and Morton ‘two of the arrantest known knaves that ever trod on New English shore.’152 Morton voyaged to the land he loved for the final time in 1643. Edward Winslow declared to John Winthrop upon Morton’s return: ‘Morton is the odium of our peop[le]…[if] we will foster such a one that afterward we shall suffer for it.’153 John Endecott warned Winthrop that Morton was allied with royalists in Maine, and added that ‘most likely the Jesuits… have sent him over to doe us mischief to raise our enemies round about us

147 Thomas Gorges to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, [September 1641], in The Letters of Thomas Gorges: Deputy Governor of the Province of Maine, 1640–1643, Robert E. Moody ed. (Portland, ME: Maine Historical Society, 1978), 55. 148 The Agamenticus charter is in Ebenezer Hazard, Historical Collections, Vol. I (Philadelphia: 1792 – original, Books for Libraries Press, 1969), 470–4. 149 Devon endured ‘much sacking,’ yet Devon’s gentry and their tenets remained ‘strongly Royalist,’ whilst the ‘maritime merchants and traders’ were mainly Parliament men. Oppenheim, The Maritime History of Devon, 64. 150 Thomas Gorges to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, [September (?) 1641], The Letters of Thomas Gorges, Moody ed., 55. 151 James Baxter, George Cleeve of Casco Bay 1630–1667 (Portland, ME: Gorges Society, 1885), 124. 152 Winslow to Winthrop, 7 January 1643/4. Winthrop Papers, Forbes ed., IV, 428. 153 Ibid., 428–9.

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both English and Indean.’154 Morton spent the winter of 1643 at Plymouth, but left the following spring.155 Morton worked with Cleeve and Rigby at a settlement in Dover, and his goal was the same as before; to gather up and capitalize on disaffected people, willing to ‘innovate, rather than be confined and limited by Puritan law, religion and culture.’ Other spies said that Morton was rallying New England cavaliers, promising them land, and complaining of the past wrongs the Bay Puritans had inflicted on him, but vowing that he would ‘let it rest till the Governor came over to right him,’ since he ‘knew whose roste his spits and Jackes turned.’156 John Brown of Taunton, complained that something had to be done about fellow settlers walking away from their designated workplaces, adding, ‘I pray you thinke on it…that you would not permit that vyle person Morton to pas[s] without some due punishment for he hath in my judgment Abused the cuntry very much and that In print.’157 Even in his later years, Morton retained his commitment to challenging the social hierarchy and hegemony of the Puritans. By September 1644 Morton was a prisoner.158 Morton was charged with the complaint that he and others had made before the Privy Council in 1632, regarding the conduct of the Massachusetts men.159 Winthrop suggested that Morton was the chief culprit, citing Morton’s book and his role in the prosecution of the quo warranto against them as evidence.160 Morton was led away with no recorded statement in answer to Winthrop’s charges.161 Morton was kept in prison the ‘whole winter.’162 In May 1645 Morton addressed an appeal to the court to: ‘the petitioner coming into these parts, which he loveth, on godly gentlemen’s imployments, and your

154 Endecott, Winthrop Papers, Forbes ed., IV, 464. 155 A letter from the colonist William Coddington to Winthrop suggests that Morton may have landed at Portsmouth (Rhode Island), and ‘quoted’ Morton ‘insinuating who was for the king’ and that he was ‘glad’ to meet with ‘so many Cavaleres.’ Morton had misjudged Coddington (a former supporter of Anne Hutchinson), whom he believed to be a fellow sufferer at the hands of the Puritans. Morton was wrong, and Coddington reported straight to Winthrop. ‘Coddington to Winthrop 5 August 1644,’ Winthrop Papers, Forbes ed., IV, 490–1. 156 ‘William Coddington,’ Winthrop Papers, Forbes ed., IV, 490–1. 157 ‘John Brown to Winthrop, 26 June 1644,’ Winthrop Papers, Forbes ed., IV, 464–5. 158 Winthrop, Journal, Hosmer ed., II, 194–6. 159 Ibid., 194. 160 A letter was also mentioned that contained abusive remarks, and foretold of retribution for the key Puritan colonists, which Morton had written to the ‘Very Good Gossip’ William Jeffreys ten years previously. Ibid., 194–6. For quo warranto see Hutchinson, A Collection of Original. 161 Samuel Maverick, A Brief Description of New England (London: 1660), 238. 162 Ranlet, Enemies, 26.

66 charlotte carrington worshipps having a former jelosy of him, and a late untrue intelligence of him, your petitioner hath been imprisoned manie Months and laid in Irons to the decaying of his limbs.’ The damp New England winter succeeded where the Pilgrims’ earlier attempt with the Isle of Shoals had failed; Morton’s health was broken. Mine-Host’s meals and prison guards were making him ‘a charge to the country.’ The court decided that he was ‘not fit to inflict corporal punishment upon,’ as he was ‘old and crazy,’ and they ‘thought better to fine him’ (100 pounds) and give him his liberty to leave the jurisdiction.163 Following his release, Morton went to Alexander Rigby’s patent in Maine, and spent his final days at the York (Agamenticus) settlement, where a small colony of Anglicans and others had gathered, including fellow ‘Old Planters’ Samuel Maverick, William Jeffries and Edward Johnson. Back in England, Morton had helped to draft the town’s charter, which had a number of interesting provisions, including ‘there shalbe twoe Fayers held and kepte there every yeare for herafter (Viz) upon the Feaste daies of St. James and St. Paul.’164 He must have finally felt at home again in Maine, surrounded by the landscape he loved and people he admired. Morton died in 1647.165

Victim or Villain?

When all of the accusations against Morton are examined, it can be ascer- tained that the New England authorities never had any strong, unambiguous proof that Morton actually committed any crime, which carried a reprimand under English law. Turning firstly to the charge of Morton’s frolicking with the Native Americans. Under English law, it was not a crime on any formal level to consort with the American Indians. It was also not a crime to have a maypole, particularly not since King James’ 1618 decree encouraging maypole dancing. If we consider the gun trade from Morton’s standpoint and look back to England (as Morton did), there was no English law against it. Moving into the legal arena, it was not a crime to

163 Winthrop, Journal, Hosmer ed., Vol. II, 134–6, 196. 164 Quoted in Banks, History of York, 444. 165 No grave, marker, record or remains have been found in York. In his will, Morton bequeathed his entire estate to his ‘Cozen German Tobias Milles’ and ‘neece Sara Bruce, widow.’ So far records have not revealed the particulars of Mrs. Bruce, who may have been the daughter of a brother or sister of Morton. Tobias Milles, is almost certainly the son of Edmond Milles of Eastrop Highwoth, Wiltshire, gentleman. Banks, ‘Thomas Morton,’ 163–4.

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petition the Crown through the official and correct legal channels for redress of grievances. Consequently, the Puritans and Pilgrims violated their own law as well as English Common and Statue law in their persecution of Morton. Arguably, too many of England and America’s conflicts stood between Morton and the Saints to ever allow a peaceful, let alone harmonious, cohabitation. This does not resolve the issue as to which party was the chief agitator and provoked the clash. According to Philip Ranlet, ‘the Lord of Misrule, was an early and vigorous enemy of the Bay Colony.’166 In reality, it was the Bay Colony that was a vigorous enemy of Morton; it was the Pilgrim and Puritan authorities that started the fight and would stop at nothing until Mine-Host was quashed. Morton felt that the Pilgrims and Puritans were ridiculous for ‘troubling their brains more than reason would require about things that are indifferent.’167 Morton, along with other dissidents, sought to live equitably with his very different neighbors, even though their pious practices would have irritated him as much as his perceived pleasure seeking vexed them. Unlike his enemies, Morton did not seek to wipe out completely his foes. As long as Mine-Host remained at the nexus of Canaan, the land had room for an assortment of people, including the Pilgrims and Puritans. By moving away from a depiction of a misconstrued one-dimensional cultural deviant, and considering Morton on his own terms, we can see that he was a serious player in the history of both Old and New England. In New England, Morton was a dissenting prophet who offered an alternative political egalitarianism to Plymouth’s early communitarian vision. However, it is more problematic to uncover who took up the prophecy. At first glance, it seems that we can rule out other opponents of the New England authorities, including the Quakers, who prompted the call of the inner light, rather than the promise of Arcadian delights in a merry earthly paradise. Even Nathaniel Hawthorne struggled to see a positive program for possible community, economy and polity in Morton’s vision. However, if we delve deeper it becomes clear that the traders and American Indians who came to Ma-re Mount, his royalist Devonian companions and his fellow Inns of Court lawyers supported Morton’s prophecy. Whilst Morton’s vision was never widely accepted in the New World, we should not dismiss him as simply an instrument to drub the rigorism and self-mortification of Reformed Christian practice. In an Atlantic World context, Morton was

166 Ranlet, Enemies, 9. 167 Morton, New English Canaan, Dempsey ed., 139.

68 charlotte carrington in fact the epitome of consent to Old English ways. Morton not only voyaged across the ocean several times, but he sought to bring Old English culture and his experiences from across the ocean with him to the New World. Moreover, how Morton portrayed himself and how he was perceived changed depending upon which side of the Atlantic he was on. In England the authorities and embodied tradition backed Morton; in New England he was a dissenter from the ‘Puritan Way.’ By acknowledging Morton as a sojourner in this wider context, we see that his life truly was an ‘Atlantic life.’

CHAPTER THREE

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT, HIS SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITION THROUGH THE AMERICAS AND THE IMPACT OF HIS ATLANTIC EXPERIENCES1

Sandra Rebok

The Prussian traveler and scientist Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) was one among many intermediaries participating in the transfer of ideas, impressions and knowledge between the Old and the New World. He became famous for his scientific expedition undertaken from 1799 to 1804 through the Spanish American colonies. His visit to the United States at the end of this expedition and his contact with the scientific and political elite of that country was of great significance for both sides of the Atlantic. As a result of his scientific observations, the measurements he achieved with his new instruments brought from Paris, the historical research he carried out in the colonial archives, and the enormous collection of botanical and zoological specimens he gathered, Humboldt was in his own day a respected scientific authority, and he is still considered to be the “scientific discoverer” of America. His numerous publications, translated into several languages and used as references by countless travelers and scientists, remained the main source of information about Spanish America for a long time.2 This chapter focuses on Humboldt’s American expedition in the scientific context as well as the network he created – and in many cases maintained through correspondence during the rest of his life – among a vast

1 This study has been undertaken under the framework and with financial aid of a research project HAR2010-21333-C03-02, financed by the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad and within the activities aimed at the dissemination of science carried out at the Vicepresidencia Adjunta de Cultura Científica at the Spanish National Research Council in Madrid. 2 An excellent overview of all his publications as well as the different editions and translations can be found in: Horst Fiedler and Ulrike Leitner, Alexander von Humboldts Schriften. Bibliographie der selbstständig erschienenen Werke (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2000). Detailed information regarding his articles published in different journals can be found on the website of the Alexander von Humboldt Research Center in Berlin, Germany: http://www.bbaw.de/bbaw/Forschung/Forschungsprojekte/avh/de/Blanko.2004-12-14 .3375479487.

70 sandra rebok number of personalities of the New World.3 It explains the holistic scientific concepts on which his research was based, his view on society in the different parts of America, and his interest for the colonial past of the American continent. Humboldt’s Atlantic experiences significantly impacted his life, his ideas on America had a far-reaching historical resonance in Europe, and along the years he had gained an outstanding influence in the New World as a scientific authority. Finally it shows in which ways he helped shape the image of the new continent in the Old World. Furthermore, it demonstrates the importance of his Atlantic experiences on his life as well as the far-reaching historical resonance of his ideas on America in Europe, and influence he gained in the New World as a scientific authority.

Biographical Background

Alexander von Humboldt was born on 14 September 1769 near Berlin, in a small palace in the town of Tegel, where he spent his childhood together with his older brother Wilhelm,4 with whom he maintained an intensive contact throughout his life.5 They were raised in an aristocratic family, as

3 It has been estimated that during the years 1787 to 1859 Humboldt wrote around 50,000 letters. The Alexander von Humboldt Research Center in Berlin has with around 10.000 letters the largest collection of these documents. A large number of the letters have been published in different editorial projects, selecting the letters regarding a specific country or a person in particular. 4 Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835) was a Prussian philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the University of Berlin. The German university system, with its concept of the unity of research and freedom of teaching and learning, inspired by W. von Humboldt, substituted the influence of the Scottish pedagogic style in the United States and had a marked impact on many American universities created during the 19th century. 5 For biographical information about the Humboldt, see: Helmut de Terra, Humboldt: The Life and Times of Alexander von Humboldt. 1769–1859 (New York: Knopf, 1955); Douglas Botting, Humboldt and the cosmos (New York: Harper & Row, 1973); Lotte Kellner, Alexander von Humboldt (London: New York, 1963); Hanno Beck, Alexander von Hum boldt (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1959–61). Among the latest publications in English are: Laura Dassow Walls, The Passage to Cosmos. Alexander von Humboldt and the Shaping of America (Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press, 2009); Gerard Helferich, Humboldt’s Cosmos. Alexander von Humboldt and the Latin American journey that changed the way we see the World (New York: Gotham books, 2004); Aaron Sachs, The Humboldt current: nineteenth-century exploration and the roots of American environmentalism (New York: Viking, 2006); Donald Macrory, Nature’s Interpreter: The Life and Times of Alexander von Humboldt (Cambridge: Lutterworth Press, 2010); Nicolaas A. Rupke, Alexander von Humboldt: A Metabiography (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2005). See also the conference proceedings of the Humboldt Bicentennial “Alexander von Humboldt: From the Americas to the Cosmos,” New York, October 14–16, 2004: http:// web.gc.cuny.edu/dept/bildn/

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their father was chamberlain of the Prussian King and an important person at the court, and their mother was a wealthy woman with a decisive impact on the personality of the young Alexander. Joachim Heinrich Campe, his private tutor and well-known writer, also influenced his imagination in a notable way, as did his second teacher Gottlob C. Kunth, who left his mark on Alexander through his stress on ethics and the study of other languages. This element was considered very important regard ing the success both brothers experienced in the cultural circles of his time. Also the Jewish community in Berlin had an impact on the educational values Alexander received, particularly Marcus Herz and his wife Henriette, with the salons they maintained as privileged cultural space in the enlightened Berlin. As child of eighteenth-century idealism, his formal education brought Alexander in direct contact with the active focus of the Enlightenment, first in his native city, then in other places where he pursued his studies, such as the universities of Göttingen and Frankfurt. He continued his education during one year at the Academy of Commerce in Hamburg and after that at the Academy of Mining in Freiberg, Saxony, where he was taught by the prestigious geologist Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749–1817) and was hired by the baron Heinitz for his department in the direction of the Mines. It was at that time when Humboldt undertook his travel studying the mineralogy and natural history in Holland, England, and France led by the famous naturalist Georg Forster, who had traveled around the world with the British explorer captain James Cook. He dedicated himself several years to the practice of mining and during this period of time he published his work Flora Fribergensis, as well as several memoirs on physics and chemistry, some of them published in French and British journals.6 Our Prussian explorer grew up in the era of the grand expeditions, such as the voyage undertaken by Louis Antoine de Bougainville (1766–69), Jean-François de La Pérouse (1785–1788), James Bruce (1768–73), Carsten Niebuhr (1761–67), or Alejandro Malaspina and José de Bustamante (1789– 1794) or those carried out by James Cook (1768–71, 1772–75 and 1776–80). The descriptions of these adventurous travels fascinated Humboldt from his early youth and informed his Romantic approach towards the tropical

publications/humboldt.pdf. Another good source for the latest research results is the International Review for Humboldtian Studies Humboldt im Netz (HiN): http://www .uni-potsdam.de/u/romanistik/humboldt/hin. 6 Alexander von Humboldt, Florae fribergensis specimen (Berolini: Augustum Rottmann, 1793).

72 sandra rebok regions, idealized by Rousseau and Buffon. With this same enthusiasm he read the works of Haller, Mac Pherson, and Goethe which recreate the nature or the return of the human being to his original state, supposedly far from civilization.7 Humboldt obtained the knowledge about the exotic world also through the works of Saint-Pierre, whose novel Paul et Virginie (1787) he read repeatedly; as well as the publications of his pre- ceptor Campe, author of Robinson, der Jüngere (1779) and Die Entdeckung Amerikas (1781/82), which had a notable influence on him. Though these books did not provide him with concrete information regarding their described regions, the way these unknown and exotic worlds were represented awoke in him a desire of getting to know distant regions through travel. As a result, from his early years onwards he thought about undertaking a scientific expedition himself, and even though in the beginning the destination as such was not defined, it was the mission of exploration itself that constituted a personal challenge for him. It was in those years when the French government decided in 1798 to undertake a circumnavigation of the globe directed by Thomas Nicolas Baudin (1754–1802), and Humboldt had been invited to form part of the scientific crew. While he was waiting for that expedition to start, Hum boldt worked in the scientific environment of Paris, where he got to know the French botanist Aimé Bonpland (1773–1858), who was supposed to embark on the same voyage.8 Unfortunately, due to economic reasons, the expedition was never undertaken, which brought them – after several other failed attempts to initiate their own scientific exploration in other regions of the world – to Spain and then to the Spanish colonies overseas. They traveled through the Spanish peninsula from January to May 1799.9 Particularly the time the travellers spent in Madrid was very important for the preparation of their project, since they were able to establish

7 Charles Minguet, Alejandro de Humboldt: Historiador y geógrafo de la América espa ñola (1799–1804). 2 vols (Mexico, D.F.: UNAM, 1985), vol. I, 110. 8 Aimé Goujand Bonpland (1773–1858) was a French botanist and medical doctor. See: Stephen Bell, A life in shadow: Aimé Bonpland in Southern South America, 1817–1858 (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2010); Heinz Schneppen, Aimé Bonpland: Humboldts vergessener Weggefährte. Berliner Manuskripte zur Alexander von Humboldt- Forschung, cuaderno 14 (Berlin: Alexander-von-Humboldt-Forschungsstelle, 2000); Philippe Foucault, Le Pêcheur d’orchidées: Aimé Bonpland, 1773–1858 (Paris: Seghers, 1990). 9 About Humboldt’s stay in Spain as well as the connection to this country see: Miguel Ángel Puig-Samper y Sandra Rebok, Sentir y medir. Alexander von Humboldt en España (Aranjuez: Doce Calles, 2007); Sandra Rebok, Alexander von Humboldt und Spanien im 19. Jahrhundert: Analyse eines wechselseitigen Wahrnehmungsprozesses (Frankfurt: Vervuert, 2006). This last book has been published in Spanish as well: Sandra Rebok, Una doble mirada: Alexander von Humboldt y España en el siglo XIX (Madrid: CSIC, 2009).

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important contacts on a political level as well as to the leading scientists. He needed the permission of King Charles IV to carry out this expedition through the Spanish colonies in America, something rather difficult to obtain, since the Spanish crown – as well as other European powers – followed policies intended to keep foreign travelers out of their dominions. Humboldt’s intellect as well as his numerous accomplishments impressed the King and influenced him to grant the traveler an unprecedented and unrestricted permission to undertake the planned expedition in order to conduct whatever investigations Humboldt considered necessary.10 Madrid was the perfect place for the scientific preparation of such an expedition, since he could contact the participants of prior travels through America and study their collections of the nature in the New World. He established close contacts with the naturalists in various scientific institutions, such as the Real Jardín Botánico and the Real Gabinete de Historia Natural, particularly to Antonio José Cavanilles and José Clavijo y Fajardo, as well as to José Espinosa and Juan Bautista Muñoz at the Depósito Hidrógrafico or the Real Academia de la Historia respectively, or with the German specialists in the scientific community of Madrid, among them Christian Herrgen, Johann Wilhelm and Heinrich Thalacker as well as the Heuland brothers. Furthermore, he also took advantage of the time they spent in Spain by taking measurements during his travels through the peninsula, testing the new scientific instruments he had brought from Paris, with which he was going to study nature on the other side of the Atlantic. In spite of his relative youth at the time, the Prussian already had an advanced scientific career and thus was an interesting contact for the scholars in Madrid: He had become an expert on mines after his studies at the Academy of Freiberg, had been working for the Prussian state as a government official for five years, and he had already published several scientific books.11

10 See the description of his scientific activities with which he presented himself at the Spanish court, published in Miguel Ángel Puig-Samper, “Humboldt, un prusiano en la Corte del rey Carlos IV,” Revista de Indias, LIX: 216 (1999), 329–355. 11 Most of these books were published in German and were not yet translated into various languages, as it was the case with his later publications: Alexander von Humboldt, Mineralogische Beobachtungen über einige Basalte am Rhein (Braunschweig: Schulbuchhand lung, 1790); Alexander von Humboldt, Florae fribergensis specimen (Berolini: H.A. Rottmann, 1793); Friedrich Alexander von Humboldt, Versuche über die gereizte Muskel- und Nervenfaser nebst Vermuthungen über den chemischen Process des Lebens in der Thier- und Pflanzenwelt. 2 vols. (Posen: Decker und Compagnie; Berlin: Heinrich August Rottmann); Alexander von Humboldt, Ueber die unterirdischen Gasarten und die Mittel ihren Nachtheil zu vermindern: Ein Beitrag zur Physik der praktischen Bergbaukunde (Braunschweig: Friedrich Vieweg, 1799); Alexander von Humboldt, Versuche über die chemische Zerlegung des Luftkreises und über einige andere Gegenstände der Naturlehre (Braunschweig: Friedrich Vieweg, 1799).

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At the beginning of June 1799, Humboldt and his travel companion Bonpland left from La Coruña in Northwest Spain on the Spanish corvette Pizarro in the direction of the Canary Islands where they had a short stay of six days on Tenerife. They used this layover to travel around the island and undertake extensive scientific studies, including climbing up the highest mountain of Spain, the Teide, in connection with their interest in volcanism as well as the creation of his geography of plants.12 From Tenerife they finally sailed towards the New Continent initiating the expedition that later made him famous.13 The first port they reached in the Americas on July 16, 1799 was Cumaná, Venezuela. There Humboldt visited a mission at Caripe and explored the Guácharo cavern, where he found the oilbird (Steatornis caripensis) and was the first to describe this species. Back in Cumaná he witnessed a remarkable meteor shower of the Leonids and his observations later helped to understand the periodic character of this celestial event. After several other excursions to nearby places, Humboldt and Bonpland travelled to Caracas and in February 1800 they left the coast and initiated their first big expedition into the interior of the American continent to explore the course of the Orinoco. During four months and accompanied

12 Regarding his stay in Tenerife see: Manuel Hernández González, Alejandro de Humboldt. Viaje a las Islas Canarias (La Laguna: Francisco Lemus Editor, 1995). 13 A short description of his American expedition, written by Humboldt himself shortly before his departure to Europe, was published in the The Literary Magazine and American register for 1804 (vol. 2, Philadelphia, 1804, pp. 321–327) and is conserved in the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia Another source is the detailed description of the first part of his expedition he offers in his travel narrative Alexandre de Humboldt; Aimé Bonpland, Voyage aux régions équinoxiales du Nouveau Continent, fait en 1799, 1800, 1801, 1802, 1803 et 1804. 12 vols (Paris: Gide; Smith, 1816–1826). An English edition was published in 1972: Alexander von Humboldt; Bonpland, Aimé. Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoccial Regions of the New Continent, During the Years 1799–1804, 7 vol., (Amsterdam/New York, Da Capo Press Inc., 1972). Moreover, a lecture of his travel diaries can be recommended, which was prepared during many years by Margot Faak and published by the Alexander von Humboldt Research Center of the Academy of Science in Berlin. This edition was started in 1982 with the edition of the first volume – an anthology of his perceptions of certain topics – and was completed with the final publication in 2000: Margot Faak, ed., Lateinamerika am Vorabend der Unabhängigkeitsrevolution. Eine Anthologie von Impressionen und Urteilen aus den Reisetagebüchern, vol. 5 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1982); Margot Faak, ed., Alexander von Humboldt. Reise auf dem Rio Magdalena, durch die Anden und durch Mexiko, vol. 8 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1986); Margot Faak, ed., Alexander von Humboldt. Reise auf dem Rio Magdalena, durch die Anden und durch Mexiko, vol. 9 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1990); Margot Faak, ed., Alexander von Humboldt. Reise durch Venezuela, vol. 12 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2000). A few years later, a missing part of his journal was found in Cracow and published by Ulrike Leitner from the Alexander von Humboldt Research Center in Berlin: Ulrike Leitner, ed., Alexander von Humboldt. Von Mexiko-Stadt nach Veracruz. Tagebuch (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2005).

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by a group of Indians they travelled through 1,725 miles of wild and largely inhabited country. They first descended the river Apure to the Orinoco, then travelled on the Orinoco and later on the river Atapabo to the south, in order to reach the sources of the river Negro. From there they finally arrived at the Rio Casiquiare and were thus able to demonstrate the existence of a linkage between the water system of the rivers Orinoco and Amazon through the Casiquiare canal. On May 20, 1800 they reached the bifurcation of the Orinoco and where thus the first to determine its exact position. In addition, they documented the life of several native tribes such as the Maipures and their already-extinct rivals, the Atures. On their way back they followed the course of the Orinoco in the direction of Angostura (Ciudad Bolívar). Passing the Llanos in great heat, they continued to travel north until they approached Nueva Barcelona on July 23 and, after a stay of several months in this coastal town, on November 24 they embarked for Havana in Cuba. On this island our travellers pursued as usual their extensive scientific interests, but they also enjoyed to a great extent the social life in Havana, after having spent months of travelling in the tropics under difficult circumstances. In March 1801 they sailed from Batabanó in the Southwest of Cuba to Cartagena de Indias, Colombia. Humboldt had received the information that the French captain Nicolas Baudin had finally been able to initiate his circumnavigation and so hoped to reach his expedition on the Peruvian coast. This decision also gave them the opportunity to carry out their project to explore the Andes. From Barancas Nuevas their itinerary led them during forty days up the river Magdalena, passing Honda and Santa Fe de Bogotá, where they were well received by the Spanish botanish José Celestino Mutis, with whom they shared and discussed their botanical discoveries to that point. Further more, there Humboldt elaborated an expert’s report for the Spanish Viceroy about the silver mines and the gold production of Colombia. After a tedious journey, starting from Bogotá on September 19, crossing the Cordillera Real and with a short stay in Popayán, they arrived in Quito on January 6, 1802. It was the marquis of Selva Alegre, Juan Pío Montúfar y Larrea, who accommodated them in his house, and there they were acquainted with his son Carlos Montúfar,14 who decided to accompany the group for the remaining part of their expedition until their return to Europe.

14 Teodoro Hampe Martínez, “Carlos Montúfar y Larrea (1780–1816), el quiteño compa- ñero de Humboldt”, Revista de Indias, LXII: 226 (2002), 711–720.

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Their stay in Ecuador was marked by Humboldt’s interest in volcanos and so they ascended several times the Pichincha and attempted to reach the peak of the Chimborazo. Due to a crevice in the rocks they only reached an altitude of 19,286 feet, shortly below the peak, but nevertheless established a world record for thirty years. This is a remarkable accomplishment also for the fact that they did not carry the necessary equip- ment for these heights and had suffered from altitude sickness. The journey continued with an expedition to the sources of the Amazon, exploring the upper course of the river Marañón, and then they searched for the remaining parts of the Inca settlement in the sourroundings of Cajamarca. After crossing again the Andes, their way took them to Lima, where they arrived on October 23 of 1802. At the port of Lima, in Callao, Humboldt was able to observe the transit of Mercury on November 9 and to determine with more precision than anybody before him the degree of longitude where Lima was located. Moreover, he studied the fertilizing properties of guano and with his descriptions he created a considerable interest for the importation of this product in Europe. In the meantime, even before leaving Quito, he had become aware that captain Baudin had modified his itinerary and that it was thus not possible to join his expedition. Humboldt then decided to embark first to Guayaquil, where during a short stay he was able to determine through measurements the ocean currant, now named after him as the “Humboldt Currant”, and from there he sailed to Acapulco. With his arrival in New Spain after a temptestuous voyage on March 23, 1803 the last part of his expedition began. He resided for one year in this country, visiting different places on their way from Acapulco de Mexico City and from there to Veracruz on the Caribean coast. Humboldt’s basic interest was centered on the mining industry, and he he visited the mines of Morán, Real del Monte and Cerro del Oyamel and in Mexico City he assisted at the exams in the Colegio de Minería, whose director and founder Fausto de Elhuyar he knew from his time in Freiberg. Furthermore, Humboldt spent a large amount of time in the colonial archives of this city and gathered statistical, political, and historic material as well as social and economical data concerning New Spain. On March 7, 1804 the travelers left Veracruz towards Havana, where Humboldt present in April a mineralogical report at the “Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País”. From the island of Cuba they initially intended to return to Europe and thus conclude their expedition, but instead they took the boat to Philadelphia and added five weeks in the U.S. to their journey. Humboldt’s visit to the U.S. in many aspects is different to his stay in the other regions of the New World since it did not form part of his

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American expedition the way he had planned it and also because of his impression this free nation in comparison to the colonial societies in Spanish America. The inspiration for Humboldt’s visit to the U.S. came from the American Consul in Cuba, Vincent F. Gray. While Humboldt was staying in Havana, Gray learned that he possessed very important documents containing information about the region of New Spain that was still to a great extent unknown to his government. In April 1804, Gray sent two dispatches to Secretary of State James Madison, introducing and recommending Humboldt, in which he argued that the Prussian explorer would be a source of useful and necessary documents and first-hand knowledge for his country. Specifically, he was interested in the materials and maps from the Spanish colonial archives which contained hitherto unknown data on the disputed establishment of borders between the U.S. and New Spain, especially valuable at this moment, given the recent purchase of the Louisiana Territory 1803.15 Humboldt, for his part, had several reasons to visit the U.S. He wanted to meet Thomas Jefferson, the famous American scientist and philosopher, who at that time was also President of the U.S. and therefore a very important contact for the Prussian traveler.16 As Humboldt was extremely active in matters of diplomacy, he took into consideration the advantages of such a significant intellectual patronage for his future career. Another crucial reason was that after traveling for years through the Spanish colonies of the New World and observing the various colonial societies, many of which had characteristics he criticized, Humboldt was intrigued by the opportunity to familiarize himself with an independent country in America.17 The Prussian traveler stayed in the U.S. from 20 May to 30 June 1804, and met several times with the American President as well as members of his cabinet.18 Even before their first personal encounter, Humboldt

15 Vincent F. Gray to James Madison, 8 May 1804, published in Hermann R. Friis, “Alexander von Humboldts Besuch in den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika vom 20 Mai bis zum 30 Juni 1804,” in Alexander von Humboldt. Studien zu seiner universalen Geisteshaltung, ed. Joachim H. Schultze (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1959), 146. 16 See: Sandra Rebok, Alexander von Humboldt and Thomas Jefferson: The personal relationship and ideological link between two exponents of Enlightenment (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2014, in press). 17 Regarding his comparative view of these American regions, see Ingo Schwarz, “Alexander von Humboldts Bild von Latein- und Angloamerika im Vergleich,” in Nord u. Süd in Amerika: Gegensätze. Gemeinsamkeiten. Europäischer Hintergrund, eds. Wolfgang Reinhard and Peter Waldmann, vol. 2. (Freiburg: Rombach, 1992), 1142–54. 18 General articles about Alexander von Humboldt and his visit to the U.S. are: Peter Schoenwaldt, “Alexander von Humboldt und die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika”,

78 sandra rebok introduced himself in a letter to Jefferson as an authority on his writings,19 and expressed admiration and respect for his enlightened intellect, his work, and his liberal ideas.20 During their personal meeting he discussed different aspects of Spanish America, plans for the future such as the Panama Canal, as well as to exchange documents referring to North American interests. He also very generously complied with Jefferson’s requests for intelligence and to view the latest geographic and statistical data on New Spain, which was of great value to the Jefferson administration.21 From this brief meeting a lifelong friendship developed between the two men, marked by a lively exchange of ideas in their correspondence, as well as in the continuing exchange of their writings.22 in Alexander von Humboldt: Werk und Weltgeltung, ed. Heinrich Pfeiffer (München: R. Piper and Co., 1969), 431–482; Ingo Schwarz, “Alexander von Humboldt’s visit to Washington and Philadelphia, His Friendship with Jefferson, and His Fascination with the United States,” Proceedings: Alexander von Humboldt’s Natural History Legacy and Its Relevance for Today, Northeastern Naturalist, Special Issue 1 (2001): 43–56; Helmut de Terra, “Motives and Consequences of Alexander von Humboldt’s Visit to the United States (1804),” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 104: 3 (1960): 314–16; Helmut de Terra, “Studies of Documentation of Alexander von Humboldt,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 102: 2 (1958): 136–141; ibidem, 6, 560–568; Hermann R. Friis, 1959, 142–195; Hermann R. Friis, “Baron Alexander von Humboldt’s Visit to Washington,” Records of the Columbia Historical Society, 44 (1963): 1–35.; Caspar, Gerhard, “A Young Man from “Ultima Thule” Visits Jefferson: Alexander von Humboldt in Philadelphia and Washington.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 155: 3 (2011): 247–262. 19 Here he refers to Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia. A recent edition is Frank Shuffelton, ed., Thomas Jefferson: Notes on the State of Virginia (New York: Pinguin Books, 1999). 20 Humboldt to Jefferson, 24 May 1804, published in Ingo Schwarz, ed., Alexander von Humboldt und die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika. Briefwechsel (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2004), 88–90. See also different comments about this encounter on the website, http:// www2.ku.edu /~germanic/humboldt/main.htm. 21 See document 2 in Schwarz, ed., 2004, 484–495. Detailed information about the exchanged documents appears in Jaime Labastida, “Humboldt, México y Estados Unidos. Historia de una intriga,” in Atlas Geográfico y Físico del Reino de la Nueva España, ed. Jaime Labastida (Mexico: Siglo XXI, 2003), 131–47; Ingo Schwarz, “‘Shelter for a Reasonable Freedom’ or Cartesian Vortex,” in Debate y perspectivas. Alejandro de Humboldt y el mundo hispánico, ed. Miguel Ángel Puig-Samper, 1 (Madrid: Fundación Histórica Tavera, 2000), 176–82. 22 The correspondence between Humboldt and Jefferson is published in Schwarz, ed., Alexander von Humboldt und die Vereinigten Staaten; Ulrike Moheit, ed., Humboldt. Briefe aus Amerika, 1799–1804 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1993); Ingo Schwarz, “From Alexander von Humboldt’s Correspondence with Thomas Jefferson and Albert Gallatin,” Berliner Manuskripte zur Alexander-von-Humboldt-Forschung, 2 (1991), 1–20; Felix M. Wassermann, “Six Unpublished Letters of Alexander von Humboldt to Thomas Jefferson,” The Germanic Review, 29 (1954), 191–200; Eugénie Lange, “Aus dem Briefwechsel Alexander von Humboldts (1769–1859) mit Thomas Jefferson (1743–1836),” Societé Suisse des Americanistes, 18 (September 1959), 32–45. An English translation of Humboldt letters (originally written in French) is presented in Helmut de Terra, “Alexander von Humboldt’s Correspondence with Thomas Jefferson,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 103 (1959), 783–806.

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During his stay in the U.S., Humboldt remained exclusively among the political and scientific elite of the country.23 He first spent one week in Philadelphia,24 where he circulated primarily among members of the American Philosophical Society, including Caspar Wistar, John Vaughn, Charles Willson Peale, Benjamin Smith Barton, and Benjamin Rush.25 On 29 May he started to travel with Peale to Washington, where the two stayed the first two weeks of June. During this time they also visited nearby Alexandria and Mount Vernon and went to see the Capitol. Humboldt probably met Jefferson for the first time on 5 June, and over the course of his stay he also became acquainted with Secretary of State and future President James Madison, Secretary of Treasury Albert Gallatin, Gilbert Stuart, and the architect William Thornton. A few days later Thornton accompanied Humboldt to Georgetown, where they visited the French and British ambassadors, and four days later they left Washington in the direction of Lancaster. When Humboldt and Peale returned to Philadelphia on 18 June, Humboldt remained there for ten days before leaving for Europe at the end of the month. Importantly, Humboldt received no financing for this expedition pro ject, which was dedicated exclusively to scientific aims. The fact that he paid all expenses himself is an important detail that must be recognized both for its uniqueness and as proof that no European government with possible imperialistic interests stood behind his enterprise, allowing Humboldt to pursue his own scientific objective and, according to Enlight enment postulates, take measurements of every component of the New World, such as plants, animals, minerals and the climate. A collection of 6000 different species of plants, part of it unknown until that time, as well as valuable mineralogical, astronomical, chemical and social observations were the results of this expedition, which is reflected in a great number of publications. Upon his return to Europe Humboldt lived in Paris for 22 years, where he worked with many French scientists on the publication of the results of his expedition and maintained contact with friends such as Berthellot,

23 More information about the persons he contacted during his stay in the United States and all the American citizens that visited him later on in Europe can be found in: Schoenwaldt, 1969. 24 A good description of Humboldt’s travels through the United States offers Hermann R. Friis 1959. An English version limited only to his stay in Washington is Friis 1963. 25 About the members of the APS during Humboldt’s time in the United States, see Friis 1959, 155, note 40. Among them were many who accommodated and supported the Prussian traveller.

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Gay-Lussac, Arago or Chateaubriand. His time in the French capital came to an end in 1827, however, when his funds were almost completely exhausted. Unable to maintain his financial independence, he was forced to return to Berlin, where the Prussian King Frederick William III impa- tiently demanded his presence at court. In April 1829 Humboldt initiated a second major expedition, this time through large regions of Russia. The opportunity to undertake this voyage came up after British authorities refused to grant him permission for a long-desired expedition to India, where he had hoped conduct com parative studies between Asia and America. The Russian minister Georg Cancrin was interested in Humboldt’s expertise on minery and thus had invited him to undertake an expedition to the Ural. Accompanied during his Russian travels by the mineralogist and chemist Gustav Rose, the zool- ogist Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg, and his own servant Johann Seifert, Humboldt was able to focus on his geomagnetic and astronomical observations as well as on the study the physical geography with a more general view. The group was received with all honors at the imperial court in Saint Petersburg, where they spent three weeks, after having passed through the Baltic countries. The party’s itinerary then took them to Moscow, Kasan, Perm, Jekaterinburg and the Urals, the mountains in which the Prussian naturalist was supposed to look for the existence of diamonds for the tsar. Later they went towards Tobolsk and from there to the Altai mountains and the Chinese frontier, from where they returned to Omsk and Miask in order to get to Astrachan, on the coast of the Caspian Sea. Humboldt made observations regarding the salt extraction at the lake of Elton, and visited the German settlements on the Volga. In the first days of November, the expedition reached on their way back again Moscow and then on November 13 Saint Petersburg, after having traveled across immense steppes, where they measured the temperature and humidity of the air, assessed variations in levels of magnetism, and calculated the geo- desic position of the places they had visited. Their geological and mineralogical studies concentrated on finding the diamonds desired by the tsar. Spanning eight months, this exploration also led to interesting scientific discoveries, such as the correction of the estimated height of the Central Asian plateau, besides the discovery of diamonds in the gold-washings of the Ural. The results of his exploration are published in Humboldt’s work Asie Centrale,26 but it never reached the importance and fame of

26 Alexandre de Humboldt, Asie Centrale. Recherches sur les chaînes de montagnes et la climatologie comparée, 3 vols. (Paris: Gide, 1843).

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his expedition through America. Among several reasons this is also due to the fact that during this expedition Humboldt was not able to pursue his own scientific interests as he did in his first large exploration journey, but had to adapt to the interests of the Russian authorities. Until a few years before his death, Humboldt served as a tutor to the Crown Prince of Prussia, as a member of the Privy Council, and as a court chamberlain. While still working on the fifth volume of his final publication, the Kosmos, with hardly diminished vitality, enthusiasm, and an unimpaired memory, Humboldt died in 1859 at age 89. He left behind an abundant assortment of geological, zoological, botanical and ethnographic specimens, several maps, and numerous publications that reflect the results of his work. He also left evidence of his personal opinions and convictions with regard to many aspects of life in the New World, as well as his perceptions of the progress of scientific research in general at that time. The majority of these works have been translated into several languages and have been used as references by countless subsequent travelers and scientists.27

The Atlantic Life of Alexander von Humboldt

Alexander von Humboldt’s life was shaped by his 5-year experience in the New World. And after his return he created a network with its political, cultural and scientific representatives – among them personalities with whom he maintained contact for the rest of his life. In several moments he expressed his interest in prolonging his stay in America or to return there at another time in the future, nevertheless his desire could not be realized. Thus during this age of inquiry and pursuit of a new definition of the European and American identity, the Prussian participated actively in that process, and his transatlantic experiences contributed decisively to the formation of his own thoughts and convictions. By becoming familiar with another world and by contrasting it with his own, he saw clearly the circumstances that were to improve in America as well as in Europe and not only expressed his opinion regarding these issues, but also tried to turn his ideas into reality. From the beginning of his scientific activities, the Prussian clearly stated how he defined the aim of his research: to understand and describe the New World, as well as to develop his idea of the Physical Geography.

27 See excellent overview of the content of his opus in Fiedler and Leitner.

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His holistic concept of science envisaged the Earth as an inseparable organic whole, all parts of which were mutually interdependent. He regarded this synthesis as a harmonious unity and derived satisfaction through the scientific analysis of the ways in which things and phenomena on the Earth depend upon each other. According to his comprehensive view and his understanding of human society and nature as a harmonious system, he looked for the interconnection of human and physical nature, an idea that later inspired the term “ecology.” By 1793 – prior to his famous American expedition – he had this idea clearly in when he summarized the interest of the scientific world with his definition and methodological explanation of what he by then called Physique du monde. Between the 1795 and 1799 Humboldt projected the elaboration of a complete geography of plants of the world, putting it in connection with the geophysical forces. In his work Geography of Plants, Humboldt also condemned the numerical listing of the flora by continents; what he was interested in was the distribution of vegetation and its relationship to climatic zones as well as other factors that affected the way it spread.28 If we analyze his works from this point of view, we conclude that the totality of Humboldt’s research project, as well as his holistic way of thinking, were based on the idea of a Physical Geography. In his later years, in his final and synthesizing work Kosmos – his scientific testimony – this concept was extended through the unification of everything created in the world as well as in the universe, in order to present what he called a “physical description of the world”. In the foreword to this publication he describes in a detailled way his goal in relation to his holistic concept: …to comprehend the phenomena of physical objects in their general connection, and to represent nature as one great whole, moved and animated by internal forces. My intercourse with highly-gifted men early led me to discover that, without an earnest striving to attain to a knowledge of special branches of study, all attempts to give a grand and general view of the universe would be nothing more than a vain illusion. It is further necessary to investigate the laws which regulate the differences of temperature and climate, and the meteorological processes of the atmosphere, before we can hope to explain the involved causes of vegetable distribution; and it is thus that the observer who earnestly pursues the path of knowledge is led from

28 Ilse Jahn, “Alexander von Humboldt’s cosmical view on nature and his researchs shortly before and shortly after his departure from Spain”, in Estudios de Historia das Ciencias e das Técnicas: VII Congreso de la Sociedad Española de Historia de las Ciencias y de las Técnicas, eds. Mari Alvarez Lires et al., vol. I (Pontevedra: Diputación Provincial, 2001), 32.

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one class of phenomena to another, by means of the mutual dependence and connection existing between them.29 This passage shows that Humboldt did not contemplate the diverse scientific disciplines as the major merit of his research, but rather taking a uni- tary view of the objective he himself had defined. Thus his contribution to science was not focused on one particular field, but rather in the method he applied; that is, finding the interconnections of knowledge related to the different scientific branches. The Humboldtian concept was not only applied to the different academic disciplines and their interdependency, but also in a geographical sense regarding the connections between certain regions. It was the comparison between geographical territories he was interested in, including the connection between the political and social movements he was able to observe. He envisioned basically the comparative studies between America and Asia, a goal he had from the beginning, though he was not able to carry it out in the way he had planned since his Asian expedition was only limited to his travel through Russia in 1829. Therefore, his view was always more directed towards the connection between Europe and America. Though for him of course our modern term “Atlantic World” did not exist as such, he was completely aware of the interconnection of the different countries and regions that form part of this world. He held to this idea even when in later years – in the midst of the war between the U.S. and England, and years before the Monroe Doctrine –Thomas Jefferson provided Humboldt with a brief commentary about the relationship between America and Europe and the emerging idea of American isola- tionism in the following words: The European nations constitute a separate division of the globe; their local- ities make them part of a distinct system; they have a set of interests of their own in which it is our business never engage ourselves. America has a hemi- sphere to itself. It must have its separate system of interests, which must not be subordinated to those of Europe.30 Humboldt did not share this conviction, since it conflicted directly with his vision of an interconnected world. In his view, international trade and the peaceful exchange of ideas and goods was a high priority, and so in his next letter he was silent on this issue.

29 Alexander von Humboldt, Cosmos: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, vol. 1 (Baltimore, London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 7–8. 30 Jefferson to Humboldt, 6 December 1813, published in Schwarz, ed., 2004, 131.

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*** Through his long and extended experience in the very different parts of South, Central, and North America, including two stays in Cuba, in such distinct climatic zones such as the Andean highlands as well as in tropical regions around the Amazonas, Humboldt gained insight on the societies of the different parts of the New World. At the time the Prussian scientist undertook his expedition through the Americas the regions visited were still under Spanish rule, and so he became an eyewitness to the colonial systems on the eve of – and in some cases during – their demise. Although the initial focus of his interest was generally with the description of natural phenomena, critical observations of the structures of colonial societies can be found throughout his work, often accompanied by comments about potential and desirable reforms. Thus, Humboldt’s writings provide us with a valuable image of the Spanish colonial systems from the perspective of an external observer – a European who was undoubtedly influenced by the ideals of the French Revolution and the Enlightenment.31 Although Humboldt expressed a general criticism of the colonial system – a criticism that was rooted in his personal convictions – he nevertheless offered a differentiated assessment of colonial societies based on comparisons of regional and local traditions and developments. A specific characteristic of Humboldt’s perception of these aspects of these societies is his approach to them from several points of view. He was constantly at pains to observe different facets of the colonial reality. As a result, his comments and descriptions embrace political, economic, social, and agricultural conditions. To evaluate his descriptions and recommendations it is necessary, therefore, not only to look at basic conditions themselves, but also to examine the situation in which Humboldt found himself as he encountered different groups within these societies. As his interaction was mainly with the ruling elite, his views were influenced by his need to maintain good relations and express any criticism with tact and diplomacy. Special emphasis has to be placed on the fact that Humboldt seems to have read the signs of the expiration of the colonial regimes. The kinds of comments and judgments of colonial societies which can be found in Humboldt’s general works regarding his American expedition, namely his travel account entitled Relation historique, and especially his essay on

31 See Sandra Rebok, “A new approach: Alexander von Humboldt’s perception of colonial Spanish America as reflected in his travel diaries,” Itinerario, XXXI: 1 (2007) 61–88; Sandra Rebok, “Alexander von Humboldt’s perception of colonial Spanish America”, Dynamis, 29 (2009), 49–72.

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Cuba, the Essai politique sur l’Ile de Cuba, as well as his text on New Spain, the Essai politique sur le Royaume de la Nouvelle-Espagne, in which he presents his official comments.32 Nevertheless, it his private writings, such as his diaries and unpublished essays, are far more revealing.33 Without a doubt, Humboldt’s diaries constitute an important basis for Humboldtian research in general, and in particular as it relates to ‘delicate’ topics such as colonialism, since they include spontaneous considerations, which were not subjected to self-censorship. The fact that Humboldt’s descriptions of colonial societies in later works were influenced by developments in the former Spanish colonies, namely the independence movement and the creation of new American republics, grants further significance to his diaries for an analysis of the nature of social change being undertaken here. These fundamental changes – which occurred just a few years after Humboldt returned from his expedition, while he was elaborating the results of his travels and publishing his famous work on America – particularly influenced the way he described the social aspects of the colonial systems he had recently encountered. At the time of Humboldt’s expedition, the Spanish colonial territories in America through which he travelled were divided into the viceroyalties of New Spain, New Granada, and Peru. These colonial territories had already developed regional characteristics resulting from differences in the structure of colonial administration, local climate conditions, racial composition of the population, natural environment, mineral resources, indigenous cultures, and many other factors. Several topics seem to have taken on special relevance for Humboldt in the different regions: the injustice of the colonial society as an economic and political institu tion; slavery; the difficult situation of the Indians; his criticism of the missionary system; the bribery of the representatives of the colonial administration; as well as the big landowners and their treatment of slaves. For a better understanding of his attitude towards these aspects, which determined his expectations for the U.S. as a free society, brief reference

32 Alexander von Humboldt, Aimé Bonpland, Voyage aux régions équinoxiales du nou veau continent, fait en 1799, 1800, 1801, 1802, 1803 et 1804, vol. I–XIII (Paris, Librairie Grecque- Latine-Allemande, 1816–1831); Humboldt, Alexander von, Political Essay on the Island of Cuba. Edited by Vera M. Kutzinski and Ottmar Ette. Chicago, (London, University of Chicago Press, 2011). Alexandre de Humboldt, Essai politique sur le royaume de la Nouvelle- Espagne du Mexique, 2 vols. (Paris,Thizy: Éditions Utz, 1997). 33 These diaries have been published in their original languages: German and French, with only some parts translated into Spanish.

86 sandra rebok must be made to Humboldt’s general attitude toward colonialism. Therefore, it seems appropriate to mention an extract of an essay on colonies found in his diaries. This passage, written without any connection to its context, expresses very well his sharp criticism of this institution, and was withheld by him from publication. Here he condemns the concept of colonialism – the idea that one country had to pay tribute to another and that the expansion of prosperity, industry, and the ideas of the Enlightenment remain under that dominating country’s control. For Humboldt, a colonial government was a government of mistrust, one under which authority was not distributed for the sake of the happiness of the inhabitants, but according to the interest of the metropolis. This resulted in a lack of morality and an uneasiness that could be felt in these regions by visitors who may be sensitive to these issues. This private document of Humboldt’s is particularly revealing in that it demonstrates that his personal convictions were always based on moral considerations and that the well-being and happiness of the people were always foremost in his mind.34 Apart from its clear rejection of colonialism as a political and economic institution, this essay stands out for the in-depth analysis of colonialism’s different facets as well as its issues and the possible consequences Humboldt foresees. Humboldt’s consideration of the differences between the colonial systems of the European nations demonstrates that his sharp critiques do not refer only to the Spanish colonies he visited: Nowhere should a European feel more ashamed than on the islands, regardless of whether he is French, English, Danish or Spanish. To debate which nation treats the negroes with more humanity is to mock the word ‘humanity,’ and to ask oneself whether it would be more humane to slit a person’s stomach or to skin them.35 Importantly, he described a pre-revolutionary Spanish America, with signs of a coming revolution he detected. Generally, he was quite cautious

34 Faak, 1982, 63–64. (French original: “D’où vient ce manque de moralité, d’où vien- nent ces soufrances, ce malaise dans lequel tout homme sensible se trouve dans les Colonies européennes? C’est que l’idée de la Colonie même est une idée immorale, c’est l’idée d’un pays qu’on rend tributaire à une autre, d’un pays dans lequel on ne doit parvenir qu’à un certain degré de prospérité, dans lequel l’industrie, les lumière ne doivent se répandre que jusqu’à un certain point. (…) Tout Gouvernement Colonial est un gouvernement de méfiance. On y distribue l’autorité non selon que la félicité publique des habitants l’exige, mais selon le soupçon que cette autorité peut s’unir, s’attacher trop au bien de la Colonie, devenir dangereux aux intérêts de la mère patrie.”) 35 Ibidem, 64. (“Nullepart un Européen doit avoir plus honte de l’être que dans les Isles, soit Françaises, soit Anglaises, soit Danoises, soit Espagnol[e]s. Se disputer quelle Nation traite les Nègres avec plus d’humanité c’est se moquer du mot humanité et demander s’il est plus doux d’éventré ou écorché…”).

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in his comments, but on several occasions – apart from his numerous social critiques – Humboldt made reference to the events in Haiti and the possible influence or danger they might exert on the rest of colonial America. However, in his diaries there is no explicit comment or advice that reveals his opinion about the independence movements in the colonies he visited. That the Spanish colonies would find themselves in a much better economic situation if they achieved independence from the financial interests of the metropolis can only be deduced from his detailed economic analy- ses, his statistics of trade and his comments on population trends. On the one hand, this is due to the fact that Humboldt always harbored a sense of gratitude towards Spain’s King Carlos IV for granting permission for his expedition through the American colonies; on the other hand, this posture was also a function of his self-understanding as a scientist and his personal aims in undertaking his expedition. Humboldt quite clearly placed his focus on scientific objectives and was reluctant to risk realizing his American project. The destiny of the Spanish naval officer and explorer Alejandro Malaspina – who after returning to Spain from his expedition to many different continents was accused of spying and imprisoned – might have influenced Humboldt to be more cautious in his comments or judgments.36 When Humboldt left the harbor of La Coruña in northern Spain, initiating his American expedition in direction to the Canary island Tenerife, he passed the castle San Antón, where at that time Malaspina was kept in prison. In his travel narrative he commented that moment: “We remained with our eyes fixed on the castle of St. Antony, where the unfortunate Malaspina was then a captive in a state prison. On the point of leaving Europe to visit the countries which this illustrious traveler had visited with so much advantage, I could have wished to have fixed my thoughts on some object less affecting.”37 Humboldt draws a portrait of the political and social situation of Spanish America that not only includes all of the important elements of each society but also offers insights into the differences between these societies, as well as conflicts among the various social groups within each population. His rich depiction of colonial society is not limited, however, to an isolated description of each social group, but also considers the

36 1754 (Mulazzo, Italy) -1810 (Pontremoli, Italy), marine officer and explorer, undertaken for the Spanish Government a scientific expedition to various parts of the world. He was put into prison from 1795–1803 in La Coruña and later on exiled to Italy. 37 Alexander von Humboldt, Aimé Bonpland, Personal narrative of travels to the equi noctial regions of the New Continent, during the years 1799–1804, 7 vols. (London: Longman etc., 1814–1829) vol. 1, 41.

88 sandra rebok networks that existed between different social classes, analyzing the interactions between them as well as their mutual influences.38 His attention is repeatedly drawn to the nature of accommodation between Indian inhabitants and European immigrants, but he also examines different cases of racial or cultural fusion. Therefore, it is interesting to compare Humboldt’s view on colonial Spanish America to his impressions regarding the free United States of America. Unfortunately, these comments are not included in his travel diaries, which end with his arrival in Philadelphia. Nevertheless, numerous letters as well as some remarks in his published works give us a good idea of his attitude towards the U.S.39 The vision Humboldt forms of this country is shaped by his approval of its identification with the ideals of Enlightenment, of the American movement for independence as well as the early goals of the French Revolution. On several occasions he himself admitted that he had the “ideas of 1789 in his heart,” which means that he always maintained an awareness of the fundamental principles of freedom, equality and fraternity, basing upon them his philosophy of life.40

38 For more information see Rebok, 2009. 39 Kurt Biermann, Ingo Schwarz, “Alexander von Humboldt – ‘half an American,’” Alexander-von-Humboldt-Magazin, 67 (1996) 43–50; Sandra Rebok, “Two Exponents of the Enlightenment: Transatlantic Communication by Thomas Jefferson and Alexander von Humboldt”, The Southern Quarterly, Imagining the Atlantic World, 43: 4 (2006), 126–152; Sandra Rebok, “The transatlantic dialogue of the American statesman Thomas Jefferson and the Prussian traveler and scientist Alexander von Humboldt”, Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 116: 4 (2008), 329–369. 40 In his era as well as regarding his working method, Humboldt has to be situated between two different epochs: the Enlightenment as well as the Romantic movement. On one side, his scientific concept can be characterized as marked by the Enlightenment, such as the use of his measurement instruments in order to understand the foreign reality or his method to establish separate analyzes. His integrative and global vision of the American reality on the other side, which led him to more general considerations, has to be understood as an anticipation of the practices of perception of the Romantic movement. Also regarding Humboldt’s approach to nature in this context, it can be seen that he moved between these two conceptions: He put into practice the concerns of the Enlightenment – to organize and measure the nature to understand how each part functions – and he included the focus of the Romantic movement on the subjective element of perception in the description of nature. For more information on this issue, see: Michael Dettelbach, “Alexander von Humboldt zwischen Aufklärung und Romantik”, in Alexander von Humboldt – Aufbruch in die Moderne, eds. Ottmar Ette, Ute Hermanns, Bernd M. Scherer and Christian Suckow, (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2001), 137–149; Kristian Köchy, “Das Ganze der Natur – Alexander von Humboldt und das romantische Forschungsprogramm”, Hum boldt im Netz (http://www.uni-potsdam.de/u/romanistik/humboldt/hin), III: 5 (2002); Marta Monreal Sanz and Luis Álvarez Falcón, “Del racionalismo ilustrado a la sensibilidad romántica: La concepción singular del cambio de paradigma en la ciencia de Alexander von Humboldt”, in Mari Alvarez Lires et al., 2001, 349–357.

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He therefore considers the U.S. to be “the shelter for a reasonable freedom.”41 Already before reaching the country, he had expressed his beliefs in a letter of introduction sent to President Jefferson: Despite my burning desire to see Paris again, where I worked for a long time with C.C. Vauquelin and Chaptal, and where we expect to publish our work (the fruits of this expedition), I could not resist the moral interest in seeing the United States and enjoying the consoling aspect of a people who know how to appreciate the precious gift of liberty.42 In the U.S. he observes democratic forms of society that in his opinion represent the future of the Spanish colonies as well as the European monarchies. Humboldt believed this model was especially interesting because it brought to reality many of the postulates of the Enlightenment. In the letter he wrote to Jefferson before leaving the U.S., he expressed his opinion that Europe presented an immoral and melancholic picture whereas the population of the U.S. could expect major improvements brought forth by the order of society newly developed there.43 In order to understand better this negative vision of Europe in its historic context, we have to keep in mind, that Humboldt’s last memories of the Old Continent were the final years of the French Revolution, which ended with the beginning of Napoleon’s leadership under the Consulate on December 24, 1799. He maintains high expectations for the realization of his liberal ideals in this new republic and would follow the political and social developments in the U.S. with interest throughout his entire life. Furthermore, he appreciated the progress of the North American nation in the sciences, in education and in all aspects of cultural interest, explaining his plans to realize a later expedition through the U.S. – a project that, like many others, could never be undertaken.

41 Heinrich Berghaus, ed., Briefwechsel Alexander von Humboldt’s mit Heinrich Berghaus aus den Jahren 1825 bis 1858, vol. 1 (Jena: Hermann Costenoble, 1869), 16–17 (translated from German by Ingo Schwarz). 42 Letter written on May 24, 1804 in Philadelphia, published in: Schwarz, 1992, 1149 (“Malgré le désir ardent que j’ai de revoir Paris, où j’ai travaillé longtem[p]s avec les C.C. Vauquelin et Chaptal, et où nous comptons publier nos travaux (Fruits de cette Expédition) je n’ai pas pu résister à l’intérêt moral de voir les États-unis et de jouir de l’aspect consolant d’un peuple, qui sait apprécier le don précieux de la Liberté”). 43 Humboldt to Jefferson, 27 June 1804, published in Schwarz, ed., 2004, 101. (French original: “Je pars parce que ma position l’exige, mais j’emporte avec moi la Consolation, que tandisque l’Europe présente un spectacle immorale et mélancholique, le peuple de ce Continent marche à grands pas vers la perfection de l’état social. Je me flatte que je jouirai un jour de nouveau de cet aspect consolant, je simpathise avec Vous dans l’espérance (…) que l’humanité peut s’attendre à une grande amélioration par le nouvel Ordre des choses qui règne ici.”)

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*** In discussing Humboldt’s perceptions of the different regions of America, we have to be aware that they are closely linked his self-identification, since where one positions himself in his own culture helps determine the view of other cultures. In this context, Humboldt did not at all think in national categories but rather saw himself primarily as a cosmopolitan. His perception of himself as a citizen of the world is the key factor that defines the vision of Humboldt and his concept of the other.44 This way of perceiving the world represented the ideal of the education the aristoc- racy envisoned in this epoch, therefore in his times and his social circles there were few things characterized as “the German element”. Thus the cosmopolitan dimension of his scientific activity was very much influenced by his context and customs of the 18th century. It was not until the 19th century when nationalism became more strident and determined the political life as well as social tendences in the population in Europe, yet Humboldt never distanced himself from his cosmopolitan attitude. In this absence of uniquely Prussian or German identification, we are able detect certain identification of Humboldt as a European. Already in his work Relation historique he reveals a certain European perspective in perceiving the New World.45 Nevertheless, he was always aware of the relativity or subjectivity of certain concepts, such as the aesthetic sense in different cultures and in several ocasions he manifested himself against this simple transposition of European ideas on the American world.46 As we know, Humboldt was always looking for the general, the universal and not so much for the singular, thus the functioning of the whole of nature and society he considered the most important and he emphasized common features rather than differences. *** Humboldt’s interest in America was not limited to the situation he was able to observe on his tour. Upon his return from the New World onwards he started to study in a profound way the historical record of the Spanish colonies. In agreement with his historicistic approach, he considered

44 Ottmar Ette, “The Scientist as Weltbürger: Alexander von Humboldt and the Begin ning of Cosmopolitics”, Humboldt im Netz (http://www.uni-potsdam.de/u/romanistik/ humboldt/hin), II: 2 (2001). 45 Ottmar Ette, “Der Blick auf die Neue Welt“, in Alexander von Humboldt. Reise in die Äquinoktialgegenden des Neuen Kontinentes, ed. Ottmar Ette, vol. 2 (Frankfurt a. M.; Leipzig: Insel, 1999), 1583–1584. 46 Ibidem, 1584.

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that it was necesary to study the past of a region in order to understand its present. His readings were based on centuries-old Spanish sources, such as the annotations of the first chroniclers, missionaries, travelers as well as administrative functionaries of the colonies. Also, he did not disregard the compilations and interpretations of the sources to which the scholars of the 17th and 18th century dedicated their time. In his work Examen Critique Humboldt affirms: I have found particular charm in the lecture of the works which include the accounts of the Conquistadores. Research undertaken in some archives in America and in the libraries of different parts of Europe have facilitated my study of a neglected branch of Spanish literature.47 Through the study of practically all of the works related to the American continent, from the discovery until his own time, Humboldt became on one side a noted expert on the classical Spanish historiography, and on the other, he conceded these writings the merit they deserve as historical documents. During the time, these documents had sunk into obscurity, since in the scientific world they were not taken seriously, more so, they were considered exaggerated and with low credibility. When taken into account, they were treated with a certain level of skeptcism or they were directly attacked as “friars tales”.48 The works of Humboldt reflect the hours he dedicated to the study of the Spanish colonial history, it is notable to see the elevated number of references to the writings of the chroniclers, evident particularly in the followings publications: Vues des Cordillères et monumens des peuples indigènes de l’Amérique, whose first edition appeared in France between 1810 and 1813,49 and which is centered in the history of the Amercan civilization and the way it was perceived from Europe; Examen critique de l’histoire de la géographie du Nouveau Continent et des progrès de l’astronomie nautique aux XVI et XVI siècles, edited in French between the years 1836 and 1839, which represented the direct result of his detailed analysis of the Spanish colonial history, and

47 French original: “(…) j’ai trouvé un charme particulier à la lecture des ouvrages qui renferment les récits des Conquistadores. Des investigations faites dans quelques archives en Amérique et dans les bibliothèques de différents parties de l’Europe, m’ont facilité l’etude d’une branche négligée de la litérature espagnole”. Alexander von Humboldt, Histoire de la géographie du Nouveau Continent et des progrès de l’astronomie nautique aux XV et XVI siècles: comprenant l’histoire de la découverte de l’Amérique. 5 vols. (Paris: Legrand, Pomey, Crouzet, 1836-3), vol. 1, X–XI. 48 Minguet, 1985, vol. II, 12. 49 Alexander von Humboldt, Vues des Cordillères et monumens des peuples indigènes de l’Amérique (París: Schoell, 1810–1813).

92 sandra rebok last but not least, the five volumes of the Kosmos, published between the years 1845 and 186250 in which he systematizes his scientific trajectory. *** From the beginning of his transatlantic experiences until the end of his life, Humboldt promoted the interchange of knowledge, ideas, and experiences across the Atlantic and maintained contacts with personalities in the fields of politics and scholarship. Throughout this period Humboldt made certain to keep the New World informed about the progress of his research and the writings he published about his American Expedi tion and at the same time, through his correspondence with numerous personalities from Spanish America – later with the new independent republics – as well as the U.S. he received opinions, observations, ideas and scientific and statistical data from the other side of the ocean. Thus his personal encounters during this exploration journey marked the beginning of a mutually enriching scientific and political transatlantic dialogue between the rising new country and the evolving old. During this time, even in his last years, he remained interested in political concerns, political movements, and well as social questions, and took part in their occurrences on the other side of the Atlantic. One of the issues he was very concerned about was the political future of Spanish America, especially the applicability of democratic models on this region. Therefore he was interested in learning opinions from the U.S. about the independence movement from the point of view of the New Continent versus the Old Continent. Especially with Thomas Jefferson he maintained an interesting interchange of opinions with profound reflections about this matter, as we can see in a letter directed to Humboldt on 14 April 1811, where Jefferson expressed his personal doubts on this issue: What kind of government will they establish? How much liberty can they bear without intoxication? Are their chiefs sufficiently enlightened to form a well-guarded government, and their people to watch their chiefs? Have they mind enough to place their domesticated Indians on a footing with the whites? All these questions you can answer better than any other.51

50 Alexander von Humboldt, Kosmos. Entwurf einer physischen Weltbeschreibung. 5 vols. (Stuttgart, Tübingen: Cotta, 1845–1862). A recent German edition was published in 2004 and the newest English version appeared in 1997 under the title Cosmos. A sketch of the physical description of the Universe (Baltimore/London: John Hopkins University Press, 1997. 51 Jefferson to Humboldt, 14 April 1811, published in Schwarz, 2004, 120.

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To some of these questions Jefferson provided a few of his own supposi- tions in order to get a sense of Humboldt’s opinions: I imagine they will copy our outlines of confederation and elective government, abolish distinction of ranks, bow the neck to their priests, and perse- vere in intolerantism. Their greatest difficulty will be in construction of their executive. I suspect that, regardless of the experiment of France, and of that of the United States in 1784, they will begin with a directory, and when the unavoidable schisms in that kind of executive shall drive them to something else, their great question will come on whether to substitute an executive elective for years, for life, or an hereditary one. But unless instruction can be spread among them more rapidly than experience promises, despotism may come upon them before they are qualified to save the ground they will have gained.52 From these letters we can also see, that in the U.S. Humboldt was considered an expert to consult in these questions. In his answer to this letter several months later, he expressed his own concerns about these matters and responded to Jefferson’s reflections. Nevertheless, though the letter itself was quite extended, his comments on these issues were much less detailed. He only pointed out his keen interest in the struggle in Spanish America and predicted a violent conflict that would leave its imprint on the social order, since it already had been three centuries that the European society was based on mutual resentments and animosity.53 Another issue that worried him for the rest of his lifetime, and one of the most memorable experiences of Humboldt’s transatlantic journey, was his contact with the institution of slavery, which he considered “the greatest of all evils that afflict humanity” and the very antithesis of his personal convictions.54 He makes this clear on many occasions, most notably in his famous work Kosmos. In it he asserts his fervent belief in the unity of the human race, rejecting clearly the assumption of superior and

52 Ibidem. 53 Humboldt to Jefferson, 20 December 1811, published in ibidem, 122 (French original: “Je suis vivement intéressé comme Vous à la grande lutte de l’Amérique espagnole. Il faut pas s’étonner que la lutte soit sanglante, lorsqu’on pense que les hommes portent par tout l’empreinte de l’imperfection des institutions sociales et que les peuples d’Europe depuis trois siècles ont cherché leurs sécurité dans le ressentiments mutuel et la haine des Castes.”) 54 This subject is treated in Philip S. Foner, Alexander von Humboldt on Slavery in the United States (Berlin: Humboldt-Universität, 1984); Schwarz, 2000; Ingo Schwarz, “Alexander von Humboldt – Socio-political Views of the Americas,” in Ansichten Amerikas. Neuere Studien zu Alexander von Humboldt, eds. Ottmar Ette and Walther L. Bernecker (Frankfurt a. Main: Vervuert, 2001), 105–15; Michael Zeuske, “Alexander von Humboldt y la comparación de las esclavitudes en las Américas,” Humboldt im Netz: http://www .uni-potsdam.de/u/romanistik/ humboldt/ hin/ hin11/inh_zeuske_1.htm, VII, 11 (2005).

94 sandra rebok inferior peoples. He believes that some people could be considered more highly educated and ennobled by intellectual culture, but denied that some races are naturally nobler than others. This led Humboldt to conclude that all people were equally entitled to freedom and that in civilized societies that freedom must be ensured by political institutions.55 Slavery held his attention over the course of his entire lifetime and on countless occasions he expressed in no uncertain terms his aversion to it. Take, for example, his Essay on Cuba, in which he dedicated a whole chapter to this institution: We can never enough praise the wisdom of the legislation of the new republics of Spanish America, which since their birth, has been seriously occupied with the total extinction of slavery. That vast portion of the earth has, in this respect, an immense advantage over the southern part of the United States, where the whites, during the struggle with England, established liberty for their own profit.56 As a consequence, when in 1856, John Sidney Thrasher, a pro-slavery Southerner, published his translation of this work, under the title The Island of Cuba by Alexander von Humboldt, and simply omitted the chapter on slavery, thereby silencing Humboldt’s criticism of it, Humboldt protested immediately and angrily, firmly opposing this textual mutilation in a letter to the Spenersche Zeitung in Berlin.57 This letter was translated and published, among others, in the New York Times, New York Tribune, and the New York Herald.58 In it he points out that he gave to this part of his work “greater importance than to any astronomical observations, experiments of magnetic intensity, or statistical statements” and concluded by declaring that he thought he was “entitled to demand that in the free States of the Continent of America, people should be allowed to read what has been permitted to circulate, from the first year of its appearance, in a Spanish translation.”59 This assertion simultaneously drew attacks on

55 Humboldt, 2004, 187 (German original: “Indem wir die Einheit des Menschenge schlechtes behaupten, widerstreben wir auch jener unerfreulichen Annahme von höheren und niederen Menschenracen. Es giebt bildsamere, höhere gebildete, durch geistige Cultur veredelte, aber keine edleren Volksstämme. Alle sind gleichmäβig zur Freiheit bestimmt; zur Freiheit, welche in roheren Zuständen dem Einzelnen, in dem Staatenleben bei dem Genuβ politischer Institutionen der Gesamtheit als Berechtigung zukommt.”). 56 Humboldt/Bonpland, 1814–1829, vol. 7, 269. 57 For more information on that polemic see Foner, 1984, 18–37; Schwarz, 2001, 170–73. 58 These documents are also published in Schwarz, ed., 2004, documents 36 and 37, 560–562. 59 The New York Daily Times, vol. V, 1532, 16 August 1856, 2, published in Schwarz, 2001, 173.

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Humboldt from the angry defenders of slavery in the U.S., as well as approval from the abolitionists, who welcomed the writings and actions of this famous exploration. Thus it is also not surprising that Humboldt also opined on the presi- dential campaign of 1856, supporting John C. Frémont against James Buchanan,60 and wrote this bitter remark about the victory of the latter: “And that shameful party which sells Negro children of fifty pounds, that distributes canes of honor just as the Russian Tsar distributes swords of honor (…), which demands that free workers should rather be slaves than free men, has won. What a crime!”61 Also from the American side, over the years Humboldt was included in several national campaigns as a moral reference – for instance in case of the anti-slavery movement in the U.S. – or as a supposed leader or even hero of independence, in case of the newly independent South American republics. In this sense, Humboldt became a world-wide known personality and a key person to visit in old Europe for the travelers from the New World. Especially in his last years, when the invention of the steamboat drastically reduced the traveling time across the Atlantic, he received numerous visitors, particularly from the U.S. Finally it has to be mentioned that Humboldt did not only contribute to the scientific exploration of the New World through his own expedition, but also served as an inspiration and promoter for numerous other travelers in the 19th century, he supported several through personal letter of recommendations for his American contacts or even through economic support of their expeditions. *** Important in this context is also the fact that Humboldt created and promoted a positive image of New World in Europe, arguing against the theory of the supposed inferiority of the American continent, which was debated in those times in Europe. As an eyewitness of the American reality, and based on his personal scientific observations, he formulated a response to the ideas propagated by the leading French naturalist Georges Louis Leclerc, the Count de Buffon, as well as Abbé Cornelis de Pauw, William Robertson, and Abbé Guillaume-Thomas Raynal, refuting these

60 Detailed information in: Schwarz, 2001, 173–75; Foner, 1984, 21–24. 61 Ludmilla Assing, ed., Briefe von Alexander von Humboldt an Varnhagen von Ense aus den Jahren 1827 bis 1858 (Leipzig: F.M. Brodhaus, 1860), 332 (translated from German by Ingo Schwarz).

96 sandra rebok ideas. With his enthusiastic description of America including comments upon the marvelous nature, capacity, and spirit of its native inhabitants, declared himself in firm opposition to this European assumption. He also disproved the writings and statements of these authors, particularly in his own works on Mexico as well as in his Vues des Cordillères. In these numerous references he revealed the obvious lack of knowledge of these scientists about their subject, or the lack of liability of their sources, by pointing out their mistakes and wrong results in a very deliberate and detailed manner. Also with his correspondents in the U.S. he expressed his position regarding this debate, being aware of the importance it had for the young republic. For instance in his letter of introduction to Jefferson he demonstrates this awareness, particularly where Humboldt mentions finding the mammoth teeth in the Andes at the height of 1700 toises above sea level.62 The Prussian was perfectly aware that this was just the type of information that would capture Jefferson’s attention, since as an American diplomat he was charged with promoting the growth and commerce of his young country and thus he needed to promote a positive national image that would encourage immigration and commerce. In a letter to Albert Gallatin, Humboldt made a revealing and unambiguous comment, which supports this idea: He pointed out that he preferred the American climate to all others because “there one could breathe more freely”.63 With this pun Humboldt was literally referring to the climate per se, probably in relation to the debate about the assumed inferiority of the climate on the American continent, but in the figurative sense also to the country’s status as a free nation. Unlike his American correspondents, Humboldt was not personally touched by this debate. For him, it seemed to be more a response to a provocation on an academic – specifically scientific – level. His enlightened scientific interest and desire to understand the world by taking measurements meant that for him the assumed inferiority of America was easy to refute on the basis of his own scientific results. The important point here is that the debate about and the refutations of the American degeneracy theory was a transatlantic enterprise, in which also numerous South American scholars participated, such as Francisco Javier Clavijero Echegaray (Storia Antica del Messico), Juan Ignacio Molina (Compendio

62 Humboldt to Jefferson, 24 May 1804, published in Schwarz, ed., 2004, 89. 63 Humboldt to Gallatin, 20 June 1804, published ibidem, 298 (French original: “(…) je préfère Votre Climat à tout autre. Car l’air le plus sain est celui où l’on respire le plus librement.”).

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della Storia Geografica, Naturale, e Civile del Regno del Chile), Juan de Velasco’s (Historia moderna del Reyno de Quito) or Francisco José de Caldas (Semanario del Nuevo Reino de Granada). The writings of Jefferson and Humboldt about this subject constitute important documents in this polemic and had obvious repercussions on the Old and the New Continent. The relevance of this issue lies in the fact that at that time, in certain circles in Europe, there was significant interest in the U.S. and in what was called the American experiment—the birth and the construction of a new social and political system after the overthrow of British colonial rule. Many people were thus intrigued to obtain any kind of information about the New World, and they could basically acquire it through travelers or Americans citizens themselves. Humboldt’s triple experience in Europe, in the Spanish colonies in America as well as the independent United States, was singular in that time and contributed to the unique authority he was conceded by his contemporaries. During the communication of ideas and knowledge during the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, a period characterized by the questioning of the traditional structure of the world and the search for a new social order, his ideas of Europe and America as well as his writings have had a particularly far- reaching historical impact and formed a bridge within the Atlantic world.

PART TWO

SLAVERY AND FREEDOM ON THE EDGES OF THE ATLANTIC WORLD

The exploitation of marginalized peoples is the focal point of Part Two, “Slavery and Freedom on the Edges of the Atlantic World.” Each chapter examines the life or lives of enslaved, captive or exploited individuals who refused to accept their particular positions. Faced with captivity and/or bondage, each person highlighted in these chapters resisted by claiming the freedom available to them through mobility and movement on the waters of the Atlantic. Each man shares the common attribute of occupy- ing marginalized bodies and positions in society. Whether a free African, enslaved mariners, or a convicted criminal, as each of the men profiled in this section were, they could not fully escape the reality of their under- privileged status the Atlantic world. Yet, they confronted these realities, refusing to accept their marginal statuses, fighting for freedom by taking to the sea and wielding whatever power – albeit limited in some cases – they could. CHAPTER FOUR

THE CROSSINGS OF OCCRAMAR MARYCOO, OR NEWPORT GARDNER

Edward E. Andrews

It took Newport Gardner an entire lifetime to achieve his dream. It took less than two weeks for it to shatter. In 1826 Gardner, along with family and friends, returned to the continent of his birth: Africa. Because we do not know exactly where Gardner originally came from it is difficult to determine if his destination, Liberia, was really his “home.” Nevertheless, Gardner and his colleagues envisioned their return to Africa as a critical moment in the history of the Black Atlantic. They, along with past and future migrants, would contribute to the formation of an independent black colony, away from the scourge of white racial persecution that had oppressed their people for centuries. Gardner himself had been a slave, and he lived most of his life on the other side of the Atlantic. Even before he received his freedom, Gardner and other blacks (as well as several philanthropic whites) had planned a return to Africa. It took decades for Gardner to make this a reality, but in January of 1826 he and his retinue sailed aboard the Vine from Boston to Liberia. Landing in mid-February, they were immediately struck down with what one reporter called “fever of the country.”1 The newspapers never reported what disease actually plagued them, whether it was malaria, yellow fever, or some mix of patho- gens. It is also unclear whether the African emigrants, who should have been immune to tropical West African diseases, died more quickly because of their time in the Americas. We do know that, within just a few weeks, Newport Gardner, his closest colleague, his son, and nearly half of the returning Africans were struck dead by the same diseases that made West Africa a white man’s grave. Few blacks had experiences as variegated and complex as the man originally known as Occramar Marycoo. Taken from West Africa when he was just fourteen years old, Marycoo lived as a slave in Newport, Rhode Island, one of the Atlantic world’s most culturally, religiously, and economically

1 Providence Patriot & Columbian Phenix, June 14, 1826.

102 edward e. andrews diverse port towns. Although he would eventually have his name changed to Newport Gardner – his first name from the town in which he resided and his last name from the merchant who kept him enslaved (Caleb Gardner) – Marycoo fashioned a complex identity that fused a continuing interest in Africa with an increasing appropriation of Western culture and religion. For Gardner this was no contradiction, but rather a double- consciousness, a key part of his emerging identity. He became a prominent member of Newport’s First Congregational Church, served as a tutor for young blacks, established himself as a leader of the social institutions and organizations that characterized post-Revolutionary Rhode Island black life, purchased his freedom through a winning lottery ticket, fathered about a dozen children, became perhaps the first black American to draft a Western-styled musical composition, and later led the failed mission to West Africa. Marycoo’s long, eventful, and fascinating life provides a window into the many crossings – physical and temporal, as well as cultural and social – that characterized the Black Atlantic during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. As such, Marycoo was not just a citizen in this world, but a major pillar that supported it.

A Life in Slavery

Like most Africans who constituted the Black Atlantic, we know very little about Occramar Marycoo’s early years, at least as an individual. His African name, usually spelled Occramar Marycoo but having many variations on that spelling, suggests that he hailed from the Gold Coast of Africa and came from one of the Akan-speaking groups there. According to an oral story passed around Newport after Marycoo’s death, he was 14 years old when he was tricked into slavery in 1760. Marycoo was apparently an elite African who was supposed to be entrusted to an Anglo-American ship captain for an education, but was instead sold into slavery and delivered to a slave trader named Caleb Gardner. The veracity of this story is, of course, impossible to determine; one scholar has noted that it is “almost certainly apocryphal.” Indeed, it is probable that Marycoo was Caleb Gardner’s commission for one of the several slave trading voyages he undertook to Africa in the 1760s.2 What is particularly striking about

2 James T. Campbell, Middle Passages: African American Journeys to Africa, 1787–2005 (New York: The Penguin Press, 2006), 20–21. According to The Transatlantic Slave Trade Database, Gardner was responsible for transferring approximately 2,072 slaves from Africa to ports in Rhode Island, South Carolina, Jamaica, Grenada, St. Kitts, Barbados, and New

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this narrative is its similarity with other stories in the Black Atlantic, suggesting Gardner’s biography might have been conflated and cross-stitched with other stories of Africans who were ensnared in the brutal system of racial slavery. Like his better known contemporary, Olaudah Equiano, Marycoo’s biography interwove muddily with the countless other stories of deception, avarice, and treachery that characterized the making of the Atlantic world.3 Although we know very little about Marycoo’s early years, we do know a great deal about the world in which he lived. The transatlantic slave trade was ruthlessly efficient, thriving upon competition between imperial nations, conniving merchants, and ambitious African kingdoms. Newport, Rhode Island, an idyllic town set in New England, was one of the linchpins of this world, as its merchants voraciously plied the African coasts and supplied the Caribbean and British mainland colonies with hundreds of thousands of slaves.4 The fertile lands of Narragansett Bay also demanded slave labor, and Newport became an entrepôt for the Africans who would find themselves laboring in the farms of southern Rhode Island.5 As a result, Newport’s black population ballooned during the eighteenth century, and by the time Marycoo arrived in the port town, the 1200 blacks living there made up nearly 20% of the total population.6 Rhode Island’s policy of religious toleration also made Newport arguably the most religiously diverse place in the British Atlantic world. Old school New England Congregationalists sparred with New Light revivalists. Moravians, Sabbatarians, Anglicans, and Baptists all established places of worship there. Even The Society of Friends (known as Quakers) and Jews had situated themselves as longstanding pillars of this community.

York. See http://www.slavevoyages.org/tast/index.faces. Gardner’s enslavement is also discussed briefly in Myra Beth Young Armstead, Lord, Please Don’t Take Me In August: African Americans in Newport and Saratoga Springs, 1870–1930 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999), 29–30. 3 Vincent Carretta, Equiano, the African: Biography of a Self-Made Man (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2005). The story of John Quamine, another African slave who had been apparently tricked into slavery, reads very similar to Gardner’s. Quamine did not arrive in Newport until a few years after Gardner. See Edward E. Andrews, “John Quamino” and “Duchess Quamino,” in The African American National Biography (London: Oxford University Press, 2008). 4 Jay Coughtry, The Notorious Triangle: Rhode Island and the African Slave Trade, 1700– 1807 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1981). 5 Robert K. Fitts, Inventing New England’s Slave Paradise: Master/Slave Relations in Eighteenth-Century Narragansett, Rhode Island (New York: Garland Pub., 1998). 6 Elaine Forman Crane, A Dependent People; Newport, Rhode Island, in the Revolutionary Era (New York: Fordham University Press, 1985), 76–83.

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As such, Newport Gardner lived in a veritable marketplace of both human commodities and religious doctrines. Newporters were committed to the institution of slavery. The town did not witness spectacles of violence that were common in the slave societies of the American South and the Caribbean, and public auctions for slaves were rare. Nevertheless, Rhode Islanders still sought control over their slaves through a range of laws, personal acts of dominance, and even naming, which proved to be one of the most visible ways to demonstrate power over slaves. Cato, Pompey, Hercules, and other names from classical antiquity were common, but so were names of famous slave trading ports, like Newport and Bristol. When Occramar Marycoo became a slave to Caleb Gardner, he not only received a new home, new work patterns, and a new life in slavery, but also a new name: Newport Gardner. Interestingly, it was this name, and not Occramar Marycoo, that Gardner applied to himself after his arrival in Newport.7 As an African slave in a transatlantic seaport, Gardner, like the hundreds of other Africans coming into Newport in the last half of the eighteenth century, probably served as a jack of all trades. The slave trade was certainly the “first wheel of commerce” there, but there were plenty of other industries and trades in which black slaves participated.8 While women and young boys were traditionally house servants or worked in some part of Newport’s service industry, the town’s adult male black slaves usually worked in rum distilleries, in artisans’ shops, on wharves, and on the ships that made the Atlantic trade so profitable to the town. This was no monolithic economy, but a diverse, dynamic, and cacophonous assem- blage of jobs, occupations, and roles that black slaves participated in. On the home front, Gardner’s mistress apparently took an interest in educating the slave her husband had acquired. Gardner received instruction alongside the white Gardner children, and within a few years he had mastered both English and French. His mistress arranged for Gardner to receive music classes from an itinerant instructor and theorist named Andrew Law. Within a few years of his arrival in the Americas, Gardner was not only fluent in at least three languages, but was also becoming increasingly renowned for his musical talents.9 Whatever his position

7 Slavery in Newport is discussed in Crane, A Dependent People, 76–83; and Richard C. Youngken, African Americans in Newport: An Introduction to the Heritage of African Americans in Newport, Rhode Island, 1700–1945 (Providence: Rhode Island Historical Pres ervation & Heritage Commission and Rhode Island Black Heritage Society, 1995). 8 Crane, A Dependent People, 16. 9 Campbell, Middle Passages, 20–21. See also George Champlin Mason, Reminiscences of Newport (Newport, RI: Charles E. Hammett, Jr., 1884).

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was, and whatever his daily experience was like, it is important to note that it was while still in slavery that Gardner began to fashion the two critical pillars of his identity that would characterize his life in slavery and later, in freedom: his increasing participation in the religious life of Newport and his growing talent for musical composition and instruction. It is difficult to say what effect, if any, Newport’s religious passions and pluralism had on the experiences of slaves there. The church records for black membership, baptisms, and other rituals are sparse for the period before the 1760s. However, in the middle of the 1760s there was a controversial religious revival – led by a woman named Sarah Osborn – that fundamentally altered the religious landscape of Newport’s African community. Interestingly, Osborn admitted that it was black participants, and not their white masters, who asked Osborn to lead these religious meetings. She wrote that there were “several Ethiopians thotful who Having their Liberty to go where they like on Lords day Evenings have ask’d Liberty to repair to our House for the benefit of family prayer reading etc.”10 These “several Ethiopians” swelled to about 300 participants, including whites, by 1766. In 1767 that number had increased to 525, and her home was bursting at the seams with blacks and whites interested in hearing the woman lead religious meetings.11 Osborn knew that, even in a society with slaves where slave rebellion was unlikely, the prospect of her leading hundreds of slaves in Christian instruction brought both racial and gendered tensions to the surface. She acknowledged that her peers had accused her of keeping a “Negroe House,” but insisted that “I only read to them talk to them and sing a Psalm or Hymn with them, and then at Eight o clock dismiss them by Name as upon List.”12 Osborn even asserted that black slaves could not attend “without the consent of their masters.”13 It is likely that Newport Gardner attended these events, and it is certain that he knew other African slaves who had.14

10 Sarah Osborn to Joseph Fish, 21 April 1765, in Sarah Osborn, Letters, 1743–1770; 1779, Boxes “O” in Manuscript Collection at the American Antiquarian Society – Folder 6. A Transcription can also be found in Mary Beth Norton, “My Resting Reaping Times”: Sarah Osborn’s Defense of Her “Unfeminine” Activities, 1767,” Signs 2 No. 2 (Winter 1976): 515–529. For more on Osborn, see Catherine A. Brekus, Sarah Osborn’s World: The Rise of Evangelical Christianity in Early America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013). 11 Ibid., 519–520. 12 Sarah Osborn to Joseph Fish, 7 March, 1767, in Norton, “My Resting Reaping Times”: 520 and 523. According to Rhode Island law, blacks could not be out later than 9pm, of which Osborn surely would have been aware. 13 Samuel Hopkins, Memoirs of the Life of Mrs. Sarah Osborn: Who Died at Newport, Rhode Island, on the Second Day of August, 1796, in the Eighty Third Year of Her Age (Catskill, N.Y.: N. Elliott, 1814), 76. 14 James Campbell asserts that Gardner did attend Osborn’s meetings. Although I have yet to find textual evidence to confirm this, it is most likely, given Gardner’s future

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If Newport Gardner was receptive to the message of Christianity, it may have been because of the instruction he received from his mistress, for black education often included basic Christian precepts. Caleb Gardner was a member of Ezra Stiles’ Second Congregational Church, a traditional, doctrinaire institution led by an august minister who would eventually become president of Yale College. He was apparently an important member of this church, as Stiles visited Gardner’s home 33 times in 1771.15 In the years following Stiles visited the Gardners nearly a dozen times annually. It was also at this time that Stiles manifested an increasing concern for the evangelization of Newport’s blacks. He began to hold weekly meetings, outside of the usual confines of regular services, for blacks at his own home. Attendance at these meetings often ranged from 70 to 80 individuals. He even led religious meetings at the houses of free blacks.16 Given these circumstances, Newport Gardner probably had significantly more exposure to Christian doctrine (or at least examples of Christian leadership) than other members of the black community. If Stiles’ frequent visits to the Gardner household made an impression on Newport Gardner, it might not have been the impression that Stiles was hoping for. Gardner and his wife, Limas, had each of their children baptized in a Congregational church, which certainly would have been to Stiles’ approval. However, these baptisms were not done in the Second Congregational, the church of the Gardners and Stiles, but rather in Newport’s First Congregational, which had been taken over by controversial minister Samuel Hopkins in 1770. Hopkins was a protégé of Jonathan Edwards, the famous firebrand of First Great Awakening, and he was known throughout the American colonies and beyond for his dour persona and esoteric system of divinity.17 He also owed his hiring to the support of Sarah Osborn, the same evangelical leader who taught hundreds of blacks just years before. This might explain why Newport Gardner and his

participation in church rituals, his institutional leadership in the church, and the fact that nearly one in four blacks were attending these meetings. See Campbell, Middle Passages, 21. 15 Franklin Bowditch Dexter, The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, Ed., Under the Authority of the Corporation of Yale University (New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1901), 1: 82. 16 Diary entry for 12 October 1773 in Stiles, The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles,. I: 415. 17 Joseph A. Conforti, Samuel Hopkins and the New Divinity Movement: Calvinism, the Congregational Ministry, and Reform in New England Between the Great Awakenings (Grand Rapids: Christian University Press, 1981); and Samuel Hopkins, The System of Doctrines, Contained in Divine Revelation, Explained and Defended. Showing Their Consistence and Connection With Each Other. To Which is Added, a Treatise on the Millennium (Boston: Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer T. Andrews, 1793).

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growing family cast their lot with a “New Light” preacher, rather than affil- iating with the church of Stiles and his slave master. Whatever the motiva- tion, Gardner’s decision to join the First Congregational Church, and not the Second, created a lasting legacy for him and his family, and he would forge an intimate relationship with Samuel Hopkins that would last a lifetime. Participation in the rituals of church life was important to Newport Gardner, and the manuscript records of the First Congregational Church demonstrate how his children’s baptisms solidified Gardner’s place in the church. In fact, the record book from the 1780s reads like a litany of Gardner baptisms. In August of 1781 Hopkins baptized Prince and Dinah, apparently the first two children of Newport and Limas. Solomon, another son, was baptized a year later, and Silva was baptized in June of 1783 (although her grave marker in Newport’s burial ground indicates that she died just a year after).18 Elizabeth was baptized in July of 1784 and Jacob was baptized a year later. Ahema, another son of Limas and Newport, was baptized in December of 1787, daughter Amy had her baptism in 1789, and Martha was baptized in January of 1792. Charles Quamine was baptized in March of 1794.19 These nearly annual baptisms suggest a few things: the centrality of religious institutions and rituals to their lives, the growing spiritual independence of the black Gardners, the increasing role that Newport Gardner was likely taking as a religious patriarch, and finally, at a more basic level, the growing size of the Gardner family. Indeed, according to the 1790 census, Caleb Gardner had one white adult male (himself), one male child, and five white women living in his home with a total of 9 black slaves.20 It is probable that all of these slaves were black Gardners: Newport, Limas, Prince, Dinah, Solomon, Elizabeth, Jacob, Ahema, and Amy. By the early 1790s, the Gardner household was teeming with black children. At the same time that Newport Gardner was using baptism to inculcate the importance of Christian community and ritual in his children, he was also receiving an education of his own. Gardner’s embrace of and talent for music is perhaps his most notable characteristic, something that set him apart from the millions of other slaves who traversed the Atlantic

18 See http://colonialcemetery.com/pages/silva.htm, accessed on 17 April 2011. 19 First Congregational Church Marriages Baptisms, 1744–1825, Mss at the Newport Historical Society. 20 U.S. Census Bureau, Heads of Families at the First Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1790 (Washington: G.O., 1908).

108 edward e. andrews world. According to one local history, Gardner learned Western style composition within four years of his arrival in Newport.21 Another historian, relying on public memory and town folklore, recalled that Gardner’s voice was “remarkably strong and clear.”22 Gardner was mostly self-taught, but his first foray into formal musical instruction came at the hands of Andrew Law, the man whom Mrs. Gardner hired to teach her slave. Law was no hack; he was an established musician and theoretician who published several texts – including Select Harmony (1778), The Art of Singing (1780), and Rudiments of Music (1785), as well as dozens of tune books – throughout his career. His work explored the use of tonality, harmonization, soprano, and new forms of musical notation. He was especially known for attempting to have American musical styles apply traditional, European con ventions. Indeed, Law contended that American music would only be respectable when it embodied the best qualities of its transatlantic counterparts in Europe. In 1783 Law took his ideas about musical theory, as well as his musical pedagogy, to Rhode Island. Gardner would have been in his late 30s at the time.23 Because one of Law’s techniques was to introduce students to music through psalmody, Gardner would not have only been exposed to musical theory, but sacred music in particular. Gardner actually developed into a well known composer in his own right, and he eventually became reputed as the first black composer of Western music in what would become the United States. His most famous composition attributed to him was “Crooked Shanks,” published in A Number of Original Airs, Duetto’s, and Trio’s in 1803.24 In casting his identity as an aspiring musician, Gardner may have been drawing upon a rich African musical tradition. Music was absolutely essential to West African culture, as it accompanied the crucial rituals associated with marriage and childbirth, death and mourning, as well as seasonal practices of planting and harvesting crops. West African musicians were storytellers and poets, recalling the history of a people or recounting the glories of a particular ruler. Through these acts musicians

21 Youngken, African Americans in Newport, 49. 22 Mason, Reminiscences of Newport, 155. 23 Eileen Southern, The Music of Black Americans: A History (New York: W.W. Norton, 1971), 80–81. For more on Law, see Richard Crawford, Andrew Law, American Psalmodist (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1968). For more on the auditory dimensions of early America, see Richard Cullen Rath, How Early America Sounded (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003). 24 Southern, The Music of Black Americans, 80–81. Uri K. Hill, A Number of Original Airs, Duetto’s, and Trio’s (Northamption, MA: Andrew Wright, 1803?).

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became leaders, teachers, and historians, vessels of public memory who used lyrics, rhythm, instrumentation, and mnemonic devices to honor ancestors and remind Africans of their past. They employed traditional drums, instruments similar to horns, flutes, guitars, and keyboards, and a combination of individualized/improvisational singing with communal/ repetitive choruses to tell their story and sharpen the collective memory for future generations. Perhaps Gardner really was from an elite African family, one that was the subject of these musical remembrances. Perhaps he was being trained as a poet or composer – one of the “singing men” or jilikea – before he was abducted at the age of 14. Whatever the case, Gardner certainly understood the centrality of music to African history, culture, and identity. As an African torn from his home and the sound- scape with which he was familiar, the importance and immediacy of preserving his cultural traditions and practices likely became even more pressing.25 His musical experience took on an even more com plex character as he became exposed to psalmody, hymnody, and the Christian sacred music that was vital to spiritual life in eighteenth century America. During the 1770s and 80s, Gardner became increasingly active in church rituals while simultaneously receiving training in the fundamen- tals of musical theory and composition. His family was also bursting at the seams, and he and his wife Limas had 8 children by 1791. They would have 5 more after that. The growing family size, and the costs associated with it, might explain why Caleb Gardner granted Newport’s freedom – conditionally – in 1791. On the other hand, local folklore suggests that Newport gained his freedom not from Gardner’s benevolence, but from the earnings of a winning lottery ticket. It apparently brought him enough ($2000 split several ways among his friends) to purchase his own freedom, but not his entire family’s liberty. Samuel Hopkins related this story to a friend, and he noted that, when Gardner realized he could not purchase his whole family’s liberty, he spent the next day in fervent prayer. Apparently, without any solicitation at all, Caleb Gardner approached Newport and set the terms for his family’s freedom: Newport, Limas, and all the children but one would be freed, provided that Newport live with them for two years and pay three dollars per month for those two years. Hopkins recorded that these terms were “beyond our expectation,” and he saw in this not just a stroke of luck for a deserving slave, but actually the

25 Southern, The Music of Black Americans, 3–24.

110 edward e. andrews divine hand of providence working to extend freedom to God’s benighted peoples.26 From Caleb Gardner’s perspective, his continued participation in racial slavery was becoming increasingly anachronistic. This was a period of transatlantic, as well as local, abolitionism. Newport’s Quakers had even prohibited slavery among their members in the early 1770s. Rhode Island had passed a gradual emancipation law in 1784 designed to erode the institution of slavery, and there were an untold number of individual manumissions taking place throughout Rhode Island. Therefore, Caleb Gardner’s nine slaves he continued to keep in 1790 were reminders of the walking paradox of a land committed to liberty but entrenched in slavery.27 In fact, Gardner was the town’s second biggest slaveholder; with 13 enslaved blacks, only John Collins held more.28 Whatever made it happen – the luck of the lottery, the negotiation towards freedom, divine providence, or his master’s recognition of the contradiction between slavery and liberty – Newport Gardner and most of his family were free by 1791. Although he would never return to slavery, his newfound freedom did give him a chance to return to Africa.

A Life in Freedom

Newport Gardner’s most immediate concern was not necessarily his return to Africa, but the stability of his large family, especially in a postwar region characterized by economic stagnation. Because the economic power base was shifting away from maritime Newport and towards industrial Providence, Newport (the city and the person) initially fell on hard times. As one historian noted, free blacks’ “ability to function as a painter, distiller, sailor, cooper, spinner, blacksmith, barber, peruke master and

26 Gardner’s account of freedom is discussed in Samuel Hopkins and Edwards Amasa Park, The Works of Samuel Hopkins, First Pastor of The Church in Great Barrington, Mass., Afterwards Pastor of The First Congregational Church in Newport, R.I. With a Memoir of His Life and Character (Boston: Doctrinal Tract and Book Society, 1854), 1: 136 and 155; John Ferguson, Memoir of the Life and Character of Rev. Samuel Hopkins, D.D. Formerly Pastor of the First Congregational Church in Newport, Rhode Island (New York: John P. Haven, 1830), 184–185; and Mason, Reminiscences of Newport, 157. 27 For more on the end of slavery in New England, see Joanne Pope Melish, Disowning Slavery: Gradual Emancipation and “Race” in New England, 1780–1860 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998). 28 Taken in the Year 1790 (Washington: G.P.O., 1908), 19–23.

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hairdresser, baker, or dairymaid did not ensure a comfortable existence as a free person.”29 The varied skills and positions that Newport’s diverse colonial, Atlantic economy provided blacks was often not enough to ensure their survival. One way for Newport to make a living while still contributing to the development of Newport’s black community was to operate a singing school, which he did in the early years of the nineteenth century. He rented out a room above a private residence and soon had a handful of aspiring musicians in his courses. According to local histories, Gardner used a pitch pipe to start the tunes that would guide their instruction, and perhaps he borrowed some of the pedagogical techniques he had learned from Andrew Law. Interestingly, one student remembered that Gardner used a “cane with an ivory head” to discipline his students when they got out of line. He recalled that Gardner would “rap some of his pupils over the head with it when they broke the rules of the school.”30 This story drips with the kind of symbolism that embodies the cultural crossings the Atlantic world provided. During the first encounters with Europeans, West and West Central Africans also carved depictions of Portuguese traders on ivory, and ivory was used on African symbols of authority, such as scepters and staffs. African ivory was ubiquitous in the American colonies as one of those goods that circulated around the Atlantic world and took on myriad artistic, utilitarian, and aesthetic forms. One of the most common forms it took in the Americas was in the shape of combs. Across the Atlantic, Central European princes possessed swords, knives, and even canes that were adorned with ornately designed ivory caps.31 So, ivory was an artistic medium that represented not only the integration of the transatlantic economy, but also a potent artifact that symbolized authority and power. We have no idea what Gardner’s cane looked like or how ornamented it was. Nevertheless, here was a free black man offering musical instruction to young black children in a major transatlantic port, using a cane with an ivory handle – a classic symbol of Africa – to discipline his students. Gardner also later became the teacher of a black school operated by an organization known as the African Benevolent Society (ABS), founded in 1808. The ABS placed an advertisement for the school in the Newport

29 Crane, A Dependent People, 83. 30 Mason, Reminiscences of Newport, 155. 31 Stuart W. Pyhrr, “The Elector of Brandenburg’s Hunting Sword,” Metropolitan Museum Journal, Vol. 23 (1988), 193–200.

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Mercury in March of 1808, and Gardner eventually became responsible for instructing dozens of students.32 Although Gardner’s school faced financial hardships in its first years, the ABS’ leaders concluded that they “have been more highly gratified with [the school] than expected.” They assured Newport’s blacks that their school “has been an honour to the instructors, to the scholars, and to yourselves.” By January of 1811, the Directors were so satisfied with Gardner’s instruction and the pupils’ progress that they proclaimed that the “the smiles of divine providence” were shining down on the illustrious school.33 But the school was not without controversy. One of the most pressing concerns was a growing debate over a white instructor. The younger generation of black leaders was certainly more willing than their predecessors to accept white leadership into their institution. Indeed, even the constitution of the Benevolent Society mandated that some of its Directors be white. But the constitution was silent on the issue of a white instructor. It only said that teachers in the Charity School had to be a “professor of the Christian Religion, and a member in regular standing with some church.” It did not indicate whether a white or black instructor would be preferable. By 1811, the Directors, some of whom were white, wrote to the Society to suggest hiring a white instructor. They conceded that Newport Gardner was characterized by both “fidelity and very respectable qualifications,” but they believed that the school “would be more generally attended by persons of colour and especially by these young men,” if a white man was teaching.34 When the Directors’ Report was read to the Society, the clause regarding a white teacher irked black members and “caused some debate.” Black members of the Benevolent Society reacted swiftly and proclaimed that they “disapprove of a white man Instructor of

32 Newport Mercury, March 26, 1808. 33 Papers of the African Benevolent Society, Newport Historical Society Manuscript Collections (ABS Papers), 23; Annual Report Regarding the School, January 4, 1809, ABS Papers, 17–18; Annual Report Regarding the School, January 2, 1811, ABS Papers, 57. The Papers of the African Union Society are labeled “Union Congregational Church, 1790–1796” and are in Book 1674B of the Newport Historical Society’s Manuscript Collection (NHSMC). The Papers of the African Humane Society (AHS Papers) are in Book 1674C, also located in NHSMC. The Papers of the African Benevolent Society (ABS Papers) are labeled “Union Congregational Church, 1772–1824” and are Book 1674A at the NHSMC. Most, but not all, of these collections were transcribed and published by William Robinson in 1976. See William Henry Robinson, ed., Proceedings of the Free African Union Society and the African Benevolent Society, Newport, Rhode Island, 1780–1824 (Providence, RI: Urban League of Rhode Island, 1976). 34 Dorothy Sterling, Speak Out in Thunder Tones: Letters and Other Writings by Black Northerners, 1787–1865 (New York: De Capo Press, 1998), 34.

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the Evening School.”35 Significantly, several years later the Benevolent Society divided up its Directors along racial lines in the membership rolls. This debate was never wholly resolved, and while black leaders were anxious to court white assistance, they were still suspicious of white efforts to dominate their social and educational institutions. In the meantime, however, the black community had rallied to the defense of Newport Gardner, and he kept both his teaching position as well as his salary of $10 per quarter.36 Gardner was a successful teacher, but he also tried his hand in black- smithing and even shoe shining.37 In the autumn of 1814 Gardner placed an advertisement in the Newport Mercury: Newport Gardner, Respectfully informs the Ladies and Gentlemen of New port, That he has commenced the Shoe Blacking business at No. 4, Gardner’s wharf; he has provided the best of blacking, and will clean boots, shoes, boot tops, ladies morocco shoes, &c. in the best manner, and on the most reasonable terms; constant attendance every day in the week. Sundays excepted. N.B. – Boots called for, and returned to any part of the town. Newport, Sept, 22.38 Whether his business venture was successful is impossible to determine, but the newspaper advertisement is striking in the way it showcases his entrepreneurial spirit while simultaneously implying that he was a pious Christian (note that he did not work on Sundays). One local historian even claims that Gardner was able to purchase his own home on Pope Street by 1807.39 And yet, although Gardner had clearly established roots in America, he continually longed to re-cross the Atlantic, to reverse sail, and return to Africa.40

To Africa

It is unclear exactly when Gardner decided to return to Africa. Perhaps he had always wanted to, but the exigencies and the depravity of the slave

35 Constitution of the ABS, ABS Papers, 4; Annual Report Regarding the School, January 2, 1811, ABS Papers, 57–58; Meeting Minutes of the ABS, January 2, 1811, ABS Papers, 53–54; Meeting Minutes of the ABS, January 29, 1812, ABS Papers, 63. 36 Sterling, Speak Out in Thunder Tones, 34. 37 Youngken, African Americans in Newport, 49. 38 The Newport Mercury, October 8, 1814. 39 Youngken, African Americans in Newport, 49. 40 Here I invoke the title of Michael Gomez’s book on the African Diaspora. See Michael Angel Gomez, Reversing Sail: A History of the African Diaspora (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

114 edward e. andrews trade made it virtually impossible for blacks caught within this system to go back to the land of their birth.41 According to Samuel Hopkins, he and Gardner had been discussing the prospects of African colonization even before he achieved his freedom in 1791.42 The birth of another of Gardner’s sons might also lend a clue as to the timing of his interest in Africa. Charles Quamine was born in 1794, and perhaps Quamine was named after John Quamine, the well-known African Newporter who had been training for a mission to West Africa in the 1770s before the Revolution disrupted his plans. In other words, Gardner may have named his son after a famous would-be African missionary at the precise time that he was thinking more seriously about following in the elder Quamine’s footsteps. On the other hand, maybe Gardner named Quamine in the traditional African custom, since Quamino and Kwame usually mean “boys born on Saturdays.”43 In either case, Gardner appeared to have his gaze towards Africa when his son was born. Gardner might have also been influenced by wider conversations in Rhode Island’s black community regarding emigration. In the late 1780s, several hundred black Nova Scotians, many of whom had escaped American slavery by fleeing to British lines during the Revolution, migrated to Sierra Leone. There they would join with other repatriated blacks in the British Empire, attempt to build a free commercial empire that would challenge the barbarity of African slavery, and eventually Christianize the unconverted Africans. The experiment was far from successful, but it was long-lasting, and leaders throughout the Black Atlantic looked to Sierra Leone as a model for how to undertake a massive repatriation project. In the meantime, Bristol Yamma, Quamine’s colleague from the 1770s, was still active in trying to create some sort of African colonization scheme from his new base in Providence, but he died in 1793 before he could realize his dream.44 James McKenzie, a black man from Providence, was sent to Sierra Leone in 1795, but was unable to establish a permanent settlement there for blacks for a host of reasons.45 All of these

41 For a rare example of this, see Randy J. Sparks, The Two Princes of Calabar: An Eighteenth Century Atlantic Odyssey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004). 42 Mason, Reminscences of Newport, 156–157. 43 This description of African names, as well as a selected sample of African names found in Newport, can be found at http://www.colonialcemetery.com/Home.htm. Orig inally accessed on 17 April 2011. The same website indicates that Charles Quamine only lived to be slightly older than 4 years old. He died in June of 1798. 44 Campbell, Middle Passages, 21. 45 Sterling, Speak Out in Thunder Tones, 11. Sterling suggests that the colony was riddled with trouble: bombardment from the French, limitations on black emigration by the governor, financial problems, and even religious tensions.

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efforts, including the failures, suggest that migration to Africa became an increasingly important component of Rhode Islanders’ vision of the future during the early years of the American republic. Gardner turned to Newport’s community institutions to achieve this possibility, and he became increasing involved with an organization known as the Free African Union Society. In fact, the Society was a predecessor of the same Benevolent Society that would hire him to keep school from 1808 onward. The Society had humble origins. It began in the home of Abraham Casey on November 10th, 1780. Most of the meetings during the 1780s would be at this residence on Levin Street. By the turn of the century the Society was able to upgrade to what locals called the “the salt box,” an old building on Division Street that had a low roof and was poorly adapted for public gatherings. Gardner would play a critical role in transforming this location from a community meeting spot to a major black church and pillar of the black community.46 The Free African Union Society offered a range of support to Newport’s black community. For example, the organization served as a burial society. Black leaders informed the community of their friends’ deaths, organized the funerals, and even helped defray the expenses of the burials. George Champlin Mason later reminisced about how the funerals were race-less, egalitarian moments: “when, at last, death claimed a victime, black and white mingled their tears at an open grave.” For those who suffered through sickness, rather than death, the society also provided much needed support. In September of 1793 they voted to “grant relief to those members of this society who by sickness or other misfortune lose the use of their limbs.” The Society also pooled their funds to buy lottery tickets. If they won, “two third parts of said Prize, Prizes, or Money should be divided among the said Members of Said African Union Society.” The other third of the winnings would be added to the Treasury. Many blacks could just imagine winning a lottery, but several of them actually experienced it. In 1791 Newport Gardner joined in a lottery and won a portion of the $2,000 prize, using the money to buy the freedom of some of his family members.

46 Robinson, ed., Proceedings, ix; Mason, Reminiscences of Newport, 157. Newport’s black benevolent societies have often been researched for the way they can shed light on black nationalism, the creation of religious institutions, and debates over citizenship. See Floyd Miller, The Search for a Black Nationality: Black Emigration and Colonization, 1787–1863. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975), 8–14; Ralph Luker, “‘Under Our Own Vine and Fig Tree’: From African Unionism to Black Denominationalism in Newport, Rhode Island, 1760–1876,” Slavery and Abolition 12 (September 1991), 23–48; and John Wood Sweet, Bodies Politic: Negotiating Race in the American North, 1730–1830 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), 328–335.

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In the end, the African Union Society was an organic institution that could serve a variety of functions, but the core values and mission of the organization – at least in its early years – were African emigration and colonization.47 African colonization was not a new idea in Newport. Samuel Hopkins and Ezra Stiles, the ministers of the First and Second Congregational Churches, helped train two black Christians for an evangelical mission to Africa in the 1770s. The two men, named John Quamine and Bristol Yamma, were trained under Stiles and Hopkins and were later sent to the College of New Jersey to be prepared under college President John Witherspoon. The Revolution cut off these plans (Quamine died aboard a privateer’s ship in 1779), but this did not destroy black Newporters’ interest in the project. The black benevolent societies were in communication with a range of other organizations and interested individuals regarding this project. They probed the possibilities of working with blacks in Providence and Philadelphia, they relied upon Samuel Hopkins’ wider evangelical connections, and they corresponded directly with William Thornton, a reputed emigrationist. Although African emigration as a concept would eventually fall into disrepute in later years – one black leader reported in 1817 that, during a meeting of over 3,000 free blacks in Philadelphia, “there was not one soul that was in favor of going to Africa” – it was a guiding light in intellectual and social thought among many black Rhode Islanders.48 Gardner and Paul Cuffe, a leading figure in the back to Africa movement in the early nineteenth century, even met in 1808 to brain- storm about the possibilities.49 Meanwhile, Samuel Hopkins continued a deep interest in the project he helped begin. Back in 1784 Hopkins recorded his first foray into Newport-based African evangelization in hopes that he might be able to

47 Mason, Reminiscences, 106 and 157; AUS, 69 and 206; Sweet, Bodies Politic, 332–336; See also James Sidbury, Becoming African in America: Race and Nation in the Early Black Atlantic (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). It is unclear whether Gardner’s winning lottery ticket of 1791 was purchased through these connections. 48 Letter from James Forten to Paul Cuffe, January 25, 1817, in Wilson Jeremiah Moses, ed., Classical Black Nationalism: From the American Revolution to Marcus Garvey. (New York: New York University Press, 1996), 150–152. 49 Campbell, Middle Passages, 34. At this point, Campbell notes, Cuffe was 50 and Gardner was 60 years old. Emigration efforts by Black Rhode Islanders are explored in W. Bryan Rommel-Ruiz, “Colonizing the Black Atlantic: The African Colonization Movements in Postwar Rhode Island and Nova Scotia,” Slavery and Abolition 27 No. 3 (December 2006): 349–365.

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reconnect with potential donors, publish a history of the effort, and renew this attempt.50 Hopkins had hoped that emigrating blacks would imme diately begin “cultivating their lands, and introducing into that hith erto uncivilized country the arts of husbandry, building mills and houses, and other mechanic arts, and raising cotton, coffee, &c.” In this view, blacks could escape a hostile American environment while simultaneously spreading industry and agriculture throughout Africa, thus producing marketable commodities for American consumption.51 His agents of evangelization would be Bristol Yamma, Salmar Nubia, and, of course, his friend Newport Gardner. Gardner was a sexton in the church while Hopkins was alive, so he was most likely responsible for keeping the grounds and maintaining the church itself. But his work transcended these janitorial duties, for many Newporters fondly remembered Gardner and Hopkins walking arm and arm in Hopkins’ later years. George Gibbs Channing, a local historian writing well after both Hopkins and Gardner had died, recalled that Gardner “always accompanied the doctor, as he advanced in years, into the church, and up the pulpit stairs.” While Hopkins was preparing his sermon, Gardner would “remain on a little seat outside the pulpit, fronting the congregation, until the parson was fairly underway in the sermon, and would then descend to the floor, keeping his eye on the pulpit until the last prayer, when he would assist the doctor to his home, which was but a short distance from the church.” This romantically nostalgic vision of a white pastor and his black assistant reeks of the paternalistic ideology that underwrote America’s systems of slavery and racial oppression.52 And yet, we should not be so quick to discount such intimate connections. Recall that Gardner was likely a student of Sarah Osborn, Hopkins’ biggest supporter in his effort to become the minister of the First Congregational in 1770. Furthermore, we should

50 Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Case 8, Box 23, in Gratz Collection (Eminent Clergymen), Samuel Hopkins, “A Narrative of the rise & progress of a proposal and attempt to send the gospel to guinea, by educating, and sending two negroes there to attempt to christianize their brethren,” 22 March 1784. 51 Letter from Dr. William Thornton to Samuel Hopkins, in Samuel Hopkins, The Works of Samuel Hopkins, D.D., First Pastor of the Church in Great Barrington, Mass., Afterwards Pastor of the First Congregational Church in Newport, R.I., with a Memoir of His Life and Character (Boston: Doctrinal Tract and Book Society, 1854), 1: 140–141; Letter from Samuel Hopkins, in Hopkins, The Works of Samuel Hopkins, 1: 141. 52 George Gibbs Channing, Early Recollections of Newport, Rhode Island: From the Year 1793 to 1811 (Newport, RI: A.J. Ward, C.E. Hammett, Jr., 1868), 91; See also Campbell, Middle Passages, 55.

118 edward e. andrews remember that Gardner had all of his children baptized in Hopkins’ church. Even though Hopkins had held a slave in his earlier years, he became an anti-slavery advocate during the Revolutionary Era. When Hopkins published his important, if theologically confusing, System of Doctrines in 1793, Newport Gardner was among the subscribers.53 He was joined by other notable black Newporters, some of which were directly involved in emigration schemes to Africa. Duchess Quamino was the wife of John Quamine, who had been educated by The College of New Jersey’s President, John Witherspoon, for an evangelical mission to Africa in the 1770s. While he was alive, Quamine was joined in New Jersey by another of Hopkins’ subscribers, a man named Bristol Yamma. Another subscriber was Salmar Nubia, also known as Jack Mason. He would eventually come to lead a group of black emigrants “back” to Africa in 1826. Newport Gardner would lead with him. When taken together, the creation of a multiracial evangelical and abolitionist community, the list of black names subscribing to Hopkins’ book, and the frequency and importance of the Gardner baptisms in Hopkins’ church, all suggest that the relationship Hopkins and Gardner was more than just nostalgic fiction. Indeed, Hopkins held Gardner in such esteem that he had hand picked him to continue the African evangelical project that had failed in the 1770s. He wrote to Levi Hart, a Connecticut pastor who had participated earlier in the Quamine project, and he noted that Gardner would be perfectly suited for the resurrection of an African mission. Hopkins wrote that Gardner was, “in my view, next to Bristol [Yamma], and in some things excels him.” Here Hopkins was clearly making a link between the failed African missionary project of previous years (headed by Quamine and Yamma) and the potential for beginning a new project with new blood. In fact, Hopkins told Hart that Gardner was “a discerning, judicious, steady, good man; and feels greatly interested in promoting a Christian settlement in Africa, and promoting Christianity there.”54 In the meantime, however, Hopkins and Gardner were ultimately unable to secure funding for the transatlantic, evangelical, colonial

53 See Samuel Hopkins, A Dialogue, Concerning the Slavery of the Africans: Shewing it to be the Duty and Interest of the American Colonies to Emancipate All Their African Slaves: With an Address to the Owners of Such Slaves: Dedicated to the Honorable Continental Congress (Norwich, C.T.: Judah P. Spooner, 1776); Hopkins, “Sermon Before the Providence Society for Abolishing the Slave Trade, &C., 1793” in Hopkins, The Works of Samuel Hopkins 1: 144. 54 Samuel Hopkins to Levi Hart, 10 June 1791, in Hopkins, The Works of Samuel Hopkins 1: 136.

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mission. Hopkins died in 1803, and it is unclear what role Gardner continued to have in the church afterward. We do know that 20 years later Gardner was ordained a deacon in the church.55 But if Gardner enjoyed his newfound authority as a deacon, it did not last long. In 1824 he helped organize the Newport Colored Union Church and Society. Through Gardner’s efforts the black community purchased a home in the same neighborhood as Hopkins’ old home, and it was “renovated, and fitted up as a place of worship.”56 Like his contemporaries in other places, most notably Philadelphia, Gardner led an intensifying effort among black Americans to create spiritual institutions that would reflect their own particular concerns, needs, and travails. The Union Congregational Church, as it later became called, was clearly a product of such efforts, and through it Gardner once again positioned himself as an essential leader in Newport’s black community. For all of Gardner’s success in creating independent community institutions that would speak to the problems of oppressed Afro-Americans, Gardner was still motivated by the prospect of returning to Africa. Though his main benefactor in that mission – Samuel Hopkins – had died in 1803, Gardner was nevertheless able to tap into a wider national conversation that made African emigration a serious possibility. Financial support had been a major problem, and reputed emigrationists like Paul Cuffe (who was nearly broke by 1816) constantly struggled to drum up funding for the project. Nevertheless, Cuffe’s moral support, as well as the establishment of the American Colonization Society in 1816, helped make black emigration a reality. Gardner was not going to miss this chance. For the next few years Gardner set about raising enough money to provide transport for himself, some of his family members, and even a few of his neighbors back to Africa. In December of 1825, he found himself in Boston with Salmar Nubia, getting ready to board the Vine, a ship that would help him achieve his lifelong dream of re-crossing the Atlantic and returning to Africa.57 On December 28th a host of African emigrants, Boston churchmen, philanthropists, supporters of African colonization, and interested observers watched as Gardner, Nubia, and their fellow emigrants were accepted into a fellowship at Park Street Church. Nubia and Gardner even ordained as deacons in the new church they would establish in Africa. Celebrated

55 Mason, Reminiscences of Newport, 158. 56 Ibid., 157–158. 57 The best explanation of Cuffe’s activities and ideology can be found in Jeffrey A. Fortin, “Cuffe’s Black Atlantic World, 1808–1817,” Atlantic Studies 4 No. 2 (October 2007): 245–266.

120 edward e. andrews ministers offered readings and introductory prayers, and Rev. S.E. Dwight framed his sermon around Psalm 68: 31. Appropriately, the King James version of the Psalm reads that “Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.” Dwight’s psalm reinforced the prevailing ideas that the emigrants’ fates were now in the hands of God, and that their repatriation would not only confirm their status as God’s chosen people, but also reveal the central role they would play in the expansion of God’s kingdom into the dark corners of Africa.58 In fact, the services were closed with an anthem composed by none other than Newport Gardner himself. The anthem that Gardner composed for this critical moment captures the spirit with which Gardner undertook his African emigration. The music has unfortunately been lost, but the lyrics to Gardner’s tune draw from a well-known biblical story from the Book of Matthew. In this para- ble a poor Canaanite woman asks Jesus to heal her daughter. Jesus laconi- cally replies that he had come to save the Jews, not to feed the dogs. But the woman responds that dogs eat the crumbs from the master’s table, and Jesus was apparently so touched by this logic that he agreed to save the woman’s daughter. As James Campbell has noted, Gardner used this story to encapsulate what was becoming one of his most fundamental beliefs: that the kingdom of heaven and redemption via Christ was not limited to the few, but open to the many. “Hear the words of the Lord, O ye African race,” Gardner’s anthem proclaimed. “Hear the words of Promise. But it is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it to the dogs. Truth, Lord, yet the dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from their master’s table. O, African, trust in the Lord: Amen. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord. Hallelujah. Amen.”59 Gardner’s Promise anthem became so popular that the lyrics were later printed by a Boston newspaper. Reprinted copies were put up for sale after his departure to Africa, and potential buyers could stroll over to 90 Washington Street and purchase “the Music composed by Dea. NEWPORT GARDNER, a Native of Africa.”60

58 Ferguson, Memoir, 184–185. See also The Boston Recorder and Telegraph, December 30, 1825. 59 Campbell, Middle Passages, 55–56. The text is originally from Matthew 15: 22–28. See also Jeremiah 30: 1–3, 10; and Mark 7: 27–28. Campbell also suggests that famous poet Phillis Wheatley also drew from this story to frame some of her most celebrated poetry. 60 It is unclear exactly who would reap the profits from such sales. See “Newport Gardner (1746–1826),” The Black Perspective in Music 4 No. 2 (July 1976): 207; the

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The Vine did not sail before one African emigrant – likely Newport Gardner himself – offered some parting words for Americans. He proclaimed, “I go to set an example to the youth of my race. I go to encourage the young. They can never be elevated here. I have tried it sixty years. It is in vain. Could I by my example lead them to set sail, and I die the next day, I should be satisfied.”61 Whether or not these words were apocryphal, they remain sadly ominous. On January 7th, the Newport immigrants – joined by a black Masonic lodge from Providence – left for the coast of Liberia. They brought with them not only “agricultural implements, nails, a bell for the Lancasterian school, a pair of globes, and divers other things, useful to new settlers,” but also an evangelical zeal, a hope for a better future, and an ardent desire to return to the land in which many of them were born.62 They arrived several weeks later. Although some of the first historians to write about Gardner contended that he and Nubia had died within six months of their arrival, the truth was actually much harsher. Almost the entire contingent of emigrants had died within just two weeks.63 One writer in Newport took this morose opportunity to pontificate on the evils of transatlantic repatriation. This editorial was originally published in the Newport Mercury, but it was also reprinted in the Providence Patriot & Columbian Phenix, New York Gazette, and Richmond Enquirer. The author outlined how the death of Gardner and Nubia – major pillars in Rhode Island’s black community – served as a cautionary tale for Africans looking to colonization as a way to escape American racism. It noted that the black migrants who failed in the mission had barely any time to even get settled, for they were swept from the earth by a rapacious tropical disease only “10 or 15 days” after their arrival. The editorial proclaimed that “We have always disapproved of encouraging the emigration of the black population of the Northern States, to Africa; and the result has tended to confirm our opinions, that no practical benefit could rise from

advertisement can be found in the January 13, 1826 issue of the Boston Recorder and Telegraph. The events are also summarized in the January 4, 1826 issue of the Rhode Island Republican. 61 This quotation can be found, more or less verbatim, in the following sources: C. Patrick Burrowes, “Newport Gardiner: Classical Music Composer” http://www .liberianrepatriates.com/index.php accessed on 3 January 2011; Hopkins and Park, The Works of Samuel Hopkins, footnote on page 155; Helen Cross Knight, The New Republic (Boston: Massachusetts Sabbath School Society, 1850), 101. 62 Knight, The New Republic, 101. 63 Providence Patriot & Columbian Phenix, June 14, 1826. For the later day of death, see Hopkins and Park, The Works of Samuel Hopkins, Volume 1, 156; and Mason, Reminiscences of Newport, 158.

122 edward e. andrews sending them to that sickly and inhospitable climate.” “The emigrants from this town,” it continued, “were among the most respectable and industrious of our colored population; most of them were comfortably situated, and several were owners of houses and land.” The author then concluded that, “In an evil hour,” these African immigrants were “induced by the Agent of American Colonization Society to emigrate to Africa; and the result is, that already more than one quarter of the number have perished almost as soon as they reached its shores.”64 According to this editorial, this tragic ending captured the bankrupt promises of transatlantic emigration and served as a warning for other blacks who considered African colonization a panacea to the problems they faced in the Americas. As the editorial reveals, even after he died, Gardner’s story played a key role in the debates over slavery, emigration, American racism, and transatlantic connections to Africa. As the sectional crisis deepened in the 1840s and 50s, for example, Gardner’s tale was being increasingly broadcast throughout New England, and nearly all of these stories emphasized his miraculous escape from slavery by the hand of a benevolent God. Indeed, Gardner’s story was repeated in Boston’s Daily Evening Transcript and Emancipator and Republican, Dedham, Massachusetts’ Norfolk Dem ocrat, Amherst, New Hampshire’s The Farmers’ Cabinet, and a slew of other publications.65 Interestingly, Gardner’s winning lottery ticket was rarely mentioned in these narratives, for they focused on the efficacy of his pious prayers and supplication to God. In the story repeated and read by antebellum Americans, Gardner’s freedom came not at the hands of lady luck, or a reluctant owner, but rather from the will of a benevolent god. It is probably no coincidence, then, that in the June 22, 1854 edition of Amherst’s The Farmers’ Cabinet, Gardner’s story was placed just above another tale entitled “The Slaves’ Avenger,” where God battles the injustice of slavery and avenges oppressed slaves. After he died, Newport Gardner’s life became a vehicle for discussing the perils of colonization, the terrors of slavery, and the mercy of God’s providence. The life of Occramar Marycoo, later known as Newport Gardner, was characterized by the cultural crossings, intersections, and exchanges that constituted the early modern Atlantic world. This becomes particularly clear if we consider the individuals that had the greatest impact on his life, for they were all products of this transatlantic exchange. Caleb Gardner,

64 Providence Patriot & Columbian Phenix, June 14, 1826. 65 Daily Evening Transcript, February 6, 1846; Emancipator and Republican, January 17, 1850; The Norfolk Democrat, July 7, 1854; and The Farmers’ Cabinet, June 22, 1854.

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the man who enslaved him, was a notorious slave trader who was personally responsible for sending thousands of people from their homes in Africa to new worlds as slaves in the Americas. Sarah Osborn and Samuel Hopkins, Gardner’s religious mentors, were both products of the trans atlantic revivals known as the First Great Awakening. Even Andrew Law, Gardner’s music teacher, imagined an American musical empire characterized by an incorporation of the best qualities of European musical theory. Gardner’s ardent desire to return to Africa as an evangelical colonist, his wider connections with transatlantic philanthropists through his participation in Newport’s black benevolent societies, and even his use of an ivory cane to discipline his music students all reveal the continuing centrality of Africa in Gardner’s imagination and evolution. Furthermore, in his cultural hybridity, manifested by his two names, Gardner/Marycoo was similar to other celebrated Black Atlantic figures like Gustavus Vassa (Olaudah Equiano) and Ukawsaw Gronniosaw (James Albert). In his range of cultural talents and in his appropriation of Western culture and music, he resembled Phillis Wheatley, the celebrated African poetess who composed internationally recognized poetry while still a slave in Boston. In his leadership in community-based institutions through which black Americans forged an African American identity in the early republic, he mirrored Richard Allen, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. His entrepreneurial spirit made him part Paul Cuffe and his vision for Africa as a safe haven for persecuted blacks made him part Paul Cuffe and part Boston King. He was, in other words, an amalgam of Afro-American lives and experiences. And yet, Newport Gardner was also unique and extraordinary. Like the pioneers of the Black Atlantic, his journey from slavery to freedom, from Africa to the Americas and back, marked him as distinct and exceptional. Of the millions of slaves sent from Africa to Brazil, the Caribbean, and the rest of the Americas, only a few were able to navigate their way to free dom or find their way home. Gardner was able to accomplish what only a small percentage of African slaves dared to dream. He possibly was, and certainly became, what one would call an “elite” African. Local tradition claimed that he was tricked into slavery while being sent for an English education, and only elite Africans had the cultural skills to offer such an education to their children. Perhaps this explains why he was sent to Newport, or even why he received an education from his master’s family in the first place. Even if this story is apocryphal, Gardner quickly became a religious leader, community builder, and social advocate. If he was not born with authority and power, he certainly earned it among his fellow

124 edward e. andrews slaves and freemen by the time he embarked for Africa towards the end of his life. At the very least, Gardner was his own person; a person who defies any pre-set typology. He was a slave, but also an evangelical Christian, a musician, and a composer. He was also a freeman, a deacon, an institution-builder, and an organizer. He was a shoe-shiner, a teacher, an entrepreneur, property owner, and immigrant. He was a father, as well as a leader, of many. He was both a product of and a participant in the development of the Black Atlantic. Indeed, Gardner’s life story and his crossings, both physical and cultural, reveal a mirror into the Atlantic that reflect the problems and opportunities that peoples of African descent encountered during an era of transatlantic slavery, revolution, and migration.

CHAPTER FIVE

CONSTITUTING VALUE IN A NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF VENTURE, A NATIVE OF AFRICA

Bryan Sinche

In 1798, an aging former slave named Venture Smith told his life story to an amanuensis (as tradition has it, Elisha Niles) who transcribed Smith’s story and took it to Charles Holt’s Bee office in New London, Connecticut. There it was printed and sold as A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, a Native of Africa. Though historians have added to our store of information about Smith and his life in and out of Africa, the primary document by which we know Venture Smith today is the 10,000-word Narrative that describes Smith’s journey across the Atlantic, his acculturation in the North American colonies, and his rise from enslaved laborer to businessman and landholder. Encompassing African experience and traditions as well as North American oppression and resistance, Smith’s laborious life highlights the far-reaching and reciprocal effects of the international slave trade and capitalism, and his story speaks to the “instability and mutability” that characterized life and lives in the Atlantic world.1 With this instability and mutability in mind, I will discuss Venture Smith’s remarkable life as a testament of the promise and peril of eighteenth-century capitalism and explore Smith’s understanding of his place in an emergent economic system. In addition to this historical examination of Smith, I will also evaluate the Narrative as a tool Smith used to negotiate the economic system in which he had been both commodity and businessman. In other words, I will read the Narrative not just as the story of a remarkable life but also as a product in its own right, one of the “key cultural and political artefacts” that circulated—along with human beings—throughout the Atlantic world.2 By using this approach, I will broaden the notion of an “Atlantic Life” so that it includes not only the histories of those whose struggles help readers understand the

1 Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993): xi. Gilroy’s use of terms like “mutability,” “instability,” “syncretism,” have shaped the way scholars across the disciplines discuss the Atlantic world. 2 Gilroy, Black Atlantic, 4.

126 bryan sinche diversity and complexity of the Atlantic world but also the autobiographi- cal texts as documents whose purchase might extend beyond their recounting of a particular moment. The latter aspect of my analysis seems especially important given that most scholars who analyze Smith’s Narrative try to deal with a problem Anna Mae Duane explains succinctly when she notes that Smith’s Narrative seems wholly invested in the “logic of the marketplace that… dehumanized him.”3 Though Venture Smith was—as he admitted—both “unlettered” and “ignorant of numbers,” his Narrative confirms that he understood the many ways that value was mediated in the eighteenth century Atlantic world. Duane and several other critics wonder why a man who had once been purchased and sold as a commodity seemed to lodge such steadfast faith in market relations and economic valuation, and, even more troublingly, why he consistently conflated emotional ties with economic values. Like other critics, I will address the ways that monetary logic spills over into personal life in Smith’s Narrative, but I will also focus on the significance of eighteenth-century economic ideas as they relate to Smith’s decision to print his life’s story. Ultimately, I argue that Smith’s Narrative allowed him to re-enter the marketplace as a commodity that could control some of the terms of his own representation and distribution. Of course, Smith did not control all of those terms since he could not write and had to rely on an amanuensis. Since there is no indication of just how much Elisha Niles trimmed, altered, or added to Smith’s story, readers should be mindful of the fact that, as William L. Andrews insists, an amanuensis-authored narrative like the Narrative is “severely enclosed by the transcribing, editorial, and prefacing practices of white litterateurs;” it is, to use John Sekora’s phrase, a “black letter in a white envelope.”4 That

3 Anna Mae Duane, “Keeping His Word: Money, Love, and Privacy in the Narrative of Venture Smith,” in Venture Smith and the Business of Slavery and Freedom Ed. James Brewer Stewart (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2010): 186. David Kazanjian and Rafia Zafar concur with Duane’s pessimistic reading in (respectively) “Mercantile Exchanges, Mercantilist Enclosures: Racial Capitalism in the Black Mariner Narratives of Venture Smith and John Jea,” CR: The New Centennial Review 3, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 137–78 and We Wear the Mask: African Americans Write American Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997). Philip Gould reads Smith’s engagement with capitalism in a more positive light in “Free Carpenter, Venture Capitalist: Reading the Lives of the Early Black Atlantic,” American Literary History 12, no. 4 (Winter 2000): 659–84 as does Robert Derosches, “‘Not Fade Away’: The Narative of Venture Smith, An African American in the Early Republic,” Journal of American History 84, no. 1 (June 1997): 40–66. 4 William L. Andrews, To Tell A Free Story (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986): 35; John Sekora, “Black Message/White Envelope: Genre, Authenticity, and Authorship in the

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said, evidence of the “white envelope” that is so very easy to see in early narratives like those of Britton Hammon (1760) or James Albert Ukasaw Gronniosaw (1774) is harder to locate in Smith’s Narrative since there is neither an editorial directive to read the Narrative as evidence of God’s providence nor an overriding Christian telos. So, while either the publisher Charles Holt or the amanuensis Elisha Niles likely provided some impetus toward publication, it is not clear that their influence significantly altered Smith’s message. Indeed, though Niles was, as Robert Deroschers claims, a man deeply concerned “over the status of African Americans in post-revolutionary Connecticut and in the new nation,” it is logical to assume that Venture Smith would have shared these concerns, an assumption that aligns with a reading of the Narrative as a co-authored book rather than an amanuensis-driven work.5 For his part, Elisha Niles insisted that Smith’s story was “a relation of simple facts, in which nothing is added in substance to what [Smith] related himself” and that the Narrative was “published in compliance with the earnest desire of the subject of it, and likewise a number of respectable persons…acquainted with him.”6 In his only gloss on the text, Niles offers Smith as a model of “honesty, prudence, and industry” for black and white readers alike and suggests that “the reader may…see [in Smith] a Franklin and a Washington, in a state of nature, or rather in a state of slavery” (iv). True, as Andrews argues, Niles’s tendency to bemoan Smith’s misfortune at being a “Franklin in slavery” suggests that the amanuensis struggled to view Venture as anything more than a “victim,” but there is no denying that, through Niles, Venture manages to celebrate and still ironize his rise from obscurity to wealth.7 Since Niles does not elaborate on Venture’s reasons for dictating and publishing his story and does not inscribe any clear reasons into the Narrative itself, it seems reasonable to assume that—even given Niles’s influence—Smith did want to record his story for posterity. The significance of that choice will, I hope, become obvious by the end of this essay.

Antebellum Slave Narrative,” Callaloo: A Journal of African American and African Arts and Letters 10, no. 3 (Summer 1987): 482–515. 5 Deroschers, “‘Not Fade Away’,” 46. 6 Venture Smith, A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture Smith, a Native of Africa, but Resident above Sixty Years in the United States of America. Related by Himself (New London: Charles Holt, 1798), iv. Subsequent citations will be appear parenthetically in the text. 7 Andrews, To Tell a Free Story, 49.

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Because Smith’s Narrative bears few traces of a publisher’s agenda or an amanuensis’s tampering, Vincent Caretta argues that the Smith’s autobiography is “unprecedented” in its rejection of the “white envelope” that so often encloses black narratives.8 Caretta, like Robert Deroschers and Philip Gould, reads the Narrative as a collaborative text in which Smith exerts significant control.9 But why would an “unlettered” man like Venture Smith seek the sanction of print for his life story? Given his “earnest desire” to see his story printed, one might assume that a smart and connected man like Smith was aware of the growing importance of print in the eighteenth-century and that he would have seen local men purchasing and reading Bibles, newspapers, chapbooks, and ephemera.10 The tech nology of print and the enduring form of the printed text must have represented something significant to Smith, perhaps an opportunity to record his deeds in a way that would transcend his local reputation for “honesty” and “good character.” Smith’s decision to have his story published denies Michael Warner’s claim that “print…could only be alien to the entirely or even partially illiterate, including almost all Native Americans and the enslaved blacks.” In fact, since print was, as Warner suggests, a “technology of power,” it would have appealed to a savvy and civic-minded man like Venture Smith. If the creation and reading of printed texts “distinguished a specifically white community” in the eighteenth-century, then Smith’s intervention marks one of many moments when a black man sought to transform that society by inserting himself in it.11

8 Vincent Caretta, “Venture Smith, One of a Kind,” in Venture Smith and the Business of Slavery and Freedom Ed. James Brewer Stewart (Amherst: U Massachusetts P, 2010): 180. Caretta’s opinion of the Narrative is largely shared by Philip Gould and by Chandler B. Saint and George A. Krimsky, the editors of Making Freedom: The Extraordinary Life of Venture Smith (Middletown: Wesleyan UP, 2008): 4. Like William L. Andrews, Rafia Zafar takes a more circumspect view of Smith’s ability to control his own narrative in We Wear The Mask, 91. 9 Caretta, “One of a Kind,” 180; Deroschers, “‘Not Fade Away’,” 43; Gould, “Free Carpenter,” 663. 10 These items were by far the most common reading material in the early national period. Chapbooks and other “cheap print,” were especially popular in the new nation, and Venture Smith’s Narrative—priced at one shilling—would have been accessible to most buyers. See Elizabeth Carroll Reilly and David D. Hall, “Customers and the Market for Books,” in A History of the Book in America, Volume I: The Colonial Book in the Atlantic World Ed. Hugh Amory and David D. Hall (Chapel Hill: American Antiquarian Society and the U of North Carolina P, 2007): 387–399. 11 Michael Warner, The Letters of the Republic: Publication and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990): 11–12. As his title suggests, Warner’s work draws heavily on Jurgen Habermas’s idea of the public sphere, and the existence and contours of such a public sphere for eighteenth-century blacks is the subject of work by Joanna Brooks and Richard Newman.

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Indeed, Smith’s decision to print his Narrative during the first decade of the United States seems like a pointed rejoinder to the legal and political realms established and maintained through the authority of print. Thus, a scholar like Joanna Brooks might read his autobiography as an expression of a growing black counterpublic that “redetermined the political content” of blackness and “[adopted] print as a medium for the enactment of a self-determining, collective political presence.”12 Though Smith’s Nar rative, does not read like the work of a man committed to spurring “collective political” action, the very existence of the text might lend credence to the ideas advanced by Dickson D. Bruce, Jr., John Ernest, and Richard S. Newman, all of whom describe an eighteenth-century “revolution in black print culture” that served libratory political ends.13 All of these scholars give us a way to read Smith’s Narrative in terms of a politically- driven African American literature, but I also want consider the Narrative’s political purchase by thinking about the signification of the Narrative qua book in the late eighteenth century. Ultimately, the Narrative speaks to the possibilities for self definition that Smith located in market relations and shows how a successful but “unlettered” man might have sought to use a developing print culture to transcend both time and corporeality. Unlike Venture’s laboring black body—which was limited by time, space, and circumstance—his Narrative could circulate beyond the limits of its subject’s life on earth and create a space for itself in which Venture Smith would be evaluated according to the standards he himself had set.

I. Venture Smith’s Atlantic Life

Following Niles’s preface, the Narrative transports its readers across the ocean to West Africa where Broteer Furro was born in 1729 “at Dukandarra, in Guinea.” Broteer was the eldest child of Saungm Furro father, a Prince of “the tribe of Dukandarra” and his father’s first wife.14 After describing

12 Joanna Brooks, “The Early American Public Sphere and the Emergence of a Black Print Counterpublic,” William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 62, no. 1 (January 2005): 73, 75. 13 Richard S. Newman, “Liberation Technology: Black Printed Protest in the Age of Franklin” Early American Studies (Winter 2010): 186. See also Dickson D. Bruce, Jr. The Origins of African American Literature, 1680–1865 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2001) and John Ernest, Liberation Historiography: African American Writers and the Challenge of History, 1794–1861 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004). 14 For a thorough analysis of Venture Smith’s Narrative in terms of its links to African history, see Paul E. Lovejoy, “The African Background of Venture Smith,” in Venture Smith and the Business of Slavery and Freedom Ed. James Brewer Stewart (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2010): 35–55.

130 bryan sinche his ancestry Smith goes on to relate the “first thing worthy of notice,” his memory of being taken from home by his mother and left with a “very rich farmer” some distance from Broteer’s home (5–6). This sort of family disruption is hardly unique in Smith’s short Narrative, which contains none of rhapsodic descriptions of African life that readers familiar with Equiano’s Narrative might expect. Local climate, culture, and custom take a back seat in Smith’s story as he explains the physical and emotional upheavals that seem to have defined his childhood. Indeed, after his parents reconciled, Broteer and a group of people loyal to his father were attacked and captured by a band of marauders. Soon after being taken hostage, Broteer watched silently as his father refused to tell his kidnap- pers where his money was located. Broteer saw his father “cut and pounded on his body with great inhumanity, that he might be induced by the tor- ture he suffered to make the discovery.” Even though his father, “despised all the tortures which they inflicted…the continued exercise and increase of torment obliged him to sink and expire. He thus died without informing his enemies where his money lay” (11). Though this refusal to uncover the treasure cost Saungm his life, one can easily imagine the significance of this early experience for Broteer Furro. Like his father, he would make it a practice to resist unjust demands and never to “inform his enemies where his money lay.” In the weeks after his father’s demise, Broteer and his family were driven across West Africa, captured and recaptured, and repeatedly attacked before finding themselves on the coast. It was on the coast that Broteer was purchased by a sailor named Robertson Mumford “for four gallons of rum, and a piece of calico, and called venture, on account of his having purchased [Broteer] with [Mumford’s] own private venture” (13). This name certainly seems to be determinative given the economic cast of the rest of his narrative, but the description of the first years of his life suggests that even before he was named, Venture Smith had accommodated himself to two important truths that would continue to define his experience in the Atlantic world: First, life would—as a matter of course—be defined by separation and displacement. Second, financial gain was the motive that caused the separation and displacement he suffered. Perhaps it is unsurprising, then, that Smith would seek a financial solution to remediate the separations that he would face in the years to come. Smith’s life as an enslaved man in the North American colonies makes up the second chapter of his Narrative, and he begins that chapter with a brief but unremarkable description of the middle passage from Africa to

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Barbados and then on to Robertson Mumford’s home on Fisher’s Island, New York. Smith would prove his value to Mumford on a number of occasions, and many of those occasions recall his youthful experience, especially when Mumford’s father asks Venture for the keys to Robertson’s trunk. Venture demurred and “told him that my master intrusted [sic] me with the care of them until he should return, and that I had given him my word to be faithful to the trust, and could not, therefore, give him, or any other man, the keys without my master’s directions” (14). Though Mumford’s father became enraged at this, Venture did not surrender the keys, and he earned the praise of his young master upon his return. As Smith recalls, Robertson Mumford “commended me, saying in presence of his father that his young venture was so faithful that he never would have been able to have taken the keys from him but by violence; that he should not fear to trust him with his whole fortune, for that he had been in his native place so habituated to keeping his word, that he would sacrifice even his life to maintain it” (15). This is the first of many moments in Smith’s Narrative that discomfit modern readers sensitive to the power dynamics of the slave/master relationship. There is no point in gainsaying the fact that Smith’s pride here is very real. He values himself according to (or in concert with) his master’s economic scale rather than according to a religious or humanist scale that would offer him a sense of self not dependent on his monetary value. But Smith may well have reveled in Mumford’s praise because it connected him back to his father, because his master’s valuation confirmed Smith’s inheritance of key character traits from his “African prince” progenitor. Thus, as Anna Mae Duane argues, we might read Smith’s sometimes troubling acceptance of market-based valuation as a way of connecting him both to his African roots and to the North American economies that Smith negotiated throughout the eighteenth century.15 Indeed, though Smith narrates his story in the early national era, he goes to great lengths to show how he had mastered the colonial econ omy and laid the foundation for his remarkable economic success. The most important tool Smith used in the pre-revolutionary years was his extraordinarily-powerful body, which stands in marked contrast to the slim paper pamphlet that bears Smith’s name. Of course, much like his seeming acceptance his master’s financial standards of value, Smith’s pride in his black body is a vexing aspect of the Narrative since the same

15 Duane, “Keeping His Word,” 187.

132 bryan sinche black body that allowed Venture Smith to generate the wealth he uses to purchase himself and his family also consigned him to life as a chattel slave. Nevertheless, Smith insists on his enormous strength, recalling that, “One time my master sent me two miles after a barrel of molasses, and ordered me to carry it on my shoulders. I made out to carry it all the way to my master’s house. When I lived with Capt. George Mumford, only to try my strength I took upon my knees a tierce of salt containing seven bushels, and carried it two or three rods” (18). In order to explain the complicated economy in which he lived and labored, Smith interweaves discussions of his corporeal power with a record of his labors and his life as a human commodity. Beginning with descriptions of the various tasks he performed for money such as “fishing,” “cultivating…land with the greatest diligence and economy”, and “cut[ting] and cord[ing] four hundred cords of wood, besides threshing out seventy-five bushels of grain” (23–4), Smith also records his sale from Robertson Mumford, to Thomas Stanton, to Hempstead Miner, to Daniel Edwards, to Oliver Smith.16 The message here is quite clear: Though Smith was continually using his body to generate income, he could not lay claim to the fruits of that income since—for the white men who owned him—he remained a commodity rather than a citizen and/or an economic free agent. In fact, even though Venture Smith possessed both the strength and wherewithal to earn money, those qualities did not enable him to possess himself until the age of 36 when he purchased his freedom. Smith records with a measure of pride just how difficult it had been to transform himself into something other than a commodity: “I had already been sold three different times, made considerable money with seemingly nothing to derive it from, been cheated out of a large sum of money, lost much by misfortunes, and paid an enormous sum for my freedom” (24). Knowing full well that the strictures under which he operated forced him to overpay for himself, Venture Smith seems to have taken solace in the fact that while others believed he had “nothing” from which to “derive” wealth, he possessed strength of body and mind that would enable him to generate income for years to come. Smith’s remarkable alchemy—by which he turns “nothing” into “money”—is the subject of his third chapter, wherein the narrator trades on his bodily strength to earn the cash that he uses to purchase his wife

16 Smith was not technically sold to Daniel Edwards but was leased to him by Hempstead Miner before being sold outright to Oliver Smith, his final owner and the man whose surname Venture Smith adopted.

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and children. Near the beginning of that chapter, Smith explains that “In the space of six months I cut and corded upwards of four hundred cords of wood. Many other singular and wonderful labors I performed in cutting wood there, which would not be inferior to the one just recited, but for brevity’s sake I must omit them” (25). This labor, which could have been converted into wealth by white men, is instead used to redeem others from slavery. Smith first purchases his two children, Cuff and Solomon, for two hundred dollars each, and then employs his sons (as both laborers and commodities) to earn more money. One of Smith’s money-making ventures leads him to lease his son Solomon to Thomas Church, who entices the young man to go on a whaling voyage. As Smith notes, “[Solomon] died of the scurvy in this voyage, and Church has never yet paid me the least of his wages. In my son, besides the loss of his life, I lost, equal to seventy-five pounds” (26). Here, again, Smith accepts the inter- relationship of man and market; in the words of Philip Gould, he “perpetu- ates the ideology of value endemic to slave capitalism.”17 Though this is jarring for modern readers, it is also perfectly logical: Since Smith’s labor always translated into the cash that allowed him to buy persons (including himself), he commemorates the loss of others as both an emotional and an economic loss. And, as Anna Mae Duane insists, readers put off by Smith’s blending of emotion and economics are often entrenched in Western habits of thought that divide public and private, market and home; whereas Smith’s African upbringing may have taught him that “things of value could conceivably stand in for people of value.”18 Smith’s dual valuations of his family members recur throughout the third chapter of his Narrative as he recalls each of the purchases he made to redeem others from enslavement. In addition to his sons, he “purchased a negro man, for no other reason than to oblige him,” another “negro man for four hundred dollars,” and yet another “negro man for twenty-five pounds” (27). He also “bought [his] oldest child Hannah, of Ray Mumford, for forty-four pounds” and his wife Meg, which “prevented [his] having another child to buy, as she was then pregnant. I gave forty pounds for her” (27). Beyond the traces of Smith’s psychology that we can try to locate in these straightforward descriptions, we also see the facility with which he negotiated the colonial economy and its various currencies. At different points in the Narrative, Smith records transactions in specie, pounds, dollars, and “old tenor” notes, suggesting that he understood not only how

17 Gould, “Free Carpenter,” 677. 18 Duane, “Keeping His Word,” 193.

134 bryan sinche to value a man, but how to value various monetary instruments. This knowledge helped Smith acquire a small fortune that he would use to purchase parcels of land dotting the coastlines of Connecticut and Long Island. Still, while most of Smith’s narrative testifies to the powerful physical presence of its protagonist and his ability to master the local economy in spite of his humble origins and his ethnic difference, his story culmi- nates with a disgusted acknowledgement of the fact that his black body continued to limit his social and economic mobility in the new nation. In the 1780s, Smith journeyed from Long Island to New London, Connecticut on board an “Indian’s boat” on which a white merchant named Elisha Hart shipped two hogsheads of molasses. When one of Hart’s hogsheads was lost overboard, Hart prosecuted Venture Smith “although [he] was absent at the time, and had no concern whatever in the business, as was known to a number of respectable witnesses” (30). Smith explained that he: was nevertheless prosecuted by this conscientious gentleman, (the Indian not being able to pay for it) and obliged to pay upwards of ten pounds lawful money, with all the costs of court. I applied to several gentlemen for counsel in this affair, and they advised me, as my adversary was rich, and threatened to carry the matter from court to court till it would cost me more than the first damages would be to pay the sum and submit to the injury; which I according did, and he has often since insultingly taunted me with my unmerited misfortune. Such a proceeding as this, committed on a defence- less stranger, almost worn out in the hard service of the world, without any foundation in reason or justice, whatever it may be called in a christian land, would in my native country have been branded as a crime equal to highway robbery. But Captain Hart was a white gentleman, and I a poor African, therefore it was all right, and good enough for the black dog. (30) Though most of Smith’s Narrative leaves implicit the double standards Venture Smith had to endure as a free black man in the colonies and the US, here his frustration finally boils over as he forcefully denies the fictions of justice and religious morality to which his neighbors might have clung. Indeed, this final anecdote shows that the blackness of Smith’s body— strong as it was—trumped everything else. It is not that Hart, his adversary in a court of law, is “rich” (after all, Smith was rich too) but that he is a “white gentleman” and Venture a “poor African…a black dog.” Even though his amanuensis compares him to Washington and Franklin, the events in Venture’s Narrative suggest that the quality of his character had always been and would always remain less important than his skin color, that while prices and commodity values might rise and fall, race was a

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standard of value that remained constant. For David Kazanjian and other critics, this is the tragedy of Smith’s life: though he spent his life pursuing economic gain and—through it—some sort of equality, his narrative ends with a disgusted acknowledgment that even in post-Revolutionary America, race trumped everything else; thus, though he was “native” of Africa and a “resident” of the United States, he was a citizen of no place at all.19 It is important to note here that the racial hierarchies that keep Smith in a subservient position even after his self-emancipation are intrinsically connected to law and to Hart’s threat to carry the case from “court to court.” Even though Venture Smith’s character and achievements were renowned throughout southern Connecticut and eastern Long Island, his reputation was no match for the legal system that Hart knew how to manipulate, a system that enabled him to trap Smith in a bind from which he could not extricate himself. Ultimately, Smith’s final anecdote emphasizes the division between a non-literate man like Smith and a (presumably) literate citizen like Hart, the division between a man who could earn an income and a reputation and a man who could protect both wealth and public standing. Perhaps this is why Venture Smith never mentions the American Revolution in his Narrative; even though his son fought in support of the colonists’ cause and Smith knew that he was living in a new political regime, his experience as a black man in the Atlantic world remained more or less consistent. Nation proved to be secondary to the cultural, economic, and legal forces of the larger Atlantic world, forces that Smith could not overcome through physical exertion or diligence. This realization dawns on readers too as Smith moves directly from the Hart anecdote to a description of his broken body, a body now stripped of its earning power: “Though once straight and tall, measuring without shoes six feet, one inch and an half, and every way well proportioned, I am now bowed down with age and hardship. My strength, which was once equal if not superior to any man whom I have ever seen, is now enfeebled so that life is a burden, and it is with fatigue that I can walk a couple of miles, stoop- ing over my staff” (30–1). But, the man who was long habituated to using himself to make money may have looked about for a new way to generate

19 This idea—oft-advanced in scholarly discussions of Smith’s life and Narrative—is succinctly expressed in Kazanjian, “Mercantile Exchanges, Mercantilist Enclosures” and David Waldstreicher, “The Vexed Story of Human Commodification Told by Benjamin Franklin and Venture Smith,” Journal of the Early Republic 24 (Summer 2004): 269–278.

136 bryan sinche income, to re-circulate himself, as it were, in the eighteenth-century economy. At this point, though, as his Narrative makes quite clear, Smith understood that the same bodies that create value do not hold value. Bodies are lost at sea, fall ill, decline. Blind and bent, Smith may have sought (for the first time) to make money without recourse to his own corporeal strength by relating his life story to Elisha Niles. Repackaging himself into words that might circulate beyond the body’s geographical and temporal limitations, Smith eschews physical presence for the speculative ground of print. In this, his final transaction, he draws on eighteenth- century economic logic to constitute value in himself and for himself.

II. Venture Smith’s Atlantic Life

As I have shown above, economic transactions define much of Smith’s life and they structure his Narrative, as each chapter concludes with a different type of transaction which corresponds roughly to a historical moment and setting. The first of these takes place on the shores of Africa when James Mumford barters goods for the young Broteer Furro. At this moment, Furro becomes Venture, a commodity circulating within the horrifying economies of the Atlantic world. Very early in his life, Venture seemed to understand that, as a commodity, his willingness and ability to generate profit for his master increased his value, and he knew that his owner was able to “speculate with [him] as with other commodities” (20). Because of this, Venture works to exert some control over his value as commodity in the marketplace. On one occasion, when a buyer threatens to bind him in order force him to perform a particularly odious duty, Venture reminds the buyer that “if he carried [him] in that manner, no person would purchase me, for it would be thought that he had a murderer for sale” (20). Another time, Venture affects discontent in order to bring down his value and thereby effects his sale to a man willing to let Venture work for his freedom. As Philip Gould argues, these incidents show Venture taking “control of his body as a symbolic commodity” and “[redeploying] its function.”20 Just as he would years later when he published his Narrative, Smith takes his body of the out the commodity market and “redeploys” it as a tool to set value in the market. Venture’s ability to operate simultaneously as commodity and capitalist likely lead him to embrace an economic solution to securing his

20 Gould, “Free Carpenter,” 678.

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freedom, though his drive to save enough money to purchase himself was attended by a number of mishaps that reveal the problem of working inside and outside the colonial economy. For example, after Venture gave twenty pounds to his master’s brother and takes his note for the money, his master destroyed the note in a fit of pique, leaving Smith—who by law could hold no property—without any claim on the money he worked to accumulate. After he lost his money to his master, Smith relied on specie, and when he acquired cash he buried it in the earth or gave it to a free black friend who, in turn, gave it to Smith’s master and holds the master’s note. Keeping his money out of circulation is the only way that Smith could take himself out of circulation as a commodity, but when he paid cash for himself, Smith returned his money to the colonial economy. Of course, though the final chapter of Smith’s Narrative records Venture’s economic successes (and few failures), it concludes with the story of Captain Hart’s suit against him and Smith’s payment of 10 pounds cash to Hart. This would seem to put an end to Smith’s lengthy balancing act between commodity and capitalist and to settle the matter decisively. Even in the United States, the freed former slave retained traces of his former commodity status and cannot make the leap to full-fledged “venture capitalist.” But Smith’s payment to Captain Hart is not the final transaction in the Narrative, and it is Smith’s final transaction that signals the narrator’s abiding faith in both himself and the economic marketplace. Indeed, Venture’s story only came to life because of the transaction between himself and Elisha Niles that preceded the transaction between book buyer and bookseller. These transactions relied on the logic of the credit economy, and it is these transactions that lead me to read Smith’s Narrative as a final assertion of belief in the market as a site where value might be mediated. The credit economy, an economy reliant on debt-generated paper money rather than specie, emerged in the eighteenth century and was firmly established in the United States by the middle of the nineteenth. The period immediately following the American Revolution, when Smith dictated his narrative, was a particularly charged moment in the debate over paper currency. Those who feared the move to a credit economy warned that paper currency was insubstantial and valueless. They pointed out, quite correctly, that paper currency is inherently metaphoric and representational. It is not the thing itself—a physical presence like specie—but a stand in. Hard-money advocates like John Taylor of Caroline (Virginia) insisted on “the superiority of coin to credit,” and Taylor argued

138 bryan sinche that money should not “create wealth” since its “office is to represent” real currency. Calling paper specie’s “shadow,” Taylor and other hard-money advocates worried that paper money might ultimately circulate without any substantial backing whatsoever.21 Of course, there were a number of men who encouraged the use of a paper currency in the new nation. Like Adam Smith, such men argued that the adoption of a paper currency might enable economic expansion since increasing the volume of paper money in the economy (even beyond the level of reserves) can stimulate economic growth.22 Paper money advocates claimed that paper need not be convertible into specie but that it could stand for a value that does not yet exist but that could exist in the future—that paper could constitute value without representing value.23 This move from specie to credit was, according to Marc Shell, a move from “substance to inscription,” from a world in which money was separate from writing to a world in which money was nothing but writing, from a world in which value was immanent in cash to a world in which value was purely a matter of trust.24 Ian Baucom insists that this trust amounted to “abstract confidence everyone had to have in the system itself, the belief they were required to invest in the credibility of its forms of value and the value of its guarantees.”25 Baucom’s work suggests that the shift in monetary systems inaugurated (or abetted) a corresponding shift in “epistemol- ogies of value.”26 This epistemological shift—grounded as it is in changing economic circumstances—would have been a shift to which Venture Smith was closely attuned. And, given Smith’s situation in the 1790s the essence of that shift seems particularly important.

21 John Taylor, An Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States (Fredericksburg, Va.: Green and Cady, 1814), 347. This single quotation serves as a strident but nonetheless representative view of hard money advocates in the early national period. For background on these views and the competing views of “paper money men,” (especially as such views relate to literature) see David Anthony, Paper Money Men: Commerce, Manhood, and the Sensational Public Sphere in Antebellum America (Columbus: Ohio State UP, 2009); Jennifer Jordan Baker, Securing the Commonwealth: Debt, Speculation, and the Making of Early America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2005); Mary Poovey, Genres of the Credit Economy: Mediating Value in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Britain (Chicago: U Chicago P, 2008). 22 This is Adam Smith’s argument in The Wealth of Nations (Book 2, Chapter 2). See also David Ricardo, “On Currency and Banks,” in The Works of David Ricardo (London: John Murray, 1844): 213–225. 23 Baker, Securing the Commonwealth, 8. 24 Marc Shell, Money, Language and Thought: Literary and Philosophical Economies From the Medieval to the Modern Era (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 2. 25 Ian Baucom, Specters of the Atlantic: Finance Capital, Slavery, and the Philosophy of History (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005): 89. 26 Baucom, Specters of the Atlantic, 89.

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As both currency and as an emblem of stability, “substance” began to lose its power; likewise, as print networks expanded in the early republic, “representation” began to replace personal “immanence.” As Mary Poovey puts it, the rise of print meant that “representation could…float free of its ground.”27 These seismic changes offered a number of opportunities for men like Venture Smith, for, once the “hard currency” of the body disappeared and “script” representations began to circulate in the market, inherited status and racial identity could lose some of their signifying power. The world of paper money and paper men, the world that Venture Smith entered by publishing his life’s story in 1798, was a realm in which the grounds for belief and the nature of value itself were changing. For men like John Taylor of Caroline, the disjunction between “representation” and “ground” was deeply unsettling; for a man like Venture Smith, this disjunction was exactly what he was waiting for since it suggested that standards of value were being recalibrated. Reading Smith’s Narrative as an instrument meant to mediate value in the early republic gives us a different way to evaluate Elisha Niles’s comparison of Venture Smith with Benjamin Franklin and George Washington. Certainly, readers then and now understand that the “poor African” Venture Smith could not be one of those men, but the narrative persona— the man brought to life within the pages of the autobiography—shares certain similarities with the textual versions of someone like Franklin. Here, I refer not so much to Smith’s limited economic and social ascent, for the very limits on his rise “up from slavery” reveals the circumscribed nature of freedom and opportunity in the eighteenth-century US. Rather, I refer to the motives that prompted Smith and Franklin to record their stories. Since, as Smith explains, he found “joy” in thinking that he possessed “so good a character, especially for truth and integrity,” it seems reasonable to assume that he would have wanted to pass “on to his surviving sons the legacy and values his father bequeathed to him” (31).28 This motive is particularly significant given that he closes his Narrative by bemoaning the fact that those sons, Cuff and Solomon, had not followed in the virtuous path tread by their father.

27 Poovey, Genres of the Credit Economy, 7; see also Michael Warner, Letter of the Republic and Larzer Ziff, Writing in the New Nation: Prose, Print, and Politics in the Early United States (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991). 28 Robert B. Forbes, David Richardson, and Chandler B. Saint, “Trust and Violence in Atlantic History: The Economic Worlds of Venture Smith” in James Brewer Stewart, ed., Venture Smith and the Business of Slavery and Freedom (Amherst: University of Massachu setts Press, 2010): 75.

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This final complaint indicates that Smith’s living example had not been enough to convince his sons to “[walk] in the way of their father,” but it also recalls Smith’s motive for publication (31). Smith’s desire to see his sons follow in his footsteps suggests that he would have embraced the didactic possibilities of a text, a document that would speak for Ven ture Smith even when he was gone. In this sense, the Narrative that would instruct future generations functions much like the paper monetary instruments that represented future value. Thus, as Benjamin Franklin did most famously in his Autobiography, Smith embraces the possibility of what Michael Warner calls “being in print.”29 Moreover, Smith’s move from a black body to a black and white text allowed him to move outside the limiting racial hierarchies that defined so much of his life. As James Sidbury insists, once a black writer entered the “marketplace of ideas” through the medium of print, he implicitly directed readers to value the “quality of the idea—the commodity—rather than the identity of the seller.”30 Of course, in Smith’s case, the white-authored prefatory materials and concluding certificates of character remind readers of Smith’s racial identity, but Smith’s story and the standards of value he invokes work to undermine rather than validate the opinions of his white character witnesses. For that reason, I argue that Smith’s decision to publish his Narrative allowed him to enter a literary economy of character wherein value and standing could be evaluated separately from bodily presence, wherein a life story might be credible in the future even if the racial self it represented could lay claim to no credit whatsoever. “Being in print” also allowed Smith to enter the world in which prominent men of his era circulated. When his biography sold in New London at the Bee office and in Stonington at the Post office, it stood alongside biographies like Brainerd’s Life and Journal, Memoirs of John Lackington, Trenck’s Life and the seventh American edition of Benjamin Franklin’s Life.31 Smith’s Narrative also shared shelf-space with works such as Whitefield’s Sermons, Albert Gallatin’s book on American Finances, and

29 Warner, Letters of the Republic, 74. 30 James Sidbury, “Early Slave Narratives and the Culture of the Atlantic Market,” in Eliga H. Gould and Peter S. Onuf, eds., Empire and Nation: The American Revolution in the Atlantic World (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2005): 270. 31 The then-notable subjects of these biographies and autobiographies were David Brainerd, eighteenth-century colonial minster and missionary, whose biography was penned by Jonathan Edwards; James Lackington, a famed London bookseller who rose from obscurity to wealth in eighteenth-century England; and Baron Von Trenck, a Prussian soldier and author who died during the French Revolution.

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the ever-popular Cato’s Letters.32 As he spoke his story into existence and thereby placed his story alongside those of religious, political, economic, and literary men of his age, Smith became part of an Atlantic print economy and entered his Narrative into an historical narrative that would extend well beyond the time of his corporeal existence. Selling his story rather than his body, Venture Smith transferred himself out of the slave economy that had shaped so much of his life and implicitly asked to be evaluated according to an economy of character, evaluated not just by how much labor he could do but by what that labor represented. And, of course, Smith hoped that this economy of character would not rely on facile distinctions like “Christian” vs. “savage” or “white gentleman” vs. “black dog.” By overseeing his transformation into an abiding textual representation, Smith looks forward to a time when readers would reconsider the terms of human valuation and find that the “black dog” was the gentleman after all. Some of the effects of Venture’s final transaction might be seen in the afterlife of his Narrative. One of Smith’s descendents reprinted his Narrative in 1836, and Henry M. Selden “revised and republished” it in Haddam, Connecticut in 1896. Writing in the preface to the late- nineteenth-century edition, Selden noted that “SEVERAL editions of the Life of Venture have been published successively by his family, and by them circulated throughout the county, but more in the towns contiguous to his home, where the subject was well known for his abnormal strength, industry and goodly character, confirmatory of the personal narrative” and that a new version was required in order meet widespread demand.33 In other words, Smith’s story had kept the man alive, had kept him circulating in the local imaginary and had even lodged him in the imaginations of the “friends abroad” whom Selden mentions in his preface. Thus, Selden’s version met the market demand that Venture created for himself with his first Narrative, and it also enabled Selden to add to Smith’s story by including a section titled “Traditions of Venture!” In this section, the misty- eyed memories of the aged citizens who recalled him transformed Venture Smith into a larger-than-life man who grew larger with each passing

32 Most of these titles appear in the August 1, 1798 Bee. Franklin’s Life, which was published by subscription, did not appear until later in 1798 and would have also sold alongside Smith’s Narrative. 33 Venture Smith, A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, a Native of Africa, but Resident Above Sixty Years in the United States of America. Related by Himself (New London: Printed in 1798. Reprinted a. d. 1835, and Published by a Descendant of Venture. Revised and Republished with Traditions by H.M. Selden, Haddam, Conn., 1896): 31.

142 bryan sinche year.34 Moreover, as the “Traditions” indicate, many of those who shared their memories with Henry Selden told the editor that they hoped to obtain the new edition of the Narrative and thereby maintain a connection to Venture Smith. These reprintings, republications, and recirculations suggest that Smith’s Narrative might have had at least one of the effects its subject intended for it since his story reached far beyond its author’s historical moment. In this respect, Smith’s Narrative is one of many crucial instruments that circulated (and continues to circulate) in the Atlantic world. The men and women whose lives were shaped by the instability and unwished for transformations ever-present in that Atlantic world well understood how lives and circumstances change over space and time, and Smith embraced the opportunity inherent in paper currency and textual representation. His decision to sell his Narrative in the print marketplace allowed Venture Smith to float free of the racial and temporal ground to which he found himself tethered in 1798.35

34 As John Ernest notes, the “Traditions” uncover the temporal reach of both Venture’s legend and the racist thinking that consigned Smith to a particular historical role. While agreeing with Ernest about the content in the “Traditions,” I would argue that Selden’s edition serves an important purpose by keeping the textual version of Smith alive and thereby paving the way for future re-evaluations and revaluations of both the man and his Narrative. See Liberation Historiography, 166–168. 35 Thanks to Matt Childs, Paul Lovejoy, and James Sidbury, all of whom offered comments on an earlier version of this essay.

CHAPTER SIX

ENSLAVED SHIP PILOTS: CHALLENGING NOTIONS OF RACE AND SLAVERY ALONG THE PERIPHERIES OF THE REVOLUTIONARY ATLANTIC WORLD

Kevin Dawson

Westerners were world voyagers traversing open oceans. Yet, they relied on local pilots to guide them in-and-out of port and through coastal waterways where most shipwrecks occurred. Newspapers, ship logs, plantation records, and travelogues, indicate that enslaved pilots monopolized the profession in Anglophone-American slave societies during the Age of Revolutions (1760–1840). In the 1790s, sojourning Yale University professor Josiah Meigs reported that they linked Bermuda to the rest of the world, saying “without skilful pilots who are black fellows educated to the business from childhood it would be impossible to enter our harbours.” They bound Jamaica, Britain’s most prosperous colony, to broader Atlantic economies and dominated the profession in the American south.1 Pilot’s specialized knowledge of coastal hydrography (the marine geography, including the seafloor, and affects of tides, winds, and currents on waterways and navigation) was key to overseas shipping; connecting plantations to overseas markets and colonies to the metropolis, protecting the prosperity of plantation slavery and expansion of national and imperial power. As ships entered coastal waters, enslaved pilots assumed temporary command, controlling the threshold between sea-and-land where they inverted the racial/social hierarchy.

1 Theodore Foulks, Eighteen Months in Jamaica: With Recollections of the Late Rebellion (London: Whittaker, Treacher and Arnott, 1833), 22; 24, Philip Wright, ed., Lady Nugent’s Journal of her Residence in Jamaica from 1801 to 1805 (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2002), 25, Edward Long, The History of Jamaica, 3 Volumes (London: 1774), II, 41–42, William Williams, Mr. Penrose: The Journal of Penrose, Seaman, (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1969), 43; 79, Matthew Lewis, Journal of a West Indian Proprietor Kept During a Residence in the Island of Jamaica (1834; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 34–35, Douglas Hall, ed., In Miserable Slavery: Thomas Thistlewood in Jamaica, 1750–86 (London: Macmillan, 1989), 11; 190, Daniel M’Kinnen, A Tour Through the British West Indies (London: J. White, 1804), 147; 203, W. Jeffrey Bolster, Black Jacks: African American Seamen in the Age of Sail (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), 132.

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Pilots traded belittling terrestrial conditions endured by black people in the white-dominated Atlantic world for personal freedoms alien to plantation and urban slaves. This essay considers how enslaved pilots used coastal waters in the Anglophone-Americas during the Revolutionary-Era as a cultural and political space to invert racial/social valuations and gain uncommon privileges. It places pilots in an Atlantic context to examine how captives in discrete societies similarly exchanged environmental and nautical wisdom for lives of privileged exploitation.2 Most were owned by slaveholding-merchants, who dispatched several pilots in pilot boats to intercept and guide vessels into port and often to their wharves and warehouses. Recognizing their inability to supervise pilots who remained aboard ship for days or weeks and return home in pilot boats capable of carrying them beyond their grasp, slaveholders granted these trusted men considerable autonomy and geographic mobility, permitting them to cultivate semi-independent, wage-earning lives that permitted some to obtain freedom. Importantly, water was an integral element in pilots’ lives. Waterways, even in studies of maritime slavery, are often treated as literary backdrops; not regions for cultural creation. Conditions unique to coastal navigation afforded pilots with shipboard privileges exceeding those received by bondpeople toiling in other capacities. Enslaved pilots became temporary ship captains, enabling them to curse and command white sailors and officers even though blackness and subservience were synonymous. The Revolutionary Period afforded pilots with greater opportunities. News of the world passed through ports, including the murmurs of liberty that inspired corollary slave rebellions throughout the greater Caribbean. Pilots were not passive observers of transnational struggles for human rights. They channeled revolutionary rhetoric to bonded communities and internalized and sought to appropriate freedom, liberty, and equality, using military circumstances to gain these rights for themselves and family members. Importantly, pilots’ subversion of authority was not the

2 This article extends the brief analysis W. Jeffrey Bolster, Michael Jarvis, and David Cilcelski devoted to enslaved pilots. Bolster, Black Jacks, David S. Cecelski, Waterman’s Song: Slavery and Freedom in Maritime North Carolina (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), Michael J. Jarvis, “Maritime Masters and Seafaring Slaves in Bermuda, 1680–1783,” in William and Mary Quarterly, LIX: 3 (July 2002), 585–622, Michael J. Jarvis, “The Binds of the Anxious Mariner: Patriarchy, Paternalism, and the Maritime Culture of Eighteenth-Century Bermuda,” Journal of Early Modern History, 14: 1/2 (2010), 75–117.

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result of circulating liberalism; it resulted from their ability to exploit military necessities and changing social dynamics.3 The color of waterways is frequently used to distinguish marine environments, with hydrography described in the following imprecisely defined regions: brown water refers to navigable rivers; green water to shallow coastal oceans; blue water is the deep ocean; and swamps are black water. Marine geographers assert that we must not assume “the ocean is a single body of water, the so-called world ocean” and instead consider the influences of disparate marine environments.4 The field of maritime slavery is rapidly expanding our understanding of Atlantic history. Scholars have correctly asserted that the independent character of bondmen’s labor permitted them to escape slaveholder dominance, as Julius Scott explained: “The juxtaposition of plantation society and maritime culture was always a particularly uneasy one. Whereas slavery and its regime demanded a fixed status and clear boundaries, ships ad the sea came to symbolize, for many people, possibilities for mobility, escape, and freedom.” True, but it was hydrography that defined life, labor, and maritime culture. Most historians of maritime slavery disregard crucial ecological variables, treating the earth’s waters as one uniform environment. We would be remiss to ignore how geographical features, like fields, mountains, mines, and urban settings, informed slave experiences, yet we disregard marine environmental variants. We would be remiss to ignore how geographical features, like fields, mountains, mines, and urban

3 Sylvia R. Frey, Water from the Rock: Black Resistance in a Revolutionary Age (Princeton: 1991), Gary B. Nash, The Forgotten Fifth: African Americans in the Age of Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006), Douglass R. Edgerton, Death or Liberty: African Americans and Revolutionary America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), The World of the Haitian Revolution, ed. David Patrick Geggus and Norman Firing (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 2009), Laurent Dubois, Colony of Citizens: Revolution & Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787–1804 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), Jane G. Landers, Atlantic Creoles in the Age of Revolutions (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010), Edward Countryman, Enjoy the Same Liberty: Black Americans and the Revolutionary Era (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011), Robin Blackburn, The American Crucible: Slavery, Emancipation and Human Rights (London: Verso Books, 2011), 171–488. For slave rebellions inspired by revolutions see: Matt D. Childs, The 1812 Aponte Rebellion in Cuba and the Struggle Against Atlantic Slavery (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), Michael Craton, Testing the Chains: Resistance to Slavery in the British West Indies (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982), 161–321, Douglas R. Edgerton, Gabriel’s Rebellion: The Virginia Slave Conspiracies of 1800 and 1802 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), David P. Geggus, ed., The Impact of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2011), 93–190. 4 Michael Lindberg and Daniel Todd, Brown-, Green- and Blue-Water Fleets: The Influ ence of Geography on Naval Warfare, 1861 to the Present (Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002), 59.

146 kevin dawson settings, informed slave experiences, yet we disregard marine environmental variants. By adopting other disciplines’ models of geographical organization we can provide greater depth and nuance to our understanding of maritime bondage.5 We can refine our analysis of maritime history by adopting Africanists’ use of cultural geography to organize Atlantic Africa in into cultural spaces to consider shared traditions and histories. In the 1980s Africanists began re-defining Atlantic Africa to clarify their analysis. They divided Africa into regions based on shared traditions, language groups, commercial interests, worldviews, and histories. Boubacar Barry introduced the term “Greater Senegambia” to correct what he felt was the historiographical and geopolitical fragmentation of this region. This integrative standpoint was developed because previous scholarship of individual polities resembled “a historical jigsaw puzzle. Viewed separately the pieces make little sense. Brought together, the bits of shredded data, from vignettes of personalities to social sketches and political snapshots, reveal new meanings.”6 Contextualizing water as cultural hydrography reveals how green water formed spaces where pilots constructed semi-independent lives within a discrete marine environment. Scholars remain reluctant to consider the ocean’s affects on human experiences. As we enhance our understanding of Atlantic history we increasingly consider understudied topics. Maritime topics provide alternatives to more conventional histories, revealing that life and labor afloat was characterized by fluidities and complexities absent ashore. Several historians anticipated or answered W. Jeffrey Bolster’s call to “put the ocean in Atlantic history,” providing thought-provoking studies on how the sea provided alternative circumstances for mariners, saltwater slaves, and waterside communities. Daniel Vickers reminds us that the lives of seaport residents were informed by connections to the ocean and that most men divided their time afloat and ashore, while Lisa Norling considers women’s roles in shoreside communities and how they were compelled to accept and defy paternalism while their husbands and fathers were at sea for months or years. Wim Klooster reveals that as virtually

5 Julius S. Scott, “Afro-American Sailors and the International Communication Network: The Case of Newport Bowers,” in Jack Tar in History: Essays in the History of Maritime Life and Labour, eds. Colin Howell and Richard Twomey (Fredericton: Acadiensis Press, 1991), 38. 6 Boubacar Barry, Senegambia and the Slave Trade (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), xi; xvi, Walter Rodney, History of the Upper Guinea Coast, 1545–1800 (New York: Clarendon Press, 1970), John Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), xiv, 184–192, esp. 191–192.

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everyone benefited from inter-imperial seaborne smuggling it practically lost its illegality, shifting from improvised economies of the poor to democratic, prosperous pursuits for many.7 Slave ships redefined captives, affording bondpeople with cramped room for the creation of new cultures and identities, serving as an in-between for saltwater slaves tran- sitioning from African to American lives as they were transformed from humans into property.8 Maritime studies fill gaps in the historiography, illustrating how people functioned between the boundaries of land-and- sea, empires, and gendered roles; revealing that formal social and legal structures do not reflect floating realities and that pervasive societal disorder and disorientation could become the standard. Likewise, historians increasingly examine shipboard communities and the opportunities denied ashore. Marcus Rediker and Peter Linebaugh argue that the ocean was a liberating space for rootless and oppressed sailors, slaves, and pirates to redefine terrestrial notions of race and status. Scholarship on black mariners documents how the independent character of their labor undercut white dominance. Bolster examined how the Atlantic facilitated the re-imagining of ideas and concepts allowing free black sailors to benefit from prospects deprived ashore by severing terrestrial ties while using the open-ocean as a transient sphere of opportunity, gaining economic advantages and racial parity.9

7 W. Jeffery Bolster, “Putting the Ocean in Atlantic History: Maritime Communities and Marine Ecology in the Northwest Atlantic, 1500–1800,” American Historical Review 113 (Feb., 2008), Daniel Vickers with Vince Walsh, Young Men and the Sea: Yankee Seafarers in the Age of Sail (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), Lisa Norling, Captain Ahab Had a Wife: New England Women & the Whalefishery, 1720–1870 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), Wim Klooster, “Inter-Imperial Smuggling in the Americas, 1600– 1800,” in Soundings in Atlantic History: Latent Structures and Intellectual Currents, 1500–1830 eds., Bernard Bailyn and Patricia L. Denault, eds., (London: Harvard University Press, 2009), 141–180, Wim Klooster, Illicit Riches: Dutch Trade in the Caribbean, 1648–1795 (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1998). For broader historiography see: Bailyn and Denault, eds., Soundings in Atlantic History; Bernard Bailyn, Atlantic History: Concept and Contours (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 8 Stephanie E. Smallwood, Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), Marcus Rediker, The Slave Ship: A Human History (New York: Penguin Press, 2007), Alexander X. Byrd, Captives and Voyagers: Black Migrants Across the Eighteenth-Century British Atlantic World (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2008), 32–57. 9 Marcus Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700–1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic (Boston: Verso, 1990), Bolster, Black Jacks, Bolster, “Putting the Ocean in Atlantic History,” esp. 20n5, Scott, “Afro- American Sailors,” Jarvis, “Anxious Mariner,” 76–79, Cecelski, Waterman’s Song, Jarvis, “Maritime Masters”.

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Green water constituted a border between the terrestrial and aquatic authority of two of the most oppressive regimes in the Atlantic world— slaveholders and shipmasters. Here landsmen and mariners were unsure of their authority, permitting slaves to manipulate white uncertainty. Many blue water sailors believed coastal mariners were less hardy than themselves and used the term green water as a disparaging colloquialism. Sailors regarded pilots as extensions of land-based authority distinct from themselves, making pilots a marginalized amphibious group, belonging to neither the world ashore or afloat. But this was a world turned upside- down in which the disenfranchised used closely guarded knowledge to link sea and land, gaining sway over their immediate circumstances and broader economic activities.10 Green water is also where most ships sank, compelling mariners to respect those protecting them from shipwreck. Enslaved pilots used these skills to ensure vessels’ safety. On August 23, 1778, an enslaved pilot navigated the fifty-gun British warship Experiment, through “Hellgate” located near Harlem, New York, “to the great astonishment of Lord [Richard] Howe,” Britain’s Commander-in-Chief of North America. The ship was chased into Long Island Sound by three French ships and negotiated Hell Gate to avoid capture. “At the moment of greatest danger, Sir James Wallace, the Captain gave some orders” that contra- dicted the pilot’s desires. Tapping Wallace on the shoulder the slave said, “‘you no speak here!’ The Captain felt the full force of the brave fellow’s remonstrance” and complied.11 Hell Gate is a reef-lined strait in the East River at the confluences of the Harlem River. Conflicting riverine currents and tidal forces from the Atlantic Ocean and Long Island Sound created a perplexity of eddies, ebbs-and-flows, currents, and a giant whirlpool that, drove hundreds of vessels per year onto its reefs. This incident highlights how slaves appropriated command, inverting the racial/social stratum. The Experiment was the largest ship to make “that dangerous passage.” This incident highlights how slaves appropriated authority to overturn the racial/social hierarchy. As a nobleman and shipmaster, Wallace wielded considerable authority. If a slave working in any other capacity similarly corrected an elite white man he would have deemed insolent and summarily punished.

10 Simon Finger, “‘A Flag of Defyance at the Masthead’: The Delaware River Pilots and the Sinews of Philadelphia’s Atlantic World in Eighteenth Century,” Early American Studies (Spring, 2010), 387–393. 11 R. Lamb, Memoir of His Own Life; Serjeant in the Royal Welch Fuzileers (Dublin: J. Jones, 1811), 249–250; Thomas Lewis O’Beirne, A Candid and Impartial Narrative of the Transactions of the Fleet, Under the Command of Lord Howe (London: Ayer Company Publisher, 1969), 37.

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But everyone understood that the pilot controlled the ship’s destiny, so he could rebuff one of the most powerful men in the world aboard a vessel that both projected and symbolized British overseas power. So “highly did his Lordship [Howe] appreciate the skill and adventurous spirit of the Negro pilot, that he settled on him an annuity of £50 for life,” legitimizing his inversion of the racial/social stratum.12 Even though pilots proved invaluable to overseas shipping, or perhaps because of it, many whites resented them. Contempt for slave pilots was rooted in concepts of social and racial hierarchy. White pilots upset concepts of status long before Europeans came into contact with Africans. Shipmasters and mates were generally members of society’s upper stra- tums and were often described as tyrants.13 Pilots, like sailors, were usually members of the lower echelons. When pilots assumed command of a vessel they stood the societal hierarchy on its head, as seafaring satirist “Ned” Ward delineated in 1699, penning: “A Vessel, whilst the Pilot is on Board, is an Emblem of Feeble Monarch, where the King has a States- man in his Dominion Greater than himself, That the Prince only bears the Title, but the other the Command.”14 If this was true on ships in the Thames piloted by whites, it was doubly true in the Americas aboard vessels piloted by slaves. Enslaved pilots existed on the cusp of the spectrum of negotiated authority that scholars currently use to describe master-slave relations.15 In theory, slaves’ race and status reinforced each other, making them the

12 Lamb, Memoir, 249; 250; U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, “The Conquest of Hell Gate,” (New York: Washington, D.C., n.d.). 13 Matthew Bishop, The Life and Adventures of Matthew Bishop (London: J. Brindley; G. Hawkins; R. Dodsley; and J. Millan,, 1744), 78, Rediker, Deep Blue Sea, 205–253; esp. 208– 209, Ralph Davis, The Rise of the English Shipping Industry in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (London: David & Charles, 1962), 131–132. 14 Edward Ward, “A Trip to New England” (1699), in Five travel scripts, commonly attributed to Edward Ward; reproduced from the Earliest Editions Extant (London: 1861), 4; 9, Rediker, Deep Blue Sea, 293; 295–296. For negative perceptions of white pilots see: Finger, “Flag of Defyance,” 386; 392–393, Robert C. Leslie, Old Wings, Ways, and Words, in the Days of Oak and Hemp (London: Chapman and Hall, 1890), 249, J.E. Alexander, Transatlantic Sketches: Comprising Visits to the most Interesting Scenes in North and South America, and the West Indies (Philadelphia: R. Bentley, 1833), 3–5. 15 For example: Robert Olwell, Masters, Slaves, and Subject: The Culture of Power in the South Carolina Low Country, 1740–1790 (Ithica: Cornell University Press, 1998), Richard Follett, Planter-Slave Relationships: The Sugar Masters: Planters and Slaves in Louisiana’s Cane World, 1820–1860 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2009), William Dusinberre, Them Dark Days: Slavery in the American Rice Swamps (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 1972).

150 kevin dawson most degraded members of society. Centuries of maritime tradition and law predetermined pilot-captain relationships and early modern white people were unwilling to alter this precedent, regardless of a pilot’s race or status, leaving shipmasters with little room for negotiation. Simultaneously, slaveholders and port authorities placed slave pilots outside captains’ sphere of control. Pilots also had much more leverage than field slaves— they held the safety of ships and all those aboard in their hands. They were caught in the machinery of bondage, but unlike filed slaves could not be easily replaced. Captains commanded considerable power, but pilots could conceivably avenge abuses by accidentally sinking their ships. Offi cers knew it was unwise to abuse someone responsible for the safety of the ship and their own wellbeing. Pilots’ persuasive powers were enhanced by white people’s inability to swim, making the specter of shipwreck more ominous. These factors permitted slave pilots to evolve as they clambered from the pilot boat, up a ship’s ladder, and swung themselves over the ship’s rail. They immediately ascended to the quarterdeck—symbol of maritime authority and rank—where they assumed command.16 Whites recognized that they were symbiotically locked in antagonistic relationships with enslaved pilots, conceding that it was in their best interest to treat their racial inferiors like captains. For ships’ safety, pilots needed to issue commands and officers and sailors had to comply. Pilotage was often a semi-seasonal occupation with shipping demands being greatest from spring through fall. During lulls, pilots worked as watermen aboard small fishing, shipping, and salvage vessels, providing themselves with more nuanced understandings of shallows than if they toiled high upon ships’ decks. Rhys Isaac considered differing interactions slaveholders and slaves had with shared environments. Heading out from home, bondpeople cut through fields, woods, and streams gaining subtle understandings of their “alternative territorial system.” Planters rode out on horseback “some three feet higher,” following roads as they viewed but did not interact with the landscape. Likewise, watermen and sailors had divergent experiences. Sailors looked down upon seascapes from several feet above, while watermen intimately interacted with the sea, skimming across shallows a few inches above the surface, obtaining detailed views of

16 Jarvis, “Maritime Masters,” 606, Bolster, Black Jacks, 131–144, Kevin Dawson, “Enslaved Swimmers and Divers in the Atlantic World,” The Journal of American History, XCII: 4 (2006), 1327–1355, Kevin Dawson, “Swimming, Surfing, and Underwater Diving in Early Modern Atlantic Africa and the African Diaspora,” in Navigating African Maritime History ed. Carina Ray and Jeremy Rich (Published by the Research in Maritime History book series, Memorial University of Newfoundland Press, 2009), 81–116.

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the hydrospace (area beneath the surface of the water), mentally mapping the ocean’s bottom and watching and feeling how surface waters heaved and plunged as they moved over shoals. Fishermen accrued detailed understandings of seafloors while charting their preys’ movements and retreats. Salvagers possibly had the best understanding of green water, navigating shallows looking for wrecks to salvage and recovering goods from vessels that refused their pilotage services. When diving, they viewed the hydroscape from below and felt currents and tides, providing themselves with acute understandings of the depths. Many pilots were born in Africa, using aquatic understandings cultivated while fishing, canoeing, and swimming in African waters to gain shipboard ascendancy.17 Enslaved pilots used this environmental and nautical astuteness to defy notions of black inferiority while asserting claims for natural rights. Through most of the eighteenth century pilots were advisors without legal shipboard authority. Yet, mariners knew their advice was more reliable than maps and charts, treating it like commands. Nature constantly altered watercourses compelling pilots to carefully read the hydrography while expeditiously calculating differences in water depths and ships’ draft (vertical distance between the waterline and the bottom of the hull) to determine if vessels could clear shallows.18 Pilots’ importance to shipping convinced whites to accept their subversion of racial concepts, as witnessed by English landsman Frederick Bayley. When an African-born pilot boarded Bayley’s ship as it approached Bridgetown, Barbados he had an immediately unfavorable impression. “He was an African of ferocious aspect, and certainly not formed to create a very favorable opinion of his race in the minds of those who saw him.” However, the pilot regarded himself as whites’ equal and was treated accordingly. “He took possession of the vessel, with as much importance as if he had been a fine, rough, old English seaman bearing up Channel.” After a few cordial remarks he issued orders and cursed sailors. “‘Vell, captain,’ said he, ‘so you have had a fine passage: I hope de ladies below are vell; if you hab no jection I vill drink deir health.’ Accordingly he had a

17 Rhys Isaac, The Transformation of Virginia, 1740–1790 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press: 1982), 52–57; esp. 53. Author’s observations during decades of surfing, sailing, and free-diving. 18 Leslie, Old Sea Wings, 249. By the mid-eighteenth century most New World waters were charted, but nature quickly altered hydrospaces and ripped buoys from their markers. Consequently, navigational guidebooks were typically inaccurate and most recommended hiring a pilot. William Tatham, Copy of Manuscript Report by William Tatham on Survey of the Coast of North Carolina from Cape Hateras to Cape Fear (1806), 50, North Carolina Collections, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina.

152 kevin dawson glass of grog given him, and then turned to work:—‘What de debil are you at dere in de fore top?—Come down dere; I vant to put about; don’t you see de wind blow?’ and then turning to the man at the helm; ‘Vy you no [s]teer [s]teady? Got dam you, Sir,—vy you no teer teady, I say?” Shocked that an African would toast white women and curse white men Bayley asked a bondman that boarded the ship to sell fruit: “‘Is that fellow free?’ ‘No massa,’ was the reply.” Bayley, who was unfamiliar with shipboard relations, marveled that an African’s nautical acumen enabled him to toast white women and curse white men. Mariners appreciated his ability to ensure their ship’s safety, allowing the slave to behave like an “English seaman bearing up Channel.”19 Pilots countered white affronts to their authority, as demonstrated by William Nevens’ experiences aboard the New England merchantman Ceres. In 1805, a pilot from the British occupied island of Martinique boarded the ship as it approached Trinity Harbor. Shocked by his “cocked hat, red coat, white neckerchief, but no shirt, or hose a pair of yellow breeches, a yellow slipper on one foot, and a red one on the other” Nevens “involuntarily” laughed. Transcending terrestrial racial boundaries, the pilot responded: “Who you laugh at, you bloody bitch? I let you know, I king pilot, Gor bras ye to ‘ell.” Ordering Nevens to measure the water depth, which he submissively did, the pilot turned to the helmsman and “roared out” that he better keep a strait course. In an age where black inso- lence was routinely met with white violence, pilots understood that white- reliance on their knowledge enabled them to correct and berate sailors without fear of retribution.20 Pilots employed more finesse when admonishing contemptuous shipmasters. They could claim conditions were too perilous—the tide too low, currents or winds too strong, visibility too poor—for safe navigation. If captains attempted a passage against pilot’s advice they risked inciting mutiny among sailors unwilling to jeopardize their lives.21 Pilots also

19 Frederic William Naylor Bayley, Four Years’ Residence in the West Indies: During the Years 1826, 7, 8, and 9 (London: W. Kidd, 1833), 25–26. 20 William Nevens, Forty years at Sea: Or a Narrative of the Adventures of William Nevens (Portland: Thurston, Fenly & Company, 1846), 65–66; Frank T. Bullen, The Log of a Sea-Waif (New York: Macmillan, 1899), 29–31. 21 For shipmasters risking mutinying when endangering vessels see: Rediker, Deep Blue Sea, 98–99, Finger, “Flag of Defyance,” 378, Robert Baker, The Unfortunate Shipwright: Or, Cruel Captain (London: Robert Baker, 1758), 5, Frederick Pease Harlow, The Making of a Sailor; or Sea Life Aboard a Yankee Square-Rigger (Salem: Courier Dover Publications, 1928), 65–67. White pilots claimed conditions prevented them from refloating the Sally. Thomas Blount to John Gray Blount, December 21, 1794.

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conjoined the strategies of enslaved tricksters and disgruntled mariners. When pilots boarded a vessel, shipmasters routinely gave them grog as a sign of deference. In 1808, a British captain refused this decorum to enslaved Jamaican pilots who boarded his ship as it approached Port Royal, proclaiming: “Give me some beef, massa, me can no take ship safe widout grog and beef.” Deeming the slave impertinent, the captained retorted: “‘D——n you, mind the ship, you black rascal, and when she is safe you shall have what you want.’” An assistant pilot used the slave ploy of feigned ignorance to reconstitute their authority. Inquiring on the water depth, the captain asked: “What water have you got?” The slave responded: “Why salt water, massa, to be sure.” The furious captain retorted: “You black scoundrel, tell me, again, I say, how much water, have you got?” “Lord, massa, how can me tell, me have no pot to measure it wid!’” The captain recognized the slaves’ ability to continue this routine until his ship ran aground, compelling him to surrender his authority, grog, and beef.22 These Jamaicans demonstrate how pilots used the weapons of the weak to extract concessions from the powerful. Pretending to be too dumb to comprehend simple questions, they used a common ploy of slave tricksters to engage in a form of work stoppage perfected by white mariners.23 They feigned ignorance as part of a labor demonstration similar to those of white sailors. Scholars of maritime labor history have posited that the term “strike” derived from the collective work stoppage of London seamen in May 1768 who struck work in the same manner they would strike, or lower, sails to halt a ship’s progress.24 Their labor demonstration was also akin to that of white mariners. White pilots gained rights by striking to halt maritime commerce. Revolutionary-era Delaware River pilots employed work-disruptions that inhibited shipping between Philadelphia and the Atlantic, forcing elite land- and ship-based authority to concede to their demands.25 Pilots drew from the tools of the disenfranchised to extract concessions from the powerful.

22 John Lambert, Travels Through Canada, and the United States of North America, 2 Volumes, (London: 1814), II, 293–294, Foulks, Jamaica, 24, Leslie, Old Sea Wings, 247– 248; 252. 23 Babacar M’Baye, The Trickster Comes West: Pan-African Influence in Early Black Diasporan Narratives (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2009). 24 C.R. Dobson, Masters and Journeymen: A Prehistory of Industrial Relations, 1717–1800 (London: Taylor & Francis, 1980), 19, 25–26, 154–170, Bolster, Black Jacks, 87–88, Rediker, Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, 110; 205–206. 25 Finger, “Flag of Defiance,” 387, 399–408, esp. 387; 402.

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Pilots’ autonomy differed from that of most enslaved landspeople. Most bondpeople acquired independence by working escaping white observa- tion. Pilots gained autonomy by serving white economic interests while mariners and passengers scrutinized their every move. Barry Higman’s analysis of British Caribbean seaports reveals that autonomy was not necessarily based on white absence. “Most urban slaves lived in more intimate contact with their owners than did rural slaves, frequently sharing their houses, eating their leftovers, and wearing their castoffs.” Yet, most enjoyed more freedom than rural bondpeople. The ratio of whites to slaves was higher in towns than rural areas and greater still aboard ship. However, maritime law and planters’ sway precluded pilots from shipboard authority while they spent days and weeks away from their owners.26 While many whites resented pilots’ inversion of the racial/social hierarchy, most accepted it because pilots provided valuable services. Brothers Thomas and John Gray Blount were prominent North Carolina merchant- planters. In early winter of 1794, their sloop, Sally, ran aground and they offered a £60 reward for refloating the vessel. For three weeks a succession of white pilots tried unsuccessfully before a black pilot succeed. Thomas was so impressed by the “clever fellow” that he gave “him 20 dollars in addition to the £60 which he is entitled.” This pilot’s skills motivated the brothers to purchase pilots and prudent merchants, planters, and captains heeded such lessons, deeming black pilots their racial inferiors, while respecting and rewarding their dexterities.27 Many watermen used skills obtained as canoemen, fishermen, and coastal and inter-island sailors to graduate into more privileged and less strenuous pilot positions. For example, in 1800, William Tatham reported that Virginia’s tobacco canoemen “made excellent skippers and good river pilots.” In 1815, an Antiguan slaveholder advertised the sale of “a stout negro man, a good sailor and fisherman, capable of taking charge of a vessel, and a good pilot for this all the neighboring islands.”28

26 B.W. Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, 1807–1834 (Kingston: University of the West Indies,1995), 257–258, Welch, Slave Society in the City, 197, Cyril Outbridge Packwood, Chained to the Rock: Slavery in Bermuda (Bermuda: Eliseo Torres & Sons, 1975), 22–23. 27 Thomas Blount to John Gray Blount, December 21, 1794, in the Gray Blount Papers, North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh, Alexander, Transatlantic Sketches, I, 3–4; 11. 28 G. Melvin Herndon, ed., William Tatham and the Culture of Tobacco: Including a fac- simile reprint of An Historical and Practical Essay on the Culture and Commerce of Tobacco (Coral Gables: 1969), 211, The Weekly Register (Antigua), May 20, 1815, in Higman, Slave Populations, 175, Stiles, Extracts form the Itineraries, 535; 537, Bolster, Black Jacks, 16, 23, 133, Jarvis, “Maritime Masters,” 606, “Petition of the Pilots at Bermuda to Commissioners of the Navy, London 1 c. 1806 [n.d.].”

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Thomas Jeremiah of Charleston, South Carolina provides a quintessen- tial example of the benefits pilots reaped by marrying maritime occupations. He was apparently born into slavery and purchased his freedom with his pilot’s income. Jeremiah was undoubtedly an enslaved fisherman in the 1740s and used his knowledge to secure a more lucrative pilotage position in the mid-1750s. He knew Charleston Harbor well, yet initially possessed an imperfect understanding of the water-depth necessary for ship navigation. On February 11, 1755 the South-Carolina Gazette charged that the “Jamaica Man of War” was run hard aground “by the Carelessness of a Negro Pilot (Jerry).” One year later, Jeremiah sank a merchant ship. Through fishing and continued pilotage Jeremiah improved his skills, fame, and fortune. By 1771 he was free and his piloting skills, which were crucial to South Carolina’s naval defense and maritime trade, made him an important man in the colony. Governor Sir William Campbell proclaimed him “one of the best pilots in the harbor” who had “by his industry acquired property upwards of £1,000 sterling” and owned “several slaves.” Historian William Ryan believes “he may well have been the wealthiest man of color in the entire thirteen colonies.”29 Ports formed an “urban perimeter” around colonies that afforded pilots with numerous shoreside privileges. Green water and ports conspired to undermine white authority, providing pilots with two parallel cultural and geographical borderlands along the cusp of slavery and freedom; colony and empire; land and sea. Here, they become quasi-free members of multiracial communities with ties to rural, urban, and maritime workers.30 Bondpeople constituted a significant portion, sometimes the majority, of a port’s population.31 Ports did not afford pilots with the same unusual

29 South-Carolina Gazette, February 6–13, 1755, October 6–13, 1766, June 20, 1768, South Carolina Gazette, Extraordinary, May 6, 1756, K.G. Davies, ed., Documents of the American Revolution, 1770–1783, Colonial Office Series, 21 Volumes (Dublin: 1976) XI, 95, William R. Ryan, The World of Thomas Jeremiah: Charleston on the Eve of the American Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 7, J. William Harris, The Hanging of Thomas Jeremiah: A Free Black Man’s Encounter with Liberty (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 93–95. 30 Richard C. Wade, Slavery in the Cities: The South, 1820–1860 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964), 3, Gary B. Nash, The Urban Crucible: The Northern Seaports and the Origins of the American Revolution (1979; Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1986), esp. 1, Scott, “Afro-American Sailors,” 38, Pedro L.V. Welch, Slave Society in the City: Bridgetown, Barbados, 1680–1834 (Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers, 2003), esp. xiv, Higman, Slave Populations, 174–175; 226, Robert S. Shelton, “Slavery in a Texas Seaport: The Peculiar Institution Galveston,” in Slavery and Abolition, XXVIII: 1 (Aug 2007), 155–156. 31 Welch, Slave Society in the City, 95, Higman, Slave Populations, 87; 226, Wade, Slavery in the Cities, 16–19; 243–244.

156 kevin dawson benefits enjoyed aboard ship, but they offered opportunities to enjoy independence away from their owners. Like other urban slaves, they were entrepreneurs living independent of direct white interference that dictated where they lived, what they ate or wore, who they married, and the work they performed, permitting them to become members of a virtually free labor force. Industrious slaves generated considerable incomes for themselves, enhancing the material comfort enjoyed by themselves and their family members.32 Ports were marketplaces for news and pilots were great purveyors, fun- neling information between sea and land while serving as the Atlantic eyes and ears of urban and rural slave communities. News passed by word of mouth along established maritime commercial routes and, as Julius Scott documented, free black sailors linked black communities from New England to the West Indies into what he called the “greater Caribbean.” These sailors permitted free and enslaved landspeople to monitor international events. As the first shoreside contact with vessels, pilots were key figures in these networks. Pilots, mariners, and passengers exchanged colonial and overseas news. Bernard Martin noted that from Jamaican pilots “the captain learns all the news, and retails it to his passengers.” While vessels lay at anchor for hours or even days waiting to clear customs and quarantine, pilots returned ashore with the news of the world. Urban, maritime, and country slaves converged in ports. As pilots entered these pulsating communities they disseminated Atlantic news, and slaves rapidly and accurately conveyed information inland along the arteries of their internal economies.33 Atlantic ports contained vibrant waterfront institutions that catered to the needs and desires of maritime workers regardless of race. “Socially marginal” fixtures in pilots’ lives, like taverns and brothels, provided “comparative privacy” for white and black men and women to mingle. Brothels and taverns were probably the most integrated places on earth. Alcohol and the commodified bodies of white and black women were sold to transient men regardless of race, and saloonkeepers and prostitutes served as

32 Higman, Slave Populations, 175, 226–225, 235–236, 245–246, 258, Wade, Slavery in the Cities, 48–49, Welch, Slave Society in the City, 18, Shelton, “Texas Port,” 155–156. 33 Scott, “Afro-American Sailors,” 41–42, Bernard Martin, Jamaica, as it Was, as it Is, and as it May Be (London: T. Hurst, 1835), 14; 21, Bolster, Black Jacks, 17; 62, Great Britain Parliament Papers (Commons), “Report of the Select Committee on the Extension of Slavery Throughout the British Dominions” (no. 721), 1831–1832, Evidence of Vice Admiral Sir Charles Fleming, XX, 199–200.

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conduits of information, gleaning news from one patron and disseminat- ing to others.34 Governments rarely safeguarded free or enslaved black people from abuse, yet port authorities and slaveholders sheltered pilots. Port authorities and slaveholders also kept pilots from being sucked under the mercy of maritime discipline. Port authorities forced captains of ships over a certain tonnage (or size) to employ a pilot, and entrusted pilots with a harbor’s safety by keeping watercourses free of shipwrecks, which could obstruct maritime commerce and damage wharves and vessels. They were also trusted not to usher enemy vessels into port and were the first line of defense against seaborne epidemics, forcing ships suspected of carrying contagions to “ride quarantine” for several days with passengers and crew confined aboard ship. Revolutionary-Era port authorities tilted pilot- shipmaster relationships in pilots’ favor, transforming traditions into laws to further shield pilots from abuses that would inhibit their ability to retain experts. For most of the eighteenth century pilots were, essentially, independent contractors regulated, protected, but not employed, by port authorities. As warfare compelled governments to closely guard waterways, port authorities expanded pilots’ power, making them government employees and granting them temporary legal command of vessels. In Bermuda they became royally-appointed King’s or Queen’s pilots (depending on the monarch’s gender) and United States law stated: “After a pilot is taken on board, the master has no longer any command of the ship till she is safe in harbour.” Slaves now possessed legal command of ships; impressing, physically abusing, or refusing to pay them resulted in criminal charges.35 Thomas Jeremiah illustrates pilots’ ability to manipulate terrestrial connections to protect themselves. In 1771, Jeremiah assailed Thomas Langen, a white captain, while piloting his ship up Charleston’s Cooper River. He was convicted of assault and “Sentenced to lie in the stocks One

34 Shelton, “Texas Seaport,” 155–168, esp. 159, Ira Berlin, Slaves Without Masters: The Free Negro in the Antebellum South (New York: 1974), 265, Waller, Voyage to the West Indies, 6, 20–21, 94, Bayley, Residence in the West Indies, 27–28, George Pinckard, Note on the West Indies: Written during the Expedition Under the Command of General Sir Ralph Abercromby, 3 Volumes (1806; Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1970), I, 245–246; 393, Welch, Slave Society in the City, 88–93; 218, Linebaugh and Rediker, Many-Headed Hydra, 174–210, Higman, Slave Populations, 231–232; 242, Rediker, Deep Blue Sea, 59–60, 133. 35 Joseph Blunt, The Merchant’s and Shipmaster’s Assistant: Containing Information useful to the American Merchants, Owners, and Masters of Ships (New York: E. & G. W. Blunt, 1832), 172–173; 200–238, Finger, “Flag of Defyance,” 387–394; 407, Wilkinson, Bermuda, I, 384, Walter Clark, ed., The State Records of North Carolina, 26 Volumes (Goldsboro: P.M. Hale, 1905), IX, 803–804; XXIV; 502–503, Jarvis, “Maritime Masters,” 606.

158 kevin dawson hour & receive ten Lashes.” However, Governor Sir William Bull pardoned him. Given Jeremiah’s weight among those of authority, he doubtlessly understood the eventual outcome of his actions. Hence, what appears an imprudent act was probably a bold, yet calculated, risk designed to punctuate and advance his importance and authority. Furthermore, Jeremiah seemingly felt he, like shipmasters, could employ violence against subordinates.36 Terrestrial officials agreed with Jeremiah’s assessment of himself and his position in Charleston. Bull apparently pardoned Jeremiah to spare him the humiliation that would undermine his position, suggesting authorities valued black pilots more than white captains. There were always far more captains than pilots in port. More importantly, shipmasters were transient replaceable figures; pilots were hard-to-replace fixtures. It was not uncommon for white people to value slaves over certain groups of whites and planters’ used white laborers for tasks determined too dangerous for bondpeople. The injury or death of slaves constituted a considerable financial losses; the death of white laborers was of little consequence. Like white laborers, Langen was relatively expendable.37 This differed dramatically from planter-slave relationships. Manipula tive planters granted privileges, like better food, clothing, and housing, to make bondpeople more dependent. An important privilege was to be placed in a skilled occupation, allowing slaves to evade the monotony of field labor, find dignity in their work, enhance their self-esteem, and sometimes obtain cash payments. While plantation production would have ceased without craftsmen, like carpenters and blacksmiths, bondpeople could be rotated in-and-out of these positions without considerably disrupting output. Pilots, like enslaved underwater divers, could not be easily replaced and Bull valued the convicted black pilot more that the abused white shipmaster, realizing Jeremiah’s loss would inhibit shipping.38 Slaveholding-merchants owned and protected most enslaved pilots and permitted them to act like free wage laborers because of the benefits they received. Hired-out slaves gave their owners a percentage of their

36 Secretary of State Miscellaneous Records, book OO, part 2, 624, South Carolina Department of Archives. 37 Ryan, World of Thomas Jeremiah, 11, James Oakes, The Ruling Race: A History of American Slaveholders (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), 174, David T. Gleeson, The Irish in the South, 1815–1877 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 33, 37–38, 139. 38 Dawson, “Enslaved Swimmers,” 1347; 1353.

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incomes and guided merchantmen to their owners’ wharves and warehouses, making the arrangement profitable for slaveholders.39 Enslaved pilots also projected planters’ power onto the water, strengthening their social, political, and economic power. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries white North Carolina pilots repeatedly attempted to break slaves’ near-monopoly of the profession by introducing legislation specifically designed to bar them from pilotage and, more broadly, to prevent bondpeople from being hired out. Angered by efforts to restrict the use of their property, planters soundly defeated these bills. In the process, they undermined white pilots’ political influence, consolidated their power ashore and afloat, and, since merchants paid slave pilots less than their white counterparts, suppressed pilotage fees.40 As the property of powerful planters, enslaved pilots received protection denied to their white counterparts. Laws compelled shipmasters to respect slaveholders’ property and if they harmed his possessions they could expect to face civil and criminal charges. Additionally, captains that injured a slave pilot could face his owner’s unsanctioned wrath when they went ashore.41 The American, French, and Haitian revolutions provided pilots with greater opportunities to redefine their lives. Most scholarship on revolutionary slavery examines terrestrial experiences. Pilots did not exist in social vacuums. Revolutionary upheaval created fissures in white domination allowing bondpeople to further destabilize social hierarchies throughout the Atlantic. Whether captured or born into New World bondage, pilots used their positions to further revolutionary visions of liberty and equality. During the American Revolution slaves internalized and sought to appropriate liberty, equality, and freedom, exploiting military necessities and siding with whomever provided them human rights.42 Most pilots,

39 Wade, Slavery in the Cities, 29–54; Higman, Slave Populations, 246. 40 Brewer, “Legislation Designed to Control Slavery in Wilmington and Fayetteville,” 163–164, Cecelski, Waterman’s Song, 49–50, ed. Franklin, Clark, Saunders, Beauregard, Records of North Carolina, XXIV, 15, William L. Saunders, ed., The Colonial Records of North Carolina, 10 Volumes (Goldsboro: P. M. Hale, 1905), IX, 803–804, “Petition of the Pilots at Bermuda to Commissioners of the Navy, London 1 c. 1806 [n.d.],” The Fay and Geoffrey Elliott Collection, Bermuda Archives. 41 Thomas D. Morris, Southern Slavery and the Law, 1619–1869 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 165–181; 196–208. 42 Benjamin Quarles, The Negro in the American Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961), esp. vii, Frey, Water from the Rock, Nash, Forgotten Fifth, Edgerton, Death or Liberty, Landers, Atlantic Creoles, 15–54, Countryman, Enjoy the Same Liberty.

160 kevin dawson and many other slaves, believed their best chance for freedom lay with the British, whose imperial system supported slavery, and not colonists, who embraced universal human rights. Pilots knew their skills were valuable to the British and were among the first to join the British who countered revolution by promising freedom to slaves who ran away from and fought against rebellious slaveholders.43 The British distributed fugitive pilots “in the men of war destined to cruise where they are acquainted.” James Jackson fled Robert Tucker’s Norfolk, Virginia plantation to British ships where he “was employed as a pilot.” Equally, James Robertson escaped from Portsmouth, Virginia. The Revolution provided both with freedom and military bounties, sending them on circuitous voyages in search of liberty and equality. At war’s end, the British evacuated them to Port Roseway (now Shelburne), Nova Scotia. From there they sailed to London and, in 1786, Jackson migrated to the British colony in Sierra Leone.44 Likewise, Patriots recruited slaves “accustomed to the navigation” of rivers by allowing slaveholders to substitute “a Negro and get an exception from military duty.” Impressed slave pilots did not remain pawns and determined to use the conflict to gain liberty. Among them were several African-born slaves seeking to re-secure freedom in a country they now called home. Cuffee, a corruption of Akan day-name Kofi, indicating that he was born on Friday in modern-day Ghana, piloted the Liberty through Virginia’s Tidewater until being killed in 1781.45 Mark Starlins, also a saltwater bondman, capitalized on his understanding of Virginia’s tidewaters. He was deemed “a very singular and meritorious character in the person of an African, who had been brought over to this country when he was

43 Ryan, World of Thomas Jeremiah, 20; David Geggus, “The Caribbean in the Age of Revolution,” in Age of Revolutions, ed. Armitage and Subrahmanyam, 84. For how the British Empire supported and benefited from slavery see Blackburn, American Crucible, esp. 99–120. 44 Gazette, of the State of South-Carolina, July 14, 1777, Graham Russell Hodges, ed., The Black Loyalist Directory: African Americans in Exile After the American Revolution (New York: 1996), xi–xxix, 20, 231, 233, 240, Edgerton, Death or Liberty, 65–92; 194–221. 45 Wm. P. Palmer, ed. Calendar of Virginia State Papers and other Manuscripts, 11 Volumes (Richmond: R.F. Walker, Superintendent of Public Printing, 1881), II, 362, The Proceedings of the Convention of Delegates held at the Capital, in the City of Williamsburg in the Colony of Virginia, on Monday, the 6th of May, 1776 (Richmond: Alexander Purdie, 1816), 49; 77, Luther Porter Jackson, Virginia Negro Soldiers and Seamen in the Revolutionary War, (Norfolk: Guide Quality Press, 1944), 33–34, Virginia Gazette (Purdie), May 3, 1776, Pennsylvania Gazette, May 15, 1776. Also see: The Virginia Gazette (Purdie), May 9 and 16, 1777, Virginia Gazette [Dixon & Hunter], January 31, 1777, Virginia Gazette (Pinkney), December 23, 1775.

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young, and soon evinced a remarkable attachment to it; he was brought up a pilot, and proved a skillful one, and a devoted patriot.” Whites respectfully called him “Captain Starlins,” a title his skills warranted.46 Enslaved Bermudian pilots similarly used the Revolutionary Period to advance their positions. Bermudian James “Jemmy” Darrell, helped push Bermuda from the backwaters of the British Empire to a colony of strategic military importance. The loss of the American colonies during the American Revolution created a void in the British North Atlantic, depriving Britain of a naval supply port between Nova Scotia and the Caribbean. Simultaneously, French, but not British, warships and privateers were permitted to re-supply in American ports, making it difficult for Britain to protect mid-Atlantic shipping during the French Revolution. Bermuda was ideally located to house the much-needed naval base, for it lay some 650 miles off North Carolina’s coast compelling most vessels sailing between the Caribbean and Europe to pass within fifty miles of it.47 Darrell helped shift Bermuda from the backwaters of the British Empire to a colony of strategic importance.On May 15, 1795, Vice-Admiral George Murray, commander-in-chief of the Royal Navy’s North American Squadron, approached Bermuda with a five-ship flotilla to establish a naval base. On May 17th Darrell piloted Murray’s flagship, HMS Resolution, through a coral-toothed channel called “The Narrows” and into what came to be called “Murray’s Anchorage.” This was the first warship brought into Bermuda, an accomplishment that facilitated the establishment of the Bermuda Naval Base (1795–1796). This permitted Bermuda to serve as the needed base between Canada and the Caribbean speeding the non- plantation colony’s development.48 For Darrell this brought an end to bondage. Following Murray’s request, Governor James Crauford purchased Darrell for £150 and freed him on March 1, 1796.49 Darrell became Bermuda’s first King’s pilot, a respectable, royally-appointed position with a substantial salary, enabling him to

46 J.B. “The Schooner Patriot,” in The Virginia Historical Register, and Literary Advertiser, Vol. I, No. 1 (Jan., 1848), 129–131, Charles Campbell, History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia (Philadelphia: 1860), 738–740, Quarles, Negro in the American Revolution, 120. 47 Wilkinson, Bermuda from Sail to Steam, 1784 to 1901, 2 Volumes (London: Oxford University Press, 1973), I, 99, Malcolm Lester, “Vice-Admiral George Murray and the origins of the Bermuda naval base, 1794–96,” Mariner’s Mirror, 94: 3 (2008), 285–297. 48 Bermuda Gazette, And Weekly Advertiser, May 16; 23, 1795, Wilkinson, Bermuda, I, 99–101, Lester, “Vice-Admiral George Murray,” 290–291. 49 October 8, 1795, Minutes of Council and Assembly of Bermuda, 1788–1796, 143; 146–147, Bermuda Archives; Book of Miscellanies, III, 214–215, 307–308, 319–320; Bermuda Archives.

162 kevin dawson purchase an eighteen-foot pilot boat and “a little land” where he built a “small house.” This set a precedent that other enslaved Bermudian pilots used to gain their freedom.50 Black Bermudian pilots gained white support by facilitating the colony’s growing importance. On April 26, 1798 James Darrell informed Sir George Beckwith, Bermuda’s Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Navy’s North American Squadron, that three soldiers stole his “Pilot Boat.” Beckwith expedited the return of the vessel crucial to Darrell’s office. Nor did his support of black pilots end there. In 1806, Darrell and Jacob Pitcarn, another recently manumitted pilot, successfully petitioned Beckwith for pay increases and the right to will property to their descendants, overturning statutes passed in the 1670s.51 On June 29, 1800, Beckwith and other whites helped Thomas Cooper, an enslaved pilot probably related to Darrell, obtain his freedom on the grounds that his deceased grandmother “was a white woman.” Cooper’s “Yellowish Complexion” testified to his biracial background and since his grandmother was white and a child’s condition followed that of their mother he should be free—a fact ignored into adulthood. It was Cooper’s importance to shipping and relationships with powerful whites that secured his freedom.52 Manumitted slaves were not generally granted rights; some pilots were. Bermudians rewarded pilots’ ability to swell their prosperity by awarding them freedom and rights. Freeing pilots cost money, but the revenues pilots generated dwarfed these expenditures. Additionally, officials knew freed pilots were bound to the colony, remaining where they could employ their wisdom, their families resided, they owned property, and enjoyed white support. Concurrently, pilots risked illegal-enslavement if they left

50 “Pilot Darrell’s Will,” RG/1001/0015, Book of Wills, XV, 59, 17 March 1815, Bermuda Archives; “Petition of the Pilots at Bermuda to Commissioners of the Navy, London c. 1806 [n.d.],” The Fay and Geoffrey Elliott Collection, Bermuda Archives; “Pilot’s Memorial at Bermuda to Hon. Geo. Berkeley, Vice Admiral of the White,” 11 December, 1806, Fay & Geoffrey Elliot Collection, Bermuda Archives; “Report Darrell Boat Theft,” 26 April, 1789, Book of Miscellanies, 167, Bermuda Archives; Wilkinson, Bermuda, I, 101; 384, “A King’s Pilot,” in Sailor’s Magazine and Nautical Intelligencer (London: T. Ward, 1840), II, 207, Richard Cotter, Sketches of Bermuda: Or Somers’ Island (London: E. Wilson, 1828), 15–18. 51 “Report Darrell Boat Theft,” 26 April, 1789, Book of Miscellanies, 167, Bermuda Archives; “Pilot’s Memorial at Bermuda to Hon. Geo. Berkeley, Vice Admiral of the White,” 11 December, 1806, Fay & Geoffrey Elliot Collection, Bermuda Archives; “Petition of the Pilots at Bermuda to Commissioners of the Navy, London 1 c.1806 [n.d.].” 52 “Certificate of Freedom: Thomas Cooper,” 29 January, 1800, Book of Miscellanies, 214–215, Bermuda Archives.

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Bermuda. These factors ensured pilots’ fidelity, making them indispensable fixtures.53 The Revolutionary Age equipped pilots with discarded military uniforms, which they dawned to communicate their authority and embrace of liberty. Believing their positions comparable to that of shipmasters, it made sense to dress the part to the best of their abilities. Since pilots lacked access to full Western regalia they, like the Martican, pieced together discarded uniforms, creating their own symbols of authority and freedom.54 Slaves did not embrace Western fashion. Instead, they channeled personal and group aesthetics into culturally imagined ensembles constructing appearances that blended African and European fashions to create their own styles. Furthermore, wearing the attire of non-laboring whites permitted them to take pride in their appearance while intimating that their lives were not defined by labor. Unlike other bondpeople, pilots did not labor and their idiosyncratic uniforms, like gentlemen’s formalwear, articulated this reality while commanding respect.55 Pilots’ culturally imagined attire also reflected their appropriation of revolutionary ideologies. Matt Childs documented how the enslaved leaders of Cuba’s 1812 Aponte Rebellion “creatively invoked the military uniforms of the Haitian Revolution,” permitting them to link their cause to a successful slave rebellion. Leaders, including Aponte, wore blue Haitian- style uniforms with gold buttons to rally and inspire the masses by associating their cause with that of Saint Dominque. Pilots’ uniforms conveyed their ascendancy and demands for liberty.56 Slave pilots also used extravagant clothing to lampoon white authority. New York bondman King Charles caricatured elite whites by wearing a British brigadier’s broadcloth, scarlet jacket plastered with gold lace that stretched almost to his heels, yellow buckskins, blue stockings, and polished black shoes adorned with silver buckles while officiating slave

53 Michael J. Jarvis, In the Eye of All Trade: Bermuda, Bermudians, and the Maritime Atlantic World, 1680–1783 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010), 30–31; 149–150, Jarvis, “Maritime Masters,” 608, Jarvis, “Anxious Mariner,” 86, Bernhard, Slaves and Slaveholders, 50–52; 123. 54 Virginia Gazette (Purdie and Dixon), November 3, 1768. 55 Shane White and Graham White, “Slave Clothing and African-American Culture in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” Past & Present, No. 148 (Aug., 1995), esp. 164– 165; 174; William D. Pierson, Black Yankees: The Development of an Afro-American Subculture in Eighteenth-Century New England (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988), 11, 120–121, 154–155. 56 Childs, Aponte Rebellion, 166–169; esp. 167.

164 kevin dawson festivities in Albany during the 1790s and early 1800s. These sorts of fantas- tic ensembles enabled bondpeople to opening mock white authority, while unknowing whites laughed at representations of themselves.57 The ship’s quarterdeck provided pilots with a stage for their minstrel acts. Their white face was an oversized hat and bright, variegated clothing. They acted white when they cursed and commanded. While overset ting the racial/social hierarchy, they used the common comedic routine of inversion to mock unsuspecting elite white men. French philosopher Henri Bergson explained how “inversion of rôles” was a primary method for provoking laughter, penning “we laugh at the prisoner at the bar lecturing the magistrate; at the child presuming to teach its parents’ in a word, at everything that comes under the heading of ‘topsyturvydom.’” Whites were unaware that they were the butt of slave jokes and many became infuriated by what they perceived as tasteless savagery that incor- rectly copied white fashion. But pilot’s minstrel acts were performed for slaves’ benefit, not for white amusement. Bondpeople witnessing these routines were surely forced to contain their laughter for they could not laugh at slaves lampooning shipmasters even as white indignation enhanced the melodrama. Hence, enslaved pilots’ renditions remained beyond white comprehension. Accounts suggest that as the eighteen and early nineteenth centuries progressed pilots wore increasingly outlandish ensembles, perhaps in attempts to out do each others’ caricatures.58 The public nature of pilotage enabled bondmen to broadcast their abilities, heightening their community standing. They displayed their abilities to those ashore and afloat. When a black pilot dislodged Thomas and John Blount’s sloop, observers knew white pilots had failed before him. Waterfront spectators could not hear slave pilots curse white mariners, but they saw these brightly clad bondmen, knowing that they dictated ship movements. Like spectators at a major sporting event, throngs of white and black Bermudians crowded the waterfront to watch James Darrell pilot HMS Resolution into port. Initially believing Murray’s fleet was an invading French force, men rushed to waterfront to defend the colony. When the Resolution was recognized, women and children flocked to the scene. “Hundreds of boats filled with holiday folk from the country gathered” and

57 White and White, “Slave Clothing,” 162–164. 58 Henri Bergson, Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic (New York: 1911), 94. Scholarship on the cakewalk similarly indicates that slaves lampooned whites. Brooke Baldwin, “The Cakewalk: A Study in Stereotype and Reality,” in Journal of Social History, XV, No. 2 (Winter, 1981), 205–218.

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the Resolution “was saluted from the artillery of the fort.”59 Darrell instantly became a Bermudian icon. Whites used his accomplishments to advance the colony’s development and inspire black Bermudians to become pilots. Darrell’s dexterities enabled him to pass from enslaved obscurity to celebrated freedom and slaves learned of his success, manumission, and purchase of a boat and house. Pilots’ shipboard activities were no secret in slave communities. Black people were often aboard vessels and witnessed pilots subverting captains’ authority. They undoubtedly recounted, with much embellishment, how pilots cursed and commanded sailors and officers, which probably made pilots idolized figures of the community.60 Pilots formed symbiotic relationships with terrestrial and maritime authorities that provided overlapping sources of protection. Ship officers were primarily concerned with the safety of their vessel and with crew discipline, causing them to ignore the bonds of whiteness they shared with sailors. Slaves were not supposed to mock whites, but could publicly deride elements of white society scorned by elites. It was not uncommon for slaves, at their owners’ encouragement, to lampoon poor white south- erners and the Irish in jokes. Perhaps shipmasters similarly encouraged pilots to berate crewmembers. When officers refused to stop bondmen from ridiculing sailors, they provided themselves with amusement while effortlessly reinforcing seamen’s subjugation.61 The sea provided pilots with more than rhetoric and abandoned uniforms for defying white authority; it afforded passages to freedom. They possessed the autonomy, skills, and pilot boats necessary to escape. Most were worldly and well traveled. All were linked to distant black communities and tuned into the whisperings of the Atlantic world that spoke of revolution, freedom, and opportunity. Some pilots seized freedom, stealing loved ones, themselves, and boats.62 In 1817, seven Jamaican slaves commandeered their pilot boat,

59 Bermuda Gazette, May 23, 1795; “Forbes Letters,” Bermuda Historical Quarterly, XI (Winter, 1954), 184. 60 When the Experiment was navigated through Hell Gate there were at least two black mariners aboard, Quashey (Kwesi) Ferguson and John Edwards Blackamore. An enslaved fruit vendor accompanied the Barbadian pilot that boarded Frederick Bayley’s vessel. Abstract of Wills on File in the Surrogates Office, City of New York, January 7–1777- February 7, 1783, in New-York Historical Society Publication Fund, Vol. XXXIII (New York: 1900), Vol. IX, 143–144; Bayley, Four Years’ Residence, 26. 61 Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll, 22–23; 582. 62 Virginia Gazette, (Purdue and Dixon), November 3, 1768; Edenton Gazette, and North Carolina Advertiser, April 27, 1808.

166 kevin dawson the Deep Nine, to secure Haitian freedom and challenge the legitimacy of British slavery. After gaining independence, the Haitian government enticed black migrants, hoping to replenish its war-ravaged population. Between 1790 and 1830 thousands of free and enslaved black sailors from America and the Caribbean fled there in search of natural rights denied elsewhere. Stories of how the Haitian government shielded these desert- ers circulated the greater Caribbean, inspiring the Deep Nine pilots.63 On January 13, 1817 James M’Kewan, owner and captain of the Deep Nine from Port Royal, cruised Jamaica’s south end with fifteen or sixteen slave pilots, putting several aboard incoming ships supplying ships. When M’Kewan went ashore at “Rocky-Point” to “procure wood and water” the remaining pilots, named Dublin, Kingston, Quashie, Jem, Archy, and Robert, “ran away with the Deep-Nine.” Suspecting the “skilful pilots” who “were of great value” departed to Haiti, M’Kewan followed and, by January 28th, found the Deep Nine at Jérémie. He then petitioned President Alexander Pétion for the return of his vessel and slaves.64 Pétion promptly restored “the vessel, and everything appertaining to her.” Refusing to return the men, Pétion referenced Chief Justice Lord Mansfield’s oft-misquoted ruling in the Somersett’s Case (1772) that “the air of England has long been too pure for a slave, and every man is free who breathes it,” proclaiming: “Each country has its laws, as you must know, sir, and, fortunately for the cause of humanity, Hayti is not the only one where slavery is abolished.” Despite M’kewan’s appeals and intervention by the British Admiralty the pilots remained free citizens of Haiti who harbored them from the British imperial system that once protected them.65 This incident exemplifies the circulation of intelligence along maritime channels and pilots’ internalization of revolutionary ideals. Jamaican officials feared that large numbers of Haitian sailors were importing revolutionary ideals and exporting “arms and ammunition” to “Haytian chiefs.” M’Kewan believed this is why his slave fled, claiming they had been loyal but were corrupted by a “brown man” from the French colony of Guadalupe who boarded the Deep Nine at Rocky Point and “seduced the said slaves to runaway.” Their departure was not this spontaneous and reflects an

63 Bolster, Black Jacks, 144–153. 64 Journals of the Assembly of Jamaica, XIII, 148, 164–165, 185–186. 65 Journals of the Assembly of Jamaica, XIII, 165–166; 185–189. The press apparently put these words in Mansfield’s mouth. Steven M. Wise, Though the Heavens May Fall: The Landmark Trial That Led to the End of Human Slavery (Cambridge: Da Capo Press, 2006), 190–191.

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understanding of greater Caribbean dynamics. Knowing the Haitian government protected fugitives from re-enslavement they made no attempt to conceal themselves or their boat, enabling M’Kewan to find them days after their escape. Like numerous black mariners before them, they pitted the Haitian state against shipmasters and government officials eager to re-enslave them. Their story became woven into the tapestry of black resistance to white domination.66 Jeremiah’s knowledge of Charleston Harbor permitted him to retain his position after grounding one ship, sinking another, and assaulting a white man. His rise from enslaved obscurity to a place of commercial and naval importance caused him to conclude that he was irreplaceable and above reproof; a conclusion Bull agreed with. This conviction, however, contributed to Jeremiah’s execution early in the American Revolution. Jeremiah was valuable; yet he undercut his worth to Patriots by brashly stating that he “often piloted in [British] men-of-war” and had “no objection to have been employed again in the same service.” Jeremiah was important to British shipping, but war redefined his relationship with white authority. Carolinians knew Jeremiah could linked the British Navy to their sometimes-volatile slave majority, which could be armed against them. Jeremiah purportedly accentuated this point proclaiming he “often piloted in [British] men-of-war” and had “no objection to have been employed again in the same service.” To eliminate this threat, colonists accused Jeremiah of planning a slave rebellion. As a slaveholder, it is improbable that Jeremiah sought to destroy an institution that afforded him much benefit. More likely, he sought to strengthen bonds with Britain and enhance his status, which destroyed his worth to Patriots, precipitat- ing his undoing. Jeremiah was, in some ways, a victim of his success. His strategic value permitted him to shed his manacles and retain his position after grounding one ship, sinking another, and assaulting a white shipmaster, causing him to conclude that British officials would always protect him. As the Revolution unfolded Jeremiah miscalculated how transformative forces redefined his position. He could strike a white man; but could not guide enemy ships into port. Pilots were to safeguard seaports against enemy vessels and Patriots regarded his promise to navigate British battleships as a treasonous violation of the tenets governing pilotage and a threat to their freedom. Since Patriots could not charge Jeremiah with treason for piloting enemy British ships into a British port, they

66 Journals of the Assembly of Jamaica, XIII, 77, 164–165, 185.

168 kevin dawson convicted him on exaggerated claims of planning a slave rebellion and even the new governor, Sir William Campbell, could not save him. On August 18, 1775, Jeremiah was hanged and his body burned in defense of white liberty.67 His execution is part of a larger pattern in which Charlestonians fabricated claims of slave conspiracies to intimidate black residents.68 As Jeremiah lay in jail and shortly after his death, the British prepared to invade Charleston by impressing Sampson, Mercury, and Harry, who were highly skilled slave pilots, along with Shadwell, a schooner captain “well acquainted with all the rivers and inlets to the southward of Charleston,” enabling him to pilot vessels. Sampson and Mercury belonged to Jacob Waldron. Both had been pilots for more than fifteen years and governor Campbell apparently deemed Sampson “the best pilot in this harbour,” arranging for him, and Mercury, to slip aboard British sloop-of- war Scorpion in July 1775. On September 4, 1775 the British seized Harry, “a most Valuable Negroe man pilot.”69 Shadwell was apparently an African- born bondmen who “speaks remarkably good English.” On November 21, 1775 he escaped to the British.70 Scholars have portrayed the slave-holding Jeremiah as a would-be liberator.71 These lesser-known mariners were the real revolutionaries. British and American forces knew slave pilots could shape the war’s outcome and sought to safeguard their pilots while capturing or killing opposing ones. Gunners targeted enemy quarterdecks, where captains

67 Davies, ed., Documents of the American Revolution, XI, 95, Harris, Hanging of Thomas Jeremiah, esp. 1, Peter H. Wood, “‘Taking Care of Business’ in Revolutionary South Carolina: Republicanism and the Slave Society,” in Jeffrey J. Crow and Larry E. Tise, eds., The Southern Experience in the American Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1978), 283–286. 68 Michael P. Johnson, “Denmark Vesey and His Co-Conspirators,” in William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Series, LVIII, No. 4 (Oct., 2001), 915–976; Kevin Dawson, “Primus Plot,” in Walter Edgar, ed., The South Carolina Encyclopedia (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2006), 755–756. 69 Gazette of the State of South-Carolina, June 14, 1777, quoted in Ryan, World of Thomas Jeremiah, 83–84, 89–91, 93, esp. 56, Claims of William Stone, Accounts Audited of Claims Growing out of the Revolution, South Carolina Department of Archives and History, 430– 458. Isaac Waldron owned Sampson and Mercury who were inherited by his brother Jacob in 1762. South-Carolina Gazette, December 4, 1762, January 1, 1763, July 28, 1767; South Carolina Gazette and Country Journal, May 31, 1768, November 3, 1772. Records do not state the name of the pilot taken by the Scorpion, but it was probably Sampson. William Bell Clark, ed., Naval Documents of the American Revolution, 11 Volumes (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1968), III, 539. 70 South Carolina and American General Gazette, December 8; 15, 1775. 71 For previous interpretations of Jeremiah see: Harris, Hanging of Thomas Jeremiah, 162–163; Ryan, World of Thomas Jeremiah, esp. 7, 18–20.

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and pilots stood, while Americans threatened to execute free and enslaved black pilots who abetted the British. These pilots were not blindly assimi- lated into Britian’s counter-revolutionary cause. They leveraged their wisdom to control their destinies, appropriating revolutionary ideals and British freedom while seeking to destroy American slavery. Indeed, on June 28, 1776, Sampson returned to Charleston aboard Commodore Sir Peter Parker’s flagship, Bristol. Now he led an invading fleet that included several other black pilots.72 Sampson demonstrates slave pilots’ value and lengths whites went to safeguard them. British estimations were displayed during the invasion of Charleston, known as the Battle of Fort Sullivan (renamed Fort Moultrie). The Bristol was nearly sunk and Parker seriously wounded. Sampson, “who is exceedingly caressed,” was ordered below “out of harm’s way.” This sparred him from injury or death, permitting him to lead subsequent raids along the Carolina-Georgia coast and, on December 29, 1778, he piloted Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell’s invasion of Savannah.73 Americans also recognized Sampson’s value. South Carolina’s Privy Council encouraged slaveholders to hire pilots out for military service by maintaining insurance policies that reimbursed them for captured or killed pilots. Waldron was reimbursed £800 (South Carolina currency) for the loss of Sampson (Harry’s owner was compensated £100 sterling). Simultaneously, Patriots sought to destroy pilots aiding the British.74 As Sampson devastated American defenses, John Rutledge, the rebel gover- nor of South Carolina, lamented that he was “one of the best Pilots for our Coast & Harbours who has been several years with the Enemy & been very useful to them & hurtful to us.” Others endeavored to execute him so he would serve as an “Example of Terror” to the black community. When French warship Sagittaire captured the Experiment off the Georgia coast with Sampson aboard on September 24, 1779, Rutledge unsuccessfully

72 Terry W. Lipscomb, South Carolina Revolutionary War Battles 1: The Carolina Low country April 1775–June 1776 and the Battle of Fort Moultrie (Columbia: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, 1994), 27–28. 73 Virginia Gazette, Supplement (Purdie), June 12, 1776; Jim Piecuch, Three Peoples, One King: Loyalists, Indians, and Slaves in the Revolutionary South, 1775–1782 (Columbia: 2008), 169. 74 A.S. Salley, Jr., Journal of the Commissioners of the Navy of South Carolina, October 1776-March 1, 1799, 2 Volumes (Columbia: Printed for the Historical Commission of South Carolina by the State Company, 1912), I, 96–97; May 22, 1777, South Carolina Treasury Cash Book, 1775–1777, South Carolina Department of Archives and History; Claims of William Stone, 430–458.

170 kevin dawson petitioned for him to be “sent hither, in safe Custody, that he may receive the Punishment due to his Crimes.”75 The Battle of Fort Sullivan also underscores pilots’ ability to subvert white authority while influencing broad events. Parker commanded the fleet; yet, in many ways, Sampson and the other recently freed pilots dictated the course of the battle. Sampson was supposed to navigate the Bristol within range of Fort Sullivan, about 150 yards offshore. New to piloting such large heavy vessels, unaccustomed to naval warfare, and apparently unfamiliar with the waters just off Sullivan’s Island, Sampson (and other black pilots) ordered the ship to anchor 400–500 yards offshore and, despite threats from the crew, refused to proceed. This indecisiveness helped shift the momentum in Patriots’ favor, permitting them to prevail. As illustrated by the Hell Gate and Charleston pilots, in green water pilots determined when and where ships sailed, deciding naval success or failure. Slaves functioning in other capacities had to comply with white commands, thus could not shape the course of large events.76 Importantly, Sampson’s refusal to comply with white desires did not result in punishment or subjugation. He remained an esteemed pilot who helped secure British victories. The ocean is not one undivided span of water. This essay differenti- ates between maritime zones to demonstrate how hydrography affected human experiences. Scholarship on maritime bondage is typically linked to terrestrial slavery within its respective society. However, marine environmental factors provided the structural contours of maritime slavery much more than shoreside realities. Studying slavery within specific maritime environments exposes striking similarities irrespective of terrestrial forms of bondage. Slavery differed radically throughout the Anglophone- Americas. Antigua, Jamaica, Barbados, and Martinique possessed brutal plantation systems that dwarfed those of the American south in forms of size and violence. Bermuda was a maritime society, rather than a plantation colony. Studies of urban slavery in the American south, Brazil, and

75 Peter Timothy to Benjamin Lincoln, September 25, 177, Benjamin Lincoln Papers, John Rutledge to Benjamin Lincoln, September 26, 1779, Benjamin Lincoln Papers, Piecuch, Three People’s One King, 168–169, Franklin Benjamin Hough, The Siege of Savannah, by the Combined American and French Forces (Albany: J. Munsell, 1886), 103–104. Sampson was probably not the pilot that guided the Experiment through Hell Gate. Patriots sought to make an example of Scipio Handley, a free black Charlestonian fishermen, who they captured and sentenced to death for aiding the British. Handley escaped from jail and participated in the invasion of Savannah. Ryan, World of Thomas Jeremiah, 115; 117–118, 233n16. 76 Ryan, World of Thomas Jeremiah, 150, Lipscomb, South Carolina, 27; 50n51, Piecuch, Three Peoples, 169.

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British and Danish Caribbean generally concur that the “urban milieu,” provided bondpeople with autonomy, mobility, and freedom distinct from their rural surrounding.77 Green water off of port cities provided an extension of that milieu, though with important variations. Scholars remain cognizant of how cultural ecology, or the relationship between a given society and its natural environment, shaped the human experience ashore, while demonstrating reluctance to consider these processes afloat. As we increasingly consider human interactions with the sea, we must consider how discrete marine ecosystems informed the historical process. Black peoples’ lives on green and blue water were profoundly different. Maritime regions, black people’s condition of slavery or freedom, the types of work performed, and their connections to terrestrial institutions shaped their experiences. For example, W. Jeffrey Bolster documented how blue water provided free black sailors with social and economic opportunities denied ashore. Yet, tradition barred most free black hands on blue seas from becoming officers. Green water, tradition, and law fostered an environment where enslaved pilots became de facto commanders, obtaining more shipboard authority than most sailors of any status or race ever received.78 Studies considering terrestrial relationships between slaveholders and slaves underscore our need to examine how maritime regions defined human interactions. Pilots existed outside the spectrum of negotiated authority historians use to describe terrestrial master-slave relations. Extensive scholarly attention examines how slavery, though imposed and perpetuated by violence from above, remained a negotiated relationship with slaveholders and slaves ceaselessly trying to extract concessions from each other. Slaveholders possessed most of the power in these lopsided relationships, using, as Robert Olwell detailed, “public spectacles and cultural metaphors to disguise, symbolize, and enact their rule.” Slaves did not abjectly submit to slaveowners’ awesome power. They countered, leveraging work-related expertise, arduous and skillful labor, control over production, cooperation, and resistance to individually and collectively pry allowances from their owners. Richard Follett delineated how these

77 Neville A.T. Hall, Slave Society in the Danish West Indies: St. Thomas, St. John, & St. Croix (Mona: 1992), Welch, Slave Society in the City, xv-10, Higman, Slave Populations, 226–302, Wade, Slavery in the Cities, Shelton, “Slavery in a Texas Seaport,” Mary C. Karasch, Slave Life in Rio de Janeiro, 1808–1850 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1972). 78 Some free and enslaved black mariners become boatswain but most remained sailors and were only ably to rise from ordinary seamen to able seamen. Bolster, Black Jacks, 95–96.

172 kevin dawson compromises “ultimately aided productivity as the enslaved furthered their own interests by accommodating the machine of planters’ agenda.”79 Pilots and shipmasters forewent the daily routines and gestures that demarcated land-based master-slave relationships. Maritime tradition and law predetermined the conditions of pilot-captain relationships, irrespective of the pilot’s race and status, preventing shipmasters from significantly recasting these relationships. Terrestrial authority strengthened the position of enslaved pilots. When shipmasters sought to redefine this relationship, pilots utilized familiar tools of the weak. They could, like our Jamaican pilots, withhold their services through feigned ignorance to demonstrate that they would not negotiate with captains. Similarly, pilots could claim that conditions were too perilous—the tide was too low, currents or winds too strong, visibility too poor—to safely bring a ship into port. If a captain attempted to bring his vessel into port against the pilot’s advice he risked inciting mutiny among sailors that did not want to place their lives in jeop- ardy. As late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century port authorities transformed pilots into government employees that assumed shipboard command they officially inverted the social/racial hierarchy.80 Enslaved pilots capsized ideas of race and slavery while at sea; whites righted them ashore. Pilots’ shipboard authority was ephemeral, dissipat- ing as they climbed back over the ship’s rail, descended the ship’s ladder, and set foot in an awaiting pilot boat. When they reached shore they were urban slaves divested of their anomalous authority. Ashore they no longer controlled white people’s immediate destiny, and probably faced swift and severe retribution for cursing, mocking, or striking white men. Enslaved pilots challenged the supremacy of the dominant culture, exchanging their skills for lives of privileged exploitation. But, their autonomy was measured in hours and days. They, like all slaves, were owned and exploited. Slavery was a labor institution and the privileges granted to slaves were designed to extract knowledge and wealth from their minds and bodies. They generated wealth for their owners, shipping companies, and manufacturers while helping to sustain Atlantic economies that generated state, colonial, national, and imperial wealth. Some used pilotage to secure their freedom; most died as they had lived—enslaved.

79 Olwell, Masters, Slaves, and Subject, esp. 7, Follett, Planter-Slave Relationships, esp. 5, Berlin, Many Thousands, esp. 2–6, 66, 142–176, Dusinberre, Them Dark Days, esp. 179–210; 302–349, Philip D. Morgan, Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in the Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake and Lowcountry (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), Dawson, “Enslaved Swimmers,” esp. 1347–1348; 1352–1354, Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll. 80 Rediker documented how sailors mutinied when a shipmaster endangered his vessel. Rediker, Deep Blue Sea, 98–99.

CHAPTER SEVEN

FROM IRELAND TO AFRICA: THE CRIMINAL CAREER AND PUNISHMENT OF PATRICK MADAN

Emma Christopher

‘Atlantic lives’ might usually be thought of as trans-Atlantic or circum- Atlantic, lived by people who crossed the Atlantic Ocean at least once. This chapter, however, is about a man who never actually made that voyage, yet whose life was profoundly influenced and altered by events around the Atlantic Ocean. Patrick Madan’s life was illustrative of many of the factors Atlantic historians discuss: attitudes towards the Irish in Britain and towards black Africans among Europeans; the anti-British sentiment in America in the era leading to the Revolution; class divisions within Britain and anti-authoritarianism among the lower classes, and not least forced labour movement around the Atlantic. Pat Madan was a lowlife character who lived at the nexus of so many critical Atlantic events, and lived with such aplomb that even some of the ‘better sort’ could not hide their grudging astonishment. Patrick Madan was everywhere, a character who loomed large in Londoners’ collective imagination in the 1770s. For the underclass he was a hero, an escape artist who made a mockery of the rule of law and the spectre of the hanging tree and lived with a flourish. To the city’s property owners he was the worst of the ne’er-do-wells who threw their morality back in their faces. What none could foresee, however, was that Madan would go on to suffer the strangest punishment in an era of very bizarre— to the modern mind at least—punishments. Patrick Madan’s destiny was to be transported to West Africa, where the transatlantic slave trade was in full flight. Acclaimed as having perpetrated the most “wonderful Escapes, that ever happened to one Man”, Africa proved to be the one fate from which he could not escape.1

1 The Life of Patrick Madan; Exhibiting a Series of the Most Extraordinary Transaction, Notorious Villanies and Wonderful Escapes (London, 1781), title page.

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*** Patrick Madan and his twin sister were born in Ireland to Thomas Madan, the head gardener at a nobleman’s estate, and his Scottish wife. The family was law-abiding but hit some difficult times: Thomas Madan was sacked for his marriage, which was thought inappropriate by her friends, and Mrs. Madan died shortly after the birth of Patrick and his twin sister Mary. Thrown into hardship, Thomas Madan turned to farming and neglected his children’s education, though they were taught the rudiments of reading and writing.2 The family set out for England while Patrick and Mary were young, but Patrick would never quite escape the taint of being an Irishman in England. His accent would later be reproduced to suggest that he still spoke with an Irish brogue years later and when he had become notorious it was noted that although Ireland had also produced “heroes, or first rate character of every denomination, she is equally remarkable for a loose, disorderly, savage sett [sic] of beings, which she annually exports to her sister kingdom.”3 It was to be a recurring theme of Patrick’s life, the exporting of people from one Atlantic country to another. It was on the journey from Ireland to London the juvenile Patrick was said to have perpetrated a prank so revealing that it is surely an apocryphal tale. He apparently climbed up a gallows that were still standing after a hanging. Sitting above the skeleton swinging there, Patrick gave his father a terrible fright.4 It is the last time Thomas Madan is heard of, but Patrick’s relationship with the gallows was not at an end. In London Patrick was apprenticed to his uncle, a bricklayer. But by his early teens he had gone off the path of straight and narrow, stealing from his uncle’s business and then joining with other builders to steal slates from the capital’s roofs. It was a crime known as ‘flying blue pigeons’ in the criminal parlance of the day. Soon he became involved with the Spitalfields weavers’ riot, allegedly being among the mob that had threatened the Duke of Bedford. Unable to get work as a builder, he instead joined a band of outlaws and learned the art of picking pockets.5 Evidently he was not yet too skilled in this art as his victim noticed the novice thief and he was arrested for his crime. His uncle arranged for him

2 Authentic Memoirs 1–2; Life of Patrick Madan, 12. 3 Morning Chronicle and Daily Advertiser 22 August 1777; Life of Patrick Madan, 11–12. 4 A Gentleman of the Inner Temple, Authentic Memoirs of the Life, Numerous Adventures and Remarkable Escapes of Patrick Madan (London, 1782), 3. 5 Authentic Memoirs 5–6; Life of Patrick Madan, 12.

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to be sent away to sea instead of to jail in hopes that it would reform him. He sailed to Jamaica and Greenland, but neither place nor life unclear before the mast cured him of his wayward behaviour. When he sailed back to London he went straight back into the arms of his fellow gang members. Soon he was their leader, other petty criminals attracted by his charisma and daring. All, it was said, had “arrived at the summit of sin.”6 Madan found a partner in another picaresque character from London’s underworld: the fallen woman. His common-law wife Elizabeth Church was “the daughter of a noted bawd.” Madan, already thought to be the low- est of the low was apparently powerless in the face of her feminine wiles, a “wretched dupe” to this lady’s “artifice.”7 Soon he was a master criminal: Patrick Madan was a pickpocket, a burglar, a mugger, a highwayman, a bank robber and a fence for stolen goods. He had a litany of boys whom he was educating to his arts. One of his favourite scams was to appear as a country squire, out on the town with his ‘son’. While Madan pretended to shop the boy would be busy purloining anything available.8 By the early 1770s, Madan was one of London’s most notorious criminals. Some believed that he had even resorted to murder. Certainly he was guilty of using violence and threatening language.9 Tried for a robbery during which he was said to have threatened to “cut [the victim] to atoms”, he was sentenced to be transported to the American colonies for fourteen years. He never made the journey (it was said his sister managed to exert influence in his favour) and he instead remained in London, famous for his ingenious outdoor toilet. It had a double door so that anybody arriving to buy or sell stolen goods could slip through the toilet into the back alley if the police arrived.10 At one point, sick with typhus in Newgate, Madan promised to give up his life of crime. It was not to be. In the colourful words of his contemporary biographer, he, “like the dog, returned to his vomit.”11 Then, in April 1774, just as he turned twenty-two, it all started to go wrong for Patrick Madan. His life of crime finally caught up with him, ironically enough for a crime of which he was reputed to be “totally innocent.”12

6 Authentic Memoirs, 6–7. 7 Ibid., 7; St. James Chronicle or British Evening Post, 29 April 1775. 8 Life of Patrick Madan, 14–15. 9 Authentic Memoirs, 10. 10 Ibid., 11–12, 16. 11 Ibid., 15. 12 Life of Patrick Madan, 22.

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On April 9th two highwaymen held up two men named William Beckenham and John Dobbs near the Shepherd and Shepherdess pub in Islington, North London. The robbers were armed with a pistol and cutlass and although Dobbs escaped after handing over his money, Beckenham was threatened with death, the pistol put into his mouth with the threat to blow his head off. It wasn’t until five weeks later that Patrick Madan and his associate Michael Brannen were arrested. Brannen was armed when apprehended, the pistols proving powerful evidence against him. Madan’s situation was worse still. When the police arrived to arrest him, he got out of bed and put on the coat that had been stolen from William Beckenham.13 In early July Madan appeared at the Old Bailey where he was also charged with another four offences. None of those held, but William Beckenham was there and presented his evidence clearly and with feeling. Madan pleaded that he had received the stolen jacket but that he had not been one of the highwaymen. Nevertheless, the judge sentenced both Michael Brennan and Patrick Madan to be hanged by the neck until dead. Madan was warned “to buoy himself up no longer by the prospect of earning a pardon.” His twin sister Mary, who had apparently become the mistress of a nobleman, tried to exert pressure to buy his reprieve but without success. Six weeks later, he was put on a cart to be dispatched at the hanging tree.14 It was a day that would add immensely to Madan’s notoriety. Loaded onto the cart to take him to Tyburn, Madan made the journey through the jeering crowds. Hanging days were major public spectacles in 18th London and tens of thousands turned out to watch. People threw dead dogs and cats into the air; prostitutes gave nosegays outside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and people wore white cockades in disdain of the law. The media reported that more than 100 prostitutes and a large number of pickpockets were among those watching.15 Madan made his way through the mob to the gallows. The noose already around his neck, he was given the usual dispensation to make a final speech or say a final prayer. The crowd was agog. Then, at the very last moment, a man named Amos Merritt, a known criminal, shouted that he, not Madan, was the highwayman who had robbed William Becken ham. A messenger was hastily dispatched to the Secretary of State who

13 t17740706–18. 14 t17740706–18; t17740706–19; s17740706–1; Authentic Memoirs, 19. 15 Peter Acroyd, London: the Biography (London: Vintage, 2001), 293–4.

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immediately sent a respite for Patrick Madan. Somehow the wily rogue had escaped again. What had happened would always remain a mystery. Many believed that Merritt was a member of Madan’s gang who put his neck on the line for his leader. Others maintained that Merritt really was guilty and had been forced to come forward by the many underworld characters who worshipped Pat Madan.16 The confusion continued when Merritt eventually stood trial for the Beckenham murder. Nobody knowing who to believe, Amos Merritt was acquitted. Patrick Madan emerged from the entire saga a criminal celebrity.17 He went straight back to his life of crime. Trying to mug a man whose job it was to light London’s streetlamps, he soon found himself locked up in the watch-house. His loyal gang members had seen him arrested and hastily recruited a mob to launch a rescue attempt. It was to prove a terrible miscalculation. The lamplighter had already declared that he did not intend to press charges, meaning that Madan was about to be freed, all charges against him dropped. Before that could happen, the mob attacked the watch-house armed with whatever weapons they had to hand. In the melee the building was damaged, one man lost two fingers, and Madan was born jubilantly away by his rescuers. London’s media was fasci nated: the man who had so recently cheated death at the gallows was now involved in yet another heist.18 The police, understandably, were not amused. They renewed their efforts to capture Madan and his gang. By the end of 1774, Patrick Madan and twelve of his gang were held in Newgate jail charged with prison breaking and criminal damage. When they arrested Madan at his home, they found pistols (one loaded) keys of various sizes for house- breaking and a vice and files for making other duplicate keys, and a crow- bar. One report said that among Madan’s belongings was “a pocket book with vellum leaves, containing an account of houses that he intended to be done over viz. a clear-starchers in Fetter-lane; a slop-shop in Wapping; Flexman over the water; Bailey in Islington; Ayliff-street; Five-foot-lane over the water; a shoe-maker’s in Tower-hill; a baker in the Minories; a grocer in Whitechapel; a grocer in Virginia-street; No. 42 Watling-street”

16 Public Ledger 20 August 1774. 17 Life of Patrick Madan 24–8; t17740907–62. 18 Authentic Memoirs, 22–3; Life of Patrick Madan, 29–30. See footnote 19 for media references to these events.

178 emma christopher and many others, the last mentioned being a “corn-chandler in Crispin- street.”19 Madan’s trial was held on 19th April 1775 at Hick’s Hall. A menacing mob was seen hanging around outside and authorities called in the guard in case yet another attempt was made to free Madan. Three of Madan’s gang involved in the watchtower assault were sentenced to seven years imprisonment. Patrick Madan himself and another eight of his men all received a five-year sentence. At a separate trial his common-law wife, Eliza beth Castle, was sentenced to one month’s imprisonment in Clerkenwell Bridewell.20 Madan’s sentence was a strange and little heard punishment. Britain in the eighteenth century almost never handed down long periods of imprisonment as punishment and wouldn’t for some time to come. The usual sentence was hanging, which was the punishment for an astonishing array of crimes including stealing hedges, fruit, timber, or fish from ponds; damaging orchards; blackening your face; damaging Westminster Bridge; or being in the company of gypsies for more than a month.21 If hanging was not thought appropriate, or where the prisoner was respited from the death sentence, the usual sentence was transportation beyond the seas. For decades Britain had sent its unwanted criminals to various Caribbean and mainland American colonies. In the early days criminals had been desperately wanted in the Ameri can colonies as labour was in very short supply. In 1611, Governor Thomas Dale of Virginia requested convicts from Britain, the first arriving seven years later. In 1640, Thomas Verney arranged one hundred prisoners from London’s Bridewell jail to be sent to Barbados to work on his plantation. Forty years later, Christopher Jeaffreson of St. Kitts was so desperate for convict labour that he actually travelled to London to escort back a ship- load of criminals. Britain’s convicts were delivered everywhere from Jamaica to Antigua, South Carolina and Georgia to Maryland.22

19 London Evening Post 7 February 1775; London Chronicle 9 February 1775; Morning Post and Public Advertiser 9 February 1775; Lloyd’s Evening Post 10 February 1775; Bingley’s London Journal 11 February 1775; General Evening Post 14 February 1775. 20 Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser 25 February 1775; Middlesex Journal and Evening Advertiser 29 April 1775; St. James’s Chronicle or the British Evening Post 29 April 1775. 21 Douglas Hay, Albion’s Fatal Tree: Crime and Society in Eighteenth-Century England (London: A. Lane, 1975), 17. 22 J.C. Ballah, White Servitude in Colonial Virginia (New York: Burt Franklin, 1965); Hilary McD. Beckles, White Servitude and Black Slavery in Barbados, 1627–1715 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1989), 57; Peter Wilson Coldham, British Emigrants in

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The account of why the convicts stopped being wanted or needed is one of the central stories of the Americas and the Atlantic world. As the staple crops of the Caribbean islands grew more profitable they increasingly switched to slave labour. As the sugar boom took off, and swathes of Europe and the Americas became addicted to all things sweet, planters in colonies like Barbados and Jamaica became the richest men in the world. They had their pick of labourers and chose African slaves. The fact that African captives were more expensive than British criminals mattered less than the fact that they would own them in perpetuity. It was a yoke that would be passed on: the planters children would own the slaves’ children, their grandchildren would own the slaves’ grandchildren and so on into all the future they could envisage.23 On the mainland the situation was more complex, with crops earning lower returns and the switch from white servant to black slave labour more riddled with ideology as well as economic motivations. Nonetheless South Carolina had a black majority by the early 18th century and, no longer needing convict labourers, a law was passed banning their importation in 1712.24 Only Virginia and Maryland accepted convicts for most of the eighteenth century but there too the tide of opinion was turning against these criminal workers. As early as the 1720s, Hugh Jones wrote in The Present State of Virginia that convicts were “the poorest, idlest and worst of mankind, the refuse of Great Britain and Ireland, and the outcast of people.” They “do great mischiefs [sic], commit robbery and murder and spoil servants”, Jones concluded.25 This theme continued in the Virginia Gazette at mid-century, when the paper published a letter claiming that Britain’s convict labourers “corrupted and spoilt…other servants and Negroes.”26 There were other objections too, a sentiment that receiving the ‘moth- erland’s’ criminals was an insult. In 1759, Benjamin Franklin wrote to

Bondage, 1614–1788 (CD-Rom) (Genealogical Publishing Company, 2005); Jeaffreson, Young Squire; David Eltis, The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 52. 23 See, for example, Hilary McD. Beckles, “The Colours of Property: Brown, White and Black Chattels and their Responses on the Caribbean Frontier” in Paul E. Lovejoy and Nicholas Rogers, eds., Unfree Labour in the Development of the Atlantic World (Essex: Frank Cass, 1994), 38–9. 24 Warren B. Smith, White Servitude in Colonial South Carolina (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1961), 39. 25 Frederick Hall Schmidt, “British Convict Servant Labor in Colonial Virginia,” Unpublished PhD dissertation, College of William and Mary (1976), 5–6. 26 Ibid.

180 emma christopher the London Chronicle claiming that transportation was “an insult and contempt, the cruellest perhaps that ever one people offered another.” Famously he suggested that Americans could send rattlesnakes to Britain as an exchange for the ‘Human Serpents’ they were forced to receive.27 In fact the transportation of Britain’s convicts to the mainland American colonies was a considerable factor in causing the anti-British feeling in the years before the Revolution. British and Irish felons were “vermin forced on us,” wrote one Maryland man who questioned how long Americans should accept these imports.28 To Patrick Madan and his gang mates in jail these protests were irrele- vant. Patrick Madan and his gang were said to have “begged hard” for transportation instead of their anomalous sentences.29 If this seems surprising–leaving your homeland forever can hardly have seemed an easy option–a description of Newgate Jail makes Madan’s pleas more explica- ble. It was an overcrowded hellhole with rats, dogs, pigs, poultry, and all manner of other livestock. Batty Langley, writing in the 1720s long before the jail was burned in the Gordon Riots, saw many positives in Newgate but believed of the common side of the jail that the “Place seems to have the exact Aspect of Hell itself.”30 This was the same era that John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera was set in the jail with its full cast of criminal gangs, molls, thievery and treachery. It was little changed by Madan’s day. The authorities were not willing to listen to the criminals’ pleas that they wanted to go to America instead, and so Madan and his gang were sent to Newgate. There they are said to have set up a scam asking for “a garnish”, a bribe in other words, from all prisoners in return for their safety and to have run an academy teaching others their criminal skills. At one point they tried to break out of the jail, an attempt crushed when jailer Richard Akerman held a pistol of Madan’s head. Injured, Madan fell backwards crying out, “By Jasus I am dead.”31

27 Quoted in Roger A. Ekirch, “Bound for America: A Profile of British Convicts Transported to the Colonies, 1718–1775,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Series XLII: 2 (April 1985), 199 and Farley Grubb, “The Market Evaluation of Criminality: Evidence From the Auction of British Convict Labor in America, 1767–1775” American Economic Review 91 (2001), 298. 28 Maryland Gazette 10 August 1767. 29 Life of Patrick Madan, 31. 30 Batty Langley, An Accurate Description of Newgate (London: printed for T. Warner, 1724), 35. 31 Authentic Memoirs, 24–5; Life of Patrick Madan, 32; Morning Chronicle and Daily Advertiser 22 August 1777.

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In April 1780, Madan and his fellow gang-members must have been jubi- lant that their sentence was finally almost at an end. Then the law played another trick on him. The police unwilling to have the master troublemaker back on the streets, on his last day of incarceration they charged him with another offence. It was claimed that he had committed a robbery while he had been temporarily held at New Prison, Clerkenwell. A man visiting the jail claimed to have been robbed of two and a half guin eas, though too drunk to know what had really happened. It was an ill- conceived attempt to keep him locked up. Madan was acquitted.32 Back on the streets he again turned to crime. Rumour held that he was connected with Fanny Davies, a notorious cross-dressing criminal of the era, who threw him the misappropriated clothes of the Bishop of Lincoln during the Gordon Riots.33 He was finally convicted once again later that year of a crime that shows all too clearly his Fagin-like tutoring of young boys in the ‘arts’ of the criminal world. He and two boys, William Cheatham and John Bailey, and another boy of about six years of age who was never caught, went to the shop of William Story. They all variously asked for knee buckles, then the fashion to wear with men’s britches. Amid the confusion it was alleged that they made off with: “four gold watch chains, value 20 l. ten garnet hoop rings, value 50 s. three pearl and paste rings, value 20 s, nine gold rings with hairs value 5 l. a gold ring with an onyx set therein, value 6 s. four picture rings, value 3 l. and nine other rings, value 42 s.” 34 It all added up to £30 or £40, considerably more than the amount that meant that a death sentence would ensue. Madan, John Bailey and William Cheatham were all accordingly sentenced to death, although it was recommended that though the two boys, acknowledged to have been under Madan’s malign influence, be shown mercy.35 In fact, all three would be saved from the gallows by the vagaries of fortune. It was April 1781, the war in the American colonies was, from the British point of view, going astonishingly badly. No longer able to send their convicts to Maryland or Virginia, the jails had long since overflowed. It was decided to combine the two problems in one seemingly simple solution. The Secretary of State Lord Hillsborough wrote out a list of

32 Old Bailey Sessional Papers [hereafter obsp] available at oldbaileyonline.org, t17800510-13. 33 An authentic narrative of the most remarkable adventures, and curious intrigues, exhibited in the life of Miss Fanny Davies (London: sold by R. Jameson, 1786), 27. 34 obsp t17801206-46. 35 Ibid.

182 emma christopher names of prisoners who would escape the gallows if they served in the army. Patrick Madan, along with William Cheatham, was on the list.36 On the surface the sentence was unremarkable. Great Britain had sent men into its armed forces as an escape from the gallows for decades by this era. There had always been a category of men who had joined the army in lieu of their sentences handed down in Britain’s courts. Many had gone into the East India Company, known as “a shelter from Newgate or the gallows.”37 Yet, there was something different about this newest incarnation of the punishment of military service. The difference was almost certainly unknown to Madan and the others or it seems very unlikely that they would have agreed despite their lack of other alternatives. A clue can be found in another extremely anomalous sentence handed down by the courts a couple of weeks later. Lucy Johnson had stood trial on 7th July 1779 for stealing a guinea, eight half crowns and three shillings and sixpence from Robert Hayes. It was a mysterious and unlikely tale told by the alleged victim, a story of going with a stranger to see her dead husband’s waistcoat. It could well have been an attempt to cover up the fact that he had been using the services of a prostitute when robbed. Sentenced to death, Lucy Johnson was sent to Newgate Jail to await her appointment at the gallows.38 Fate intervened. The following June she was still being held in Newgate when the Gordon Riots broke out. Newgate was immediately targeted and Johnson was one of the many who escaped. “The captives marched out with all the honours of war”, wrote the poet George Crabbe, recounting that they were “accompanied by a musical band of rattling fetters.”39 For Lucy Johnson it was a short-lived escape and she was soon recaptured and held at Poultry Compter.40 Then came the most astonishing of sentences. On 13th April 1781, Lucy Johnson was again given a respite but this time with a remarkable proviso. The terms of her reprieve demanded that she go to Africa “for the term of

36 tna sp 44/95 f.115. 37 British Library add mss 34413 ff. 11–12; Andrew O’Shaunessy, ‘Redcoats and Slaves in the British Caribbean,’ in Stanley L. Engerman and Robert Paquette (eds.), The Lesser Antilles in the Age of European Expansion (Gainsville: University of Florida Press, 1996), 10. 38 obsp t17790707-8; s17790707-1. 39 Peter Linebaugh, The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in Eighteenth Century London (London: Penguin, 1991), 334. 40 London Metropolitan Archives LSP 1780/5.

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her natural life.”41 No other sentence like this was handed down for some time to come. There seems to have been only one reason for Lucy Johnson’s remarkable punishment: at her original trial at the Old Bailey, after her name had been inscribed the words, “a black.”42 Madan and the others on Hillsborough’s list did not know it, but they too were about to be dispatched to Africa. Their idea that they were off to the Americas was to prove very wrong. Madan and the others may have accepted army service in lieu of hanging by the neck but they were not about to be sent into the military if they could avoid it. Held in Newgate, they were busy arranging an escape attempt. One evening the jailer Richard Akerman found them with their fetters unlocked and armed with pistols ready to blast their way out of the prison. Their plan had been to make a break for it, their arms defying anybody to stop them, when they were held in the press yard ready to be moved to a military jail.43 With that plan foiled by Akerman’s discovery, they instead renewed their escape attempts from the Savoy military jail. After the guards’ final inspection one evening Madan, another master criminal named William Murray Mackenzie, and a burglar named Robert Hill, tried to knock a hole into the outer wall of the barracks. Needless to say, the wall was thick and well built to deny any such escape attempts. It took until day break before they had made a big enough hole to climb through. Desperate now, one of their allies went through the hole first, eager to regain his liberty. It was a foolish mistake. Madan, Murray Mackenzie and Hill had been wise to let another man through the hole first. The guards had been watching all along and the man was shot dead right away. The other conspirators ran from the all too obvious hole and tried to feign innocence, climbing back into their beds. It was ludicrous of course. The guardsmen smashed into their room and a battle broke out during which three men were killed and another nine wounded. London’s Morning Chronicle reported that Madan and Murray Mackenzie were the ringleaders and both men were now “chained to the floor.”44 On 5th June 1781, they were marched aboard the vessel Mackerel, destined to leave Britain forever, forced to fight her wars for their crimes. The

41 London Metropolitan Archives, lsp 1781/4; The National Archives, Kew, London [hereafter tna] SP 44/95 f. 117. 42 obsp t17790707-8. 43 London Chronicle 10 February 1781. 44 Authentic Memoir, 35–6; Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser 22 May 1781.

184 emma christopher authorities must have breathed a sigh of relief thinking the rabble-rouser was gone at last. They took as little risk as possible, making Madan and the others march aboard still wearing the double leg irons they had worn at the Savoy after their escape attempt.45 Then news reached the prisoners that horrified them. They were aboard a ship that would take them not to America but to West Africa. It was perhaps the most feared destination of all. Eighteenth century Britons knew little of Africa but into that fog of ignorance seeped terror. Many still believed that the continent was filled with cannibals, a claim often made by slave-traders who wanted to further the idea that they were saving their captive cargoes from a worse fate.46 Africans, when they were thought of at all, were mysterious creatures who wore no clothes, worshipped heathen gods and had unbridled sex with each other and an array of animals. Some of these weird and wonderful dark skinned creatures were shown as novelties for the British public to gawp at, only furthering the idea that they were wholly different from the pale-skinned, unwashed Briton.47 The only thing that most Briton’s knew about Africa was that it was deadly. Slave ships had sailed to West Africa’s coasts for centuries by the 1780s and seamen had brought back news of mysterious ailments that could carry away a man within days of seeing the coast of Africa, fevers that could cause a man’s stomach to seem as if it was turning inside out, parasites that could swim around the body and reappear through the skin, and a sudden and irrevocable loss of eyesight. “For one that comes out” of West Africa, sang the sailors in Britain’s port cities, “There’s forty went in.”48 It was an exaggeration of the death rate, but not by much at the worst of times. To Patrick Madan, being sent to Africa was to be banished to “a burning climate.”49 William Murray Mackenzie was more educated than most criminals and complained that the King’s orders were being abused as he and the others had not been respited from death on condition of being sent to Africa. Technically he may have been correct. It hardly mattered. He and others who had complained were whipped for their impudence.50

45 tna co 267/20. 46 Anthony J. Barker, The African Link: British Attitudes to the Negro in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1550–1807 (London: Frank Cass, 1978), 128–32. 47 Ibid.; Exeter Flying Post 13 December 1780. 48 See Emma Christopher, Slave Ship Sailors and their Captive Cargoes. 49 Authentic Memoirs, 34. 50 Craftsman or Say’s Weekly Journal 21 July 1781.

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With that avenue exhausted, Pat Madan, William Murray Mackenzie and the rest returned to their more usual means of trying to escape. Along with Robert Hill they tried to break a hole in the bottom of the Mackerel so that they could escape when it began to sink. As water started to pour in the alarm was raised and as the guard tried desperately to block the leak, Madan and the others rushed to the boats, hoping to get back to shore. They were quickly prevented from doing so. Londoners could yet again read the exploits of an increasingly desperate set of men.51 The escape attempt failed, yet in one way Madan and Hill were victori- ous. The captain of the Mackerel decided that his ship would never be safe with such desperate criminals aboard and demanded that they be put off the ship. They were court-martialled, a business Hill declared merely a ‘shim sham.’ Each received seventy-five lashes for the damage they had caused to the vessel and their attempted escape. Then Madan and Hill were incarcerated in Haslar Hospital to recover from their wounds. Nevertheless, when the Mackerel sailed for West Africa, and what was to be an extremely misguided attempt at sending convicted criminals to serve at Britain’s slave trading forts, Patrick Madan was not aboard.52 Held at Haslar Hospital, Madan and Robert Hill were visited by Elizabeth Castle’s mother, the ‘old bawd’ who was Madan’s common-law mother-in-law. It was not a familial visit. The woman preceded to get the guard rip-roaringly drunk and then, taking off one of the two dresses she was wearing, “dressed her son in-law in her own habiliments.” Robert Hill, seeing Madan get away, threatened to call the other guards unless she also helped him to escape. She swapped her remaining dress with Hill so that when the guard awoke from his drunken stupor he found only “the poor wretched hag” dressed in men’s clothes. His two prisoners were long gone.53 Madan returned to London where his twin sister begged him to leave the country, fearful that his luck in eluding capture had to run out at some point. But going back to Ireland held little allure for Madan. Instead he went to see Elizabeth Castle, supposedly to console her over her mother’s arrest for helping him escape. When he saw his old love again he couldn’t bring himself to leave. He again reigned over his underworld gang. By this time he was a legend to many of the city’s underclass.

51 Ibid.; London Chronicle 28 July 1781; Morning Chronicle 31 August 1781; Public Advertiser 25 October 1781. 52 obsp o17820109-2; Authentic Memoirs, 37–8. 53 Authentic Memoirs, 38.

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He taunted the police, passing word to them that he was armed and would resist arrest at all costs. Spotting Pat Madan out and about became a sport to many. He was seen in Poplar, spied in Islington. But his luck was about to run out. In November an apprentice butcher saw him and knocked him down. The watch was summoned and arrested him once more.54 He appeared in the dock in December and conjured up a fanciful tale (one that has often been believed by historians). He claimed that he had sailed aboard the Mackerel for West Africa but, when the fleet had put into Cork, Ireland, as many aboard were sick, he had accidentally been left behind. Recovered from his illness, he claimed that he had returned to London to see his wife and child. It was a defence combining pleading, flattery and Madan’s ongoing assertion that sending him to Africa was an unjust punishment. “Now my Lord,” he claimed, “you have a true state of my Case and from that Wisdom and humanity that have hitherto illuci- dated [sic] your Character since you have filled a judicial chair, I shall have the happiness of Escaping that fate, which my Enemies have most unjustly Intended for me.”55 It was an unlikely tale, but the judge returned him to jail to allow him time to present more evidence to prove these claims. The media speculated how such a notorious criminal repeatedly was escaping the hangman. Madan must have feared that his time was up. Increasingly desperate, he gathered a new gang of criminals around him in jail and again attempted an escape. He and his new associates “cut through a double floor, penetrated a strong roof, and reached the top of the para- pet.” The attempt was only overcome by a soldier who was standing watch and fired on the gang, forcing them all back into their cells.56 Madan was irate. He now hated soldiers and other figures of authority even more than before. When two soldiers named James Frazier and William Stobbard arrived in jail accused of theft, Madan grabbed Frazier and “with a great force of Violence threw [him] into a large tub of filthy Urine” and held his head under. Stobbard was treated likewise. Madan threatened to treat “every Soldier in a like manner for preventing them getting out of Gaol.”57

54 Authentic Memoirs, 38–9; Public Advertiser 25 October 1781; London Courant, Westminster Chronicle and Daily Advertiser, 26 October 1781; Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser 30 April 1781; London Chronicle 27 November 1781. 55 London Metropolitan Archives, lsp 1781/2, defence of Patrick Madan; obsp o17811205-1. 56 London Courant, Westminster Chronicle and Daily Advertiser, 25 October 1781; Authentic Memoirs, 40. 57 London Metropolitan Archives mj/sp/1782/02.

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In April the following year Madan again stood in the dock having failed to present any more evidence that he had accidentally been left behind from the Mackerel at Cork. James Adair, the Recorder of London, announced—rather incredibly—that despite his incredible number of convictions and escape attempts, Madan would once more escape the gallows. He still had one last chance to be useful to society, Adair declared, serving as a soldier on the coast of Africa for the remainder of his days.58 It was, in the circumstances, a remarkable escape from the hangman’s noose. (It certainly seems that the Lord of the Realm whom his sister was said to be the mistress off, a politician known only as Lord S___, really was working behind the scenes on his behalf.)59 Madan, however, was less than impressed by his new respite. He insolently demanded that King George’s letter be read aloud to him, believing that His Majesty could not possibly have decreed that African army service was to be his punishment. Madan was wrong. This was not an act of vindictiveness by Adair and the court. He was told that the King had indeed sentenced him to serve in Africa. Madan was outraged and “peremptorily cast back the proffered pardon to the Court.” Everybody watching was utterly scandalized. To reject the King’s mercy was an act almost akin to treason. Madan was told that in that case, if he rejected the offer of mercy, he would swing at the fatal tree within the week.60 Hearing such a pronouncement, “his obdurate heart failed within him” and he “burst into tears; fell down on his knees, asked forgiveness for his rashness, and humbly implored that mercy which he had refused.” The court accepted his plea and he was again told that he would go to Africa for the rest of his life.61 Needless to say, he was not at all cowed or penitent. It was all an act. Back in jail he was heard declaring, “that the ship was not yet built which shall carry him over to Senegal.”62 His sister tried to bribe the guards with money and alcohol to allow him to escape but in vein. Starting to accept that perhaps he might indeed be destined to go to Africa this time, he tried to get a woman named Esther Allingham to accompany him. It was an astonishing attempt, and one that provides insight into contemporary understandings of race and ethnicity. The point, surely, was that Allingham

58 tna 44/95 ff., 248–9. 59 Authentic Memoirs, 4–5. 60 Ibid., 41. 61 Ibid., 40–2; obsp o17811205-1; obsp o17820109-1; obsp s17820410-1. 62 Ibid., 42.

188 emma christopher was a black woman, so Madan believed that she might want to go to Africa with him. Allingham, who was almost certainly West Indian or African American rather than African, declined his offer.63 The British government by this time had a number of people sentenced to this most peculiar of punishments: transportation to West Africa. It began looking for a vessel to take them there but it was a harder task than usual as fewer slave ships were leaving because war was still raging in the Caribbean. Eventually it settled on the Den Keyser, a 350-ton ship. In October 1782, Patrick Madan again made the journey from jail to ship, destined to be delivered to Africa. London’s Morning Chronicle listed sixteen people aboard the Den Keyser being transported to Africa. Among them were at least two female convicts, a fact that would horrify and alarm the British slave traders on the coast, certain that the two would be forced to prostitute themselves to African men.64 Ultimately around forty convicts would sail for Africa aboard the Den Keyser. Obviously eager to prevent any more attempted escapes, scuttlings, revolts or anything else he could dream up, Madan and the rest of the convicts were “chained two and two together” and put in the hold in irons. It was a similar description to the way slaves were held aboard slaving vessels, surely no coincidence as this was the Den Keyser’s usual trade.65 On 6th November 1782, the Den Keyser set sail. Patrick Madan was, finally, on his way to Africa. Rumour spread that he tried to lead a mutiny and had swung from the yard arm but the ship’s captain, James Waddington, wrote a letter revealing that this was just hearsay. Instead Patrick Madan finally got to see Africa.66 The Den Keyser first stopped at Gorée Island, today in Senegal. It had passed back between France and Britain for some time, captured and then re-captured by one nation from the other and at one time had formed part of Britain’s attempts to settle an entire colony, named Senegambia, in land of the island. Senegambia was to be governed, “in the like manner…as the American Colonies” and was thought of as a replacement for the lost American possessions.67

63 Ibid., 46. 64 Morning Chronicle 2 November 1782. 65 obsp t17830910-41. 66 Parker’s General Advertiser and Morning Intelligencer 14 January 1783; London Chronicle 28 June 1783. 67 The documents establishing Senegambia are reproduced in Frederick Madden and David Fieldhouse (eds) Select Documents on the Constitutional History of the British Empire and Commonwealth, volume 3: Imperial Reconstruction, 1763–1840 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987), 496–501.

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Convicts had long played a role at Gorée. Joseph Wall, who would soon become one of the most infamous men in Britain, had gone to Gorée to assume command aboard a vessel that also carried convicts there. During the voyage some had been found with their shackles sawn off and, in a reflection of what would come later, Wall had the alleged ringleader whipped so severely that he died from his wounds. It was such a severe punishment that even Wall’s own brother was horrified and refused to see Joseph, “expressing horror and execration at the cruelty of his brother.”68 Joseph Wall was unperturbed by his brother’s admonishment. In July 1782 he committed an act that led to his infamy and eventual hanging. On the day that Gorée’s garrison was due to be paid off and sent away they demanded some money from Wall, fearing that they would never receive it if they left without their due. Incensed, Wall gathered the men at the parade ground where Sergeant Benjamin Armstrong reiterated their demand. Wall ordered Armstrong tied up to a gun carriage and given 800 lashes, encouraging the floggers with the cry, “Cut him to the Heart, Cut him to the Liver!” The following day a corporal was also sentenced to 800 lashes, then a private was handed the same punishment. Other men were also flogged, receiving their punishments not with the usual cat-o’-nine-tails but with a rope around an inch thick. More deadly than the whip chord because it bruised the skin rather than cut through it cleanly, one man watching remembered that “their Flesh was torn off by the Ropes & flew about in large pieces.” Three men, including Benjamin Armstrong, succumbed to the wounds the rope had inflicted and were quickly buried at Gorée.69 Tellingly, this was not considered the most scandalous part of Wall’s crimes. It was not the deaths of the three men alone that would lead to a crowd of sixty thousand people turning out for Wall’s hanging and giving “three distinct huzzas”, crying out “as if in detestation of the prisoner’s conduct.” Irishwomen amid the crowd even began “drinking his damna- tion in a mixture of gin and brimstone” before his legs had stopped twitching.70

68 Joseph Wall, General and Impartial Memories of the Life of Governor Wall, who was tried and convicted at the Old Bailey (London: J. Davenport, 1802), 10–11. For more on this story see Emma Christopher, A Merciless Place: The Fate of Britain’s Convicts After the American Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 218–222. 69 tna ts 11/984; tna co 267/20 ff., 230–1. 70 The Life, Trial and Particulars of the Execution of Governor Wall, Who was Executed… for the Murder of Benjamin Armstrong (London: J. Davenport, no date) 7–8; V.A.C. Gattrell,

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The detail that apparently really offended the soldiers on duty at Gorée that deadly day in July 1782, and would afterwards scandalise the British public, was that Joseph Wall had instructed Africans to carry out the flog- gings. It was said that Wall called them ‘Black Buggers’ as he urged them to whip harder. It was contrary to all established practice, which held that the lashes had to be done by the regiment’s drummers. More than that, having black slaves carry out the sentence was evidently considered an insult.71 Wall had gone by the time the Den Keyser arrived but his replacement, William Lacy, was hardly less belligerent. When the convicts sailed into view he refused to let them ashore. Finally, Patrick Madan and some of the others were landed and mustered at the parade ground. The problem was that nobody knew what to do with them. Lacy did not want them in his garrison: “It was very hard that he should have a parcel of men on the island”, he lamented, as the “troops were starving already on the island.” So William Lacy made, allegedly at least, a surprising pronouncement. He decreed that the convicts were “all free men.” He had no food for them, so he told them that they were free to do as they wished to try and feed themselves.72 Some of the men aboard the Den Keyser would escape aboard other vessels calling at the coast, making their way back to Britain where they were recaptured for illegally returning from transportation. Little wonder that rumour spread in London that Patrick Madan had escaped once again. Surely, it was thought, if others had got away then the master escapee had done so too? Some said that he had posed as an American sailor who had been shipwrecked at Senegal and had led the other convicts in making distress signals to attract passing ships. Others claimed that he had gone to Martinique or Guadeloupe and was now enjoying a high life in the Caribbean. Yet another rumour held that he had returned to Ireland and was hiding out in the land of his birth. In London, those who had known Madan and those who had followed his many exploits through the media wondered where he was. It was thought that he simply had to be back among them once again, living large among the pubs and clubs he had formerly inhabited. In July 1783 the

The Hanging Tree: Execution and the English People, 1770–1868 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 48, 75, 101; The Times 29 January 1802. 71 tna co 267/20 f. 309–11. 72 obsp t17830910-41; obsp s17841208-1; Providence Gazette and Country Journal 27 December 1783.

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Morning Chronicle claimed, “Patrick Madan has got [back] to town from Africa. He has, it is said, been drunk with some of his old companions at a public house in Fleet Lane, and another in Old Bailey, but how he escaped from Africa, he will not tell.”73 Warrants were issued for his arrest yet again, but if Pat Madan had escaped back to London from Africa, he somehow avoided capture. He was never heard from again. It was, perhaps, a fitting end to such a life that nobody knew where he was. Maybe he really had at last made the crossing of the Atlantic and was drinking in the bars of the West Indies. More likely, he had been hastily buried in West Africa, the continent that would lose its people to the Americas as captive slaves for many decades to come. Patrick Madan had led his life on his own terms, wilfully defiant of rules, middle- class norms or even the law. Yet for all that, his life could never escape from the Atlantic currents that washed ashore in the late eighteenth century.

73 Whitehall Evening Post 24 January 1784; London Chronicle 17 July 1783 and 13 September 1783; Morning Chronicle 8 July 1783.

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE AND THE VULNERABILITY OF FREE BLACKS IN BENGUELA, ANGOLA, 1780–1830

Mariana P. Candido

In recent years scholarship on the transatlantic slave trade and Atlantic history has seen a dramatic increase. We now know the number of people exported in the transatlantic slave trade and its organization, and size, however, few studies focus on the processes of enslavement on the African continent. Through the analysis of Portuguese colonial records, this study examines mechanisms of capture around Benguela and the ability of Africans to claim freedom. My contribution focuses on the port of Ben guela, a Portuguese colony since 1617, from where at least 679,000 people were exported to the Americas, mainly to Rio de Janeiro and Bahia, in Brazil.1 The sources employ in this study reveal fragments of individual lives although no slave narrative has been located so far. Yet, these frag ments allow me to reconstruct cases and explore how some people in West Central Africa were captured and discuss the vulnerability of free blacks around African ports. Often slave narratives described the personal experience of the processes of enslavement and they gained attention from the public in part because of the lively descriptions of violence. Olaudah Equiano and Baquaqua are two of the Africans who reported how they were enslaved. Baquaqua described how he was tricked at a young age when he was invited to visit a nearby ruler, intoxicated with alcohol, and enslaved. Long distance traders transported him to the coast and sold him to trans atlantic slavers.2 Equiano also described being kidnapped, alongside his sister, in his own village.3 Though neither Baquaqua nor Equiano had any

1 David Eltis and David Richardson, Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 151. 2 Robin Law and Paul E. Lovejoy, eds., The Biography of Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua: His Passage from Slavery to Freedom in Africa and America (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2001), 136–8. 3 Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African (printed for, and sold by the author, 1794), 32.

194 mariana p. candido adult protectors, they each survived the Middle Passage and revealed their slaving experience. Slave narratives are not the only way to venture into people’s enslavement. Randy Sparks recreated the saga of Little Ephraim Robin John and Ancona Robin Robin John, two members of the ruling elite of Old Calabar who were seized by an English slave trader and sold in the island of Dominica.4 James Sweet reconstructed the life of Domingos Álvares from his training as a spiritual leader and healer in Naogon to his capture under Dahomean forces. Sweet followed Domingos across the Atlantic to unveil his successful activities as a healer in Pernambuco and Rio de Janeiro, and the attention he attracted of the Holly Office inquisi tors, who deported him to Lisbon and afterwards to Castro Marim, in southern Portugal.5 These tales reveal the fragility of people’s freedom as a result of the spread of violence in the interior and along the coast of West Africa. Yet, all of these cases happened in West Africa, mainly in the Bight of Benin and Biafra, and they are used to represent enslaved people from the whole African continent. However, most Africans were enslaved in West Central Africa, roughly what constitutes Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo and the southern part of Gabon today. In fact, 45.5 per cent, or over 5,650,000 African slaves, embarked from the ports of West Central Africa, almost 700,000 of them from Benguela alone. So far, no biographical account of people taken from West Central Africa has been published, although some studies begin to provide evi dence of individual stories.6 This study is a contribution to the debate on how people were enslaved, focusing on Benguela and its interior. Using Portuguese colonial documents, such as trial cases and official correspon dence, I will explore cases of people who were kidnapped and enslaved in areas nearby Benguela. The cases analyzed here are those that caught the attention of the colonial bureaucracy. I realize they were a minority and

4 Randy J. Sparks, “Two Princes of Calabar: An Atlantic Odyssey from Slavery to Free dom,” The William and Mary Quarterly, 59.3 (2002), 555–584; Randy J Sparks, The Two Princes of Calabar: An Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Odyssey (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2004). 5 James Sweet, Domingos Álvares, African Healing, and the Intellectual History of the Atlantic World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011). 6 Paul E. Lovejoy, “The Provenance of Catherine Mulgrave Zimmerman: Methodological Considerations” (paper presented at Tubman Seminar, York University, Toronto, October 12, 2010); José C. Curto, “The Story of Nbena, 1817–20: Unlawful Enslavement and the Concept of ‘Original Freedom’ in Angola,” in Trans-Atlantic Dimensions of Ethnicity in the African Diaspora, edited by Paul E. Lovejoy and David Trotman (New York: Continuum, 2003), 43–64; and Mariana P. Candido, “African Freedom Suits and Portuguese Vassal Status: Legal Mechanisms for Fighting Enslavement in Benguela, Angola, 1800–1830,” Slavery and Abolition, 32, 3 (2011), 447–459.

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an exception in the way these people, in collaboration with friends and loved ones, found strategies to challenge their capture. In this contribu tion, I will focus on the cases of Africans who fell in the hands of Portu guese enslavers and found mechanisms to challenge their fate. This study engages with recent scholarship on the legal fight against slavery and the use of colonial judicial apparatus to regain freedom, as well as with studies that explore the movement of ideas and rights in the Atlantic world.

Territorial Expansion and Enslavement

The causes that led someone to be sold as a slave interested contemporary witnesses, including travelers who visited West Central Africa, Brazilian traders, and colonial officials. By the early 17th century, as reported by an anonymous Portuguese observer, “great injustices are committed in the buying and selling of slaves in our empire[;]… it is also certain that most of the slaves of this Empire are made so upon other pretexts, of which some are notoriously unjust.”7 Even before the foundation of Benguela in 1617, Portuguese traders visited the shores south of the Kwanza River to acquire slaves. By 1611 King Filipe II of Portugal recognized that vessels packed with slaves could be sent from Benguela to ports in Brazil.8 The first nominated governor, Manoel Cerveira Pereira, sent slaves from Benguela to Luanda in 1618.9 By the 1680s, the Portuguese officer António Cadornega stated that there was “lots of business in peças [slaves] and ivory.”10 Another observer from the end of the seventeenth century, the Capuchin Antonio Zucchelli, reported that captains of different ships vis ited Benguela in 1698 and bought slaves.11 None of these accounts describe how people were reduced to bondage. However, Portuguese colonial doc uments, especially reports written by the governor, captains, and other high authorities in Benguela reveal mechanisms of enslavement, particularly

7 Anonymous. “Proposta a Sua Magestade sobre a escravaria das terras da Conquista de Portugal,” in Robert E. Conrad, Children of God’s Fire: A Documentary History of Black Slavery in Brazil (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), 12. 8 António Brásio, Monumenta Missionária Africana (Lisbon: Agência do Ultramar, 1953), 6, 32–3. 9 Adriano Parreira, “A Primeira ‘Conquista’ de Benguela (Século XVII),” História, 28 (1990), 67. 10 António de Oliveira Cadornega, História Geral das Guerras Angolanas (Lisbon: Agência Geral do Ultramar, 1972), 3, 171. 11 Antonio Zucchelli, Relazioni del Viaggio e Missione di Congo nell’Etiopia inferiore Occidentale (Venice: Bartolomeo Giavarina, 1712), 91.

196 mariana p. candido warfare. Unlike other places on the African continent where European actions were limited to the coast, in West Central Africa Portuguese trad ers and administrators were quite successful in establishing a foothold in African territories where they actively participated in the enslavement of Africans.12 Beginning in the early seventeenth century, Portuguese officials orga nized wars that resulted in the capture of large numbers of people. These wars were not officially fought to acquire captives, but to guarantee colo nial expansion. Yet, they resulted in large number of people enslaved.13 By 1652, the crown judge (ouvidor) and treasury commissioner (provedor da fazenda) of Angola, Bento Teixeira Saldanha, complained about the behavior of those captains and the governor who “use any pretext to attack the heathens, with the only intention of capturing and later selling people.”14 Authorities in Luanda and Lisbon recognized that some wars were motivated by personal interest and not for the benefit of the colonial enterprise. Incapable of guaranteeing territorial control, Portuguese administra tors signed vassalage treaties with African authorities that created a language of rights, duties, and dependency. While Portuguese military personnel relied on the local ruler to collect tribute and mobilize soldiers, sobas (local chiefs) saw their power legitimized and supported by the colonial state. Through the vassalage treaties they also received tribute from Portuguese agents in the form of tobacco, alcohol, and firearms.15 Vassal treaties recognized political, geographic, and physical rights of sobas and their subjects, and also marked off those Africans who were

12 For references on how the slave trade operated elsewhere, see James F. Searing, West African Slavery and Atlantic Commerce: The Senegal River Valley, 1700–1860 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 27–58; Paul E. Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 68–90; and Robin Law, Ouidah: The Social History of a West African Slaving ‘port’ 1727–1892 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2004), 126–38. 13 Ralph Delgado, O Reino de Benguela: do Descobrimento à Criação do Governo Subalterno (Lisbon: s.n., 1945), 120–3 and 214–226; José C. Curto, “Luso-Brazilian Alcohol and the Legal Slave Trade at Benguela and its Hinterland, c. 1617–1830,” in Négoce Blanc en Afrique Noire: L’évolution du commerce à longue distance en Afrique noire du 18e au 20e siècles, ed. H. Bonin and Michel Cahen (Paris: Publications de la Société française d’histoire d’outre-mer, 2001), 353–4; Roquinaldo Ferreira, “O Brasil e a Arte da Guerra em Angola (sécs XVII e XVIII),” Estudos Historicos, 39 (2007), 5. 14 Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino (ahu), Angola, cx. 5, doc. 101, December 14, 1652. 15 For more on the vassalage treaties see Beatrix Heintze, “Luso-African Feudalism in Angola? The Vassal Treaties of the 16th to the 18th Century,” Separata da Revista Portuguesa de História 18 (1980), 111–131.

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allies and protected from enslavement and others who were not.16 Yet, it was only by the mid-eighteenth century that a bureaucracy was put in place in Benguela to protect vassals of the crown and administer the law. In 1765, Governor Francisco Inocêncio de Sousa Coutinho issued a series of decrees stating that colonial authorities had a commitment to maintain peace and protect vassals of the Portuguese crown. It was the duty of the governor to control the slave trade, through maintaining peace and assur ing that no illegal slave embarkation occurred. Yet, more interested in assuring their own profits from the slave trade, they participated in and even organized punitive wars and raids to gather slaves who could be sold.17 Violent means of capturing people were common in Benguela and its hinterland, as well as other parts of the African continent. Both local Africans and Portuguese made use of planned attacks in order to capture people. Portuguese traders and explorers had previously used this tech nique to seize Muslims in continental Portugal and in North Africa.18 Hence Portuguese attitudes towards enslavement in West Central Africa were an extension of previous experience and practice. Both Portuguese and African rulers agreed that enslaving captives of war was legal and morally acceptable.19 Nonetheless, laws and sanctions are not stable

16 ahu, Angola, cx. 9, doc. 25, April 10, 1666. On classification and the language of rights see Pamela Scully, Liberating the Family? Gender and British Slave Emancipation in the Rural Western Cape, South Africa, 1823–1853 (Portsmouth, NH: Heineman, 1997), 34–46; and Karen B. Graubart, “Indecent Living: Indigenous Women and the Politics of Representation in Early Colonial Peru,” Colonial Latin American Review 9, no. 2 (2000), 223–4. 17 Arquivo Histórico Nacional de Angola (hereinafter ahna), Cod. 443, fl. 117, February 17, 1803; and Douville, Voyage au Congo et dans l’interieur de l’Afrique, 1, 16. See also Carlos Couto, “Regimento de Governo Subalterno de Benguela,” Studia, 45 (1981), 288–289; Couto, Os Capitães-Mores em Angola (Lisbon: Instituto de Investigação Científica e Tropical, 1972), 323–33; Rosa da Cruz Silva, “Saga of Kakonda and Kilengues: Relations between Benguela and Its Interior, 1791–1796,” in Enslaving Connections: Changing Cultures of Africa and Brazil During the Era of Slavery, ed. José C. Curto and Paul E. Lovejoy (Amherst, N.Y.: Humanity Books, 2003), 245–6; Charles Boxer, O Império Marítimo Português (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2002), 338; and José C. Curto, Enslaving Spirits: The Portuguese- Brazilian Alcohol Trade at Luanda and Its Hinterland, c. 1550–1830 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 94. 18 Lauren Benton, “The Legal Regime of the South Atlantic World, 1400–1750: Juris dictional Complexity as Institutional Order,” Journal of World History 11, no. 1 (Spring 2000), 14. For the discussion of Portuguese slaving activities in North Africa see Yacine Daddi Addoun, Abolition de l’esclavage en Algérie: 1816–1871, (PhD dissertation, York University, 2010). 19 Mariza de Carvalho Soares, “Descobrindo a Guiné no Brasil Colonial,” Revista do Instituto Histórico Geográfico Brasileiro 161, no. 407 (2000), 80–81; and Lauren A. Benton, Law and Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World History, 1400–1900 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

198 mariana p. candido categories. They change according to the community and, most impor tantly, over time. In Benguela, market pressures played a vital role in the way colonial officials and members of the local elites perceived moral standards. The constant demand for slaves along the coast caused an increase in the range of crimes punished by enslavement. In 1812, for example, slaves arriving in Brazil had sometimes been enslaved in war. Many had also been condemned to slavery because of adultery or theft, and some were replacements or substitutes for persons convicted of other crimes.20 Although warfare was always an important method of seizing and condemning people to slavery, abduction, tribute and tax payment, debt, judicial condemnation, and pawnship were also common methods of enslavement.21 In this study, however, I will focus on cases of what was considered illegal enslavement.

The Illegality of Enslavement

Although today it is considered a crime against humanity to reduce some one to bondage, before the nineteenth century slavery was accepted. In West Central Africa, African and Portuguese authorities sanctioned enslavement through legally justified wars while trickery, kidnapping, or banditry, on the other hand, were considered illegal means enslavement.22 Reports of people being enslaved through illegal mechanisms could result in a claim of “original freedom,” which the Portuguese were supposed to respect, though they did not always do so. As a local priest admitted,

20 Luis António de Oliveira Mendes, “Discurso sobre as doenças dos pretos tirados da África (1812)” in José Luis Cardoso, ed., Memórias económicas da Academia Real das Ciéncias de Lisboa. Volume IV (Lisbon: Banco de Portugal, 1991), 18–19; see also idem, Memória a respeito dos escravos e tráfico da escravatura entre as costas d’África e o Brazil (Lisbon: Escorpião, 1977 [1793]). The types of enslavement identified by Luis António de Oliveira Mendes are similar to the ones identified by S.W. Koelle in his Polygotta Africana (1854). See P.E. Hair, “The Enslavement of Koelle’s Informants,” Journal of African History, 7, 2 (1965), 193–203. 21 Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1982) 105. See also Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery, 1–9. 22 Instituto Histórico Geográfico Brasileiro (ihgb), DL 45, 11, “Proposta sobre escravaria das terras da conquista de Portugal.” For the similarities between legal systems see Benton “Legal Regime of the South Atlantic,” 3. Mariza de Carvalho Soares highlights the affinity between Christianity and legislation on Portuguese expansion. See her “Descobrindo a Guiné,” 71–94. For the United Nations conventions condemining slavery and other forms of bondage see Joel Quirk, Unfinished Business: A Comparative Survey of Historical and Contemporary Slavery (Paris: unesco, 2009), 26–8; and Suzanne Miers, Slavery in the Twentieth Century: The Evolution of a Global Problem (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2003), 58–62.

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“no Negro will ever say that he had been legally enslaved… they will always say that they were stolen and captured illegally, in the hope that they will be given their liberty.”23 By the late seventeenth century, the Overseas Council had already identified European traders and colonial administrators as being respon sible for capturing free people, regardless of their status in their own societies.24 In 1689, a royal decree recommended that suits for freedom, the mucanos, include the presence of two priests to ensure that laws were being followed and that no person who was originally free was enslaved.25 In order to keep control, in 1698 the Portuguese Overseas Council decided to make capitão-mor, field commander, usually the highest administrator in inland fortresses and in Benguela until the 1760s, in charge of the mucanos’ trials. According to the regulation, the capitão-mor was required to register legal suits for freedom, presenting the case, witnesses, defense, sentence, and appeal in a specific book.26 No mucanos book has been found in Benguela, however there are some cases and legal procedures registered in the official correspondence. As a way to overcome the enslavement of vassals and free black people, the Portuguese colonial administration introduced in 1769 the inquisidor da liberdade, the interrogator of freedom, to “examine the slaves coming from the interior to be sold and embarked to Brazil, hoping that no free person is among the slaves.”27 Manoel Gonçalves, the first priest to occupy the position in Benguela, was in charge of baptisms and of inquir ing into the conditions of enslavement of each captive. If no claim of origi nal freedom was found, the priest baptized and branded them with the royal mark, confirming their slave status.28 The creation of this position

23 Letter of Luis Brandão, March 12, 1610, in Elizabeth Donnan, ed., Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to Americas (Washington: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1931), I, 123–124. For cases of cases of illegal enslavement see Candido, “African Freedom Suits,” 447–459. 24 ahu, Cod. 544, fl. 9, February 12, 1676, fl. 7 and 7v. For more on mucanos and its adop tion by the Portuguese administration see Catarina Madeira Santos, “Entre deux droits: les Lumières em Angola (1750-v. 1800), Annales hsss, 60, no. 4 (2005), 817–848; Roquinaldo Ferreira, “Ilhas Crioulas”: O Significado Plural da Mestiçagem Cultural na África Atlântica,” Revista de História, 155, no. 2 (2006), 17–41. 25 Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (hereinafter antt), Mc 7, doc. 1, “Carta Régia de 22 de março de 1689.” 26 antt, Conde Linhares, mç. 7, doc. 1 “Carta Régia de 15 de março de 1698;” and Pascoal Leite de Aguiar, Administração Colonial Portuguesa no Congo, em Angola e em Benguela (Lisbon: Sociedade Histórica da Independência de Portugal, 2006), 2, 36. 27 antt, Conde de Linhares, mç. 52, doc. 14. November 11, 1769. 28 For more on how priests should baptized and brand slaves see ahna, Cod. 314, fl. 13–16, February 2, 1761.

200 mariana p. candido suggests that the fact that the enslavement of freeborn people must have been common in the eighteenth century. In areas not controlled by the Portuguese colonial state, it was the local political elite who decided on practices of enslavement. From the available records it is possible to conclude that slaves were generated through warfare, debt, and the legal system. In 1799, for example, the ruler of Kaluquembe seized 200 Jau people from soba Dom Matheus. The raid ers captured free people and cattle, and also seized gunpowder, textiles, and even chairs.29 At the end of the eighteenth century, it was common in Viye for anyone to offer slaves to the soba to settle problems. Minor rulers, advisers, and tributaries further provided slaves when seeking promotion. No itinerant trader could engage in trade without paying tax to the rul ers.30 Sobas could order the enslavement of subjects who defaulted on debts. If a person could not fulfill the requirement of paying annual trib ute to the soba which usually corresponded to a portion of agricultural production or a share of the spoils of hunting, the African ruler could force people into slavery. Since the ruler was the administrator of the land, he could enslave an indebted person, as well as his wives, offspring, brothers, and other dependents, including slaves. They would become slaves of the state and technically could not be sold outside of the community. However, if state slaves were found to engage in treason, conspiracy, or witchcraft activities, the soba had the jurisdiction to sell them to any interested buyer.31 As with judicial condemnation, political rulers could sell their own people if demand was high enough by using debt as an excuse. Few references in the extant Portuguese documentation deal with people enslaved through judicial mechanisms, as this happened under African jurisdiction where the Portuguese had no effective presence. However, observers in the late eighteenth century and mid-nineteenth century indicate that some judicial cases in Viye were fraudulent, and hence thinly disguised mechanisms of deliberate enslavement.32 Territorial occupation resulted in an attempt to regulate enslavement. Certain practices, such as capturing people in an unjustified war, were considered illegal. This situation was the case seen in a raid organized by colonial troops in 1797, when Joaquim Vieira de Andrade, the captain of

29 ahna, Cod. 443, fl. 39, July 16, 1799. 30 ihgb, DL 29, 17, “Notícia Geral dos Costumes do Bié,” fl. 6v. 31 For the description of the process by which sobas could enslave their own people please see ihgb, DL 29, 17, fl. 7v. 32 ihgb, DL 29, 17, “Notícia Geral dos Costumes do Bié,” fl 6; and Magyar, Reisen in Sud-Afrika, chapter 7, “A Nação dos Quimbundos e seus Costumes,” p. 24–25.

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Quilengues, a Portuguese fortress in Benguela’s hinterland, seized people of the soba of Sokoval, a vassal of the Portuguese crown. In alliance with his subordinates, the captain organized a punitive expedition against Sokoval, capturing the ruler and, at least another 255 people. After his arrival in Benguela, the ruler of Sokoval complained to the governor of Benguela that Portuguese forces had captured his relatives, tributaries, and slaves without any regard to individual background. The governor ordered the release of all the captives and their return. Any resident of Benguela who had acquired slaves resulting from this operation had to free them. Further, those shipped to Brazil had to be returned to Benguela.33 Although Captain Andrade had to release all the slaves cap tured during this unjustified war, not much is known about the fate of those sold locally and those sent to Brazil, as there was no follow up in this case.34 Therefore it is not possible to ascertain whether those captured regained their freedom or if anyone actually did return from Brazil. Even so, it is interesting to highlight that there was legal space for a ruler to claim their dependents and people who were illegally enslaved. On the one hand, knowledge about the law and possibility of pressing legal claims for freedom expanded at the end of the eighteenth century in Benguela in part because of the introduction of new positions, such as judges. On the other hand, the end of the eighteenth century witnessed a change in the way freedom was defined in the light of the law. Aware of the behavior of their administrators, the government in Lisbon tried to enforce the regulation by punishing authorities who were involved in illegal enslavement. At least three captains were removed from office in 1797, 1818 and 1828.35 By the end of 1809, Viscount of Anadia João Rodrigues de Sá e Melo, secretary of the Navy and Overseas Territories complained of the scandalous behavior practiced by captains and regents of the Portuguese inland fortresses against sobas allied to the Portuguese

33 ahna, Cod. 516, fl. 51–51v., “Relação dos escravos de Quilengues que trouxe o capitão Miguel Antonio Simão.” November 27, 1797; see also ahu, Angola, cx. 87, doc. 28, January 26, 1798; ahna, Cod. 443, fl. 18, June 21, 1797; ahu, Angola, cx. 87, doc.42, March 22, 1798; ahu, Angola, cx. 87, doc. 73, April 30, 1798; ahu, Angola, cx. 87, doc. 80, April 30, 1798. Only those people seized in just wars could be enslaved in the jurisdiction of the Portuguese empire. See Hebe M. Mattos, “A Escravidão Moderna nos Quadros do Império Português: o Antigo Regime em perspectiva Atlântica’, in O Antigo Regime nos Trópicos: a dinâmica imperial portuguesa (sec. XVI-XVIII), eds. João Fragoso, Maria Fernanda Bicalho and Maria Fátima Gouveia (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2001), 146. 34 ahna, Cod. 443, fl. 18, June 21, 1797. 35 ahna, Cód. 443, fl. 19, August 14, 1797; ahna, Cód. 447, fl. 45, January 9, 1819; and ahna Cód. 508, fl. 134, August 23, 1828.

202 mariana p. candido state, “including arresting them to obtain profits with their release,”36 in a clear indication that authorities requested ransom to free people. Nonwhites in Saint Domingue, the United States, and France, and later on in Brazil and Cuba, started using the courts to challenge their enslave ment or to negotiate their freedom. It is through judicial cases that we can see how individuals appropriated colonial legal codes and notions of freedom and privilege.37

The Vulnerability of Free Blacks

In a region affected by raids and constant violence, free blacks were par ticularly vulnerable. Portuguese colonial documents reveal how free black men and women were victims of violence and trickery, such as kidnap ping, that resulted in their enslavement. The cases analyzed here were those that came to the attention of colonial officials and which, in some instances, resulted in people regaining their freedom. However, it would be a mistake to assume that most of the almost 700,000 people deported from Benguela had the same opportunities to challenge their capture. Certainly the number of people tricked into slavery was higher than the cases noted by colonial officials. These cases, however, show the degree of insecurity and violence that affected daily chores, such as going to a dis tant market or working in the fields, or simply walking around. People were kidnapped by strangers and trusted people while doing mundane tasks. Occasionally, they managed to present their cases to colonial author ities and challenge their enslavement. Knowledge of Portuguese and colo nial legislation worked to the advantage of those who were seized. For the majority of people who were not well-versed in the colonial world, there were extra-legal strategies to regain their freedom, although mechanisms such as flight or violent revolt will not be analyzed here.38

36 ahu, Angola, Cod. 551, fl. 45–48v, January 30, 1810. 37 Lauren Benton, “Colonial Law and Cultural Difference: Jurisdictional Politics and the Formation of the Colonial State,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 41, no. 03 (1999), 563–588; Sue Peabody, “Free Upon Higher Ground.” Sain-Domingue Slave’s Suits for Freedom in U.S. Courts, 1792–1830,” in The World of the Haitian Revolution, edited by David P. Geggus and Norman Fiering (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009), 261–283; Keila Grinberg, Liberata: A Lei da Ambiguidade: As Ações de Liberdade da Corte de Apelação do Rio de Janeiro no Século XIX (Rio de Janeiro: Relume Dumaré, 1994); and Rebecca Scott and Michael Zeuske, “Le ‘droit d’avoir des droits.’ Les Revendications des ex-esclavages à Cuba,” Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 59, no. 3 (2004), 521–545. 38 For flight as a strategy of resistance in West Central Africa see W.G. Clarence- Smith, “Capitalist Penetration among the Nyaneka of Southern Angola, 1760 to 1920s,”

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In 1800, the freeborn black man Joaquim Pires Ribeiro arrived in Benguela in a slave coffle. It is not clear if the itinerant trader Bartolomeu Gonçalves was aware of his presence, or of his place of birth, or even his knowledge of Portuguese. Born in Luanda, Ribeiro was probably baptized in one of the Catholic churches and had lived there most of his life. Identified as a sailor, he had served in the Portuguese army for two years, presumably after his days as crewmember. In 1799, he decided to desert military life. To avoid punishment, he moved into the interior of Benguela. In search of new opportunities and security, he settled in the Mbailundu territory, one of the most powerful states in the central highlands. While in Mbailundu, Ribeiro became involved with a local woman, who was the wife of one of the soba’s advisers. When her husband found out about the love affair, he ordered Ribeiro to be enslaved and sold to any trader who visited Mbailundu’s market. It is not clear whether the trader Gonçalves was from Mbailundu or if he visited the market and bought Ribeiro along other slaves. Upon his arrival in Benguela, Ribeiro was able to tell his story in Portuguese to the local priest in charge of baptizing and branding captives before the boarded slave ships.39 This case reveals the kinds of dangers facing a free black person. While in Luanda, Ribeiro lived as a free man and probably enjoyed some privileges as a colonial soldier. However, the moment he moved away from his community, he could not rely on relatives and friends to protect him. In Mbailundu he was an outsider. He probably did not speak Umbundu, since in Luanda most people spoke Kimbundu. Perhaps he dressed in a Luso-African style, wearing pants, shoes or even a hat, accessories that indicated his association with the Atlantic world. As an outsider, he was already in a precarious situation. An affair with the wife of one of the members of the political elite was prob ably considered a crime in Mbailundu and punished with enslavement.40

African Studies 37, no. 2 (1978), 163–176; Aida Freudenthal, “Os Quilombos de Angola no século XIX: A Recusa da Escravidão,” Estudos Afro-Asiáticos, 32 (1997), 109–34; and José C. Curto, “Resistência à Escravidão na África: O Caso dos Escravos Fugitivos Recapturados em Angola, 1846–1876,” Afro-Ásia, 33 (2005), 67–86. For other regions of the continent see, among others, Richard Rathbone, “Some Thoughts on Resistance to Enslavement in West Africa,” in Out of the House of Bondage: Runaways, Resistance and Marronage in Africa and the New World, edited by Gad Heuman (London: F. Cass, 1986), 10–23; Eugénia Rodrigues, “E Viesse outro amo que lhes soubesse criar melhor. Negociar o trabalho escravo em Moçambique no século XVIII,” Africana Studia, 14 (2010)53–71; and Marcia Wright, Strategies of Slaves & Women: Life-Stories from East/Central Africa (New York: L. Barber Press, 1993). 39 ahna, Cod. 442, fl. 143–145, October 19, 1800; and ahna, cód. 442, fls. 153v.–155, October 19, 1800. 40 In Viyé, adultery was a taboo and a crime that could result in the enslavement of whole families. See Mariana P. Candido, Fronteras de Esclavizacíon: Esclavitud, Comercio

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The constant pressure for more slaves led to the spread of violence. The opportunity to make quick money corrupted people and led them to change loyalties and alliances. Violence threatened everyone’s security and authorities were aware of the wave of enslavement around Benguela. A new governor, João de Alvelos Leiria, took office in 1811. His mandate was to release illegally enslaved people, and in this undertaking, he had the support of the Benguela traders, who feared retaliation from neighbor ing African authorities who were defending their subjects.41 Town resi dents and slaves could appeal to the court and the governor to challenge the actions of Portuguese authorities. In 1812, the trader Timóteo Carneiro Lopes, for example, intervened on behalf of his slave Roque to guarantee that high-ranking authorities heard a slave’s complaint. According to Lopes’s request, a black woman named Andreza had kidnapped Roque’s slaves. Andreza lived in Catumbela, along the river of the same name, less than 25 kilometers from Benguela, and presumably had taken Roque’s slaves there.42 Roque, who was himself a slave, owned an unnamed slave woman and her child. By appealing to the governor of Benguela, Roque and his slave owner hoped to recover his property. In 1812, Manoel Garcia Mendes, whose slave Manoel was killed in an assault on the road, pre sented a similar case. He did not claim compensation for Manoel’s death. Rather, he was reclaiming Manoel’s slave and her children who had been seized by the murderer.43 It is not surprising that slave owners acted on behalf of their slaves, as the property of their slaves, as Manoel’s case dem onstrates, also belonged to them. A few months after Leiria’s inauguration, a kidnapping case was brought to his attention. According to a free woman named Maria, soldiers had seized her daughter.44 Maria lived in the house of the trader Francisco José Bandeira. It is not clear if she worked for him or had an intimate rela tionship. After Bandeira’s death in 1812, Portuguese officers visited his

e Identidad em Benguela, 1780–1850 (Mexico City: El Colegio de Mexico Press, 2011), 174–5. For Kimbundu as a lingua-franca in Luanda, see Jan Vansina, “Portuguese vs. Kimbundu: language use in the colony of Angola (1575–c. 1845),” Bulletin des Séances, Mededelengens der Zittingen, 47 (2001–3), 271; and Beatrix Heintze, “A Lusofonia no Interior da África Central na era pré-colonial. Um contributo para a sua história e Compreensão na Actualidade,” Cadernos de Estudos Africanos 6/7 (2005), 179–207. 41 It was part of the governor’s duty to assure that no free person was enslaved. Carlos Couto, “Regimento de Governo Subalterno de Benguela,” Studia, 45 (1981), 289; see also ahu, Angola, cx. 125, doc. 22; and ahu, Angola, cx. 125, doc. 42., October 5, 1812. 42 ahna, Cod. 440, fl. 26v., Requisition n. 64, August 3, 1812. 43 ahna, Cod. 440, fl. 44v., Requisition n. 297, December 24, 1812. 44 ahna, Cod. 440, fl. 54, Requisition n. 144, September 19, 1812.

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house in order to make an inventory of his belongings. During their activities, they apprehended Maria’s daughter, probably believing that she was one of Bandeira’s slaves. They did not take into consideration that there were free people living as Bandeira’s dependents. Upon appeal, the governor of Benguela restored the freedom of the young girl. Maria’s case demonstrates further that free blacks were in a vulnerable position since they and their descendants could be mistaken as slaves, undermin ing their freedom. Maria could only secure her daughter’s freedom through the intervention of the governor, who recognized her rights as a free per son. A corrupt official unwilling to help would have easily confirmed Maria’s daughter’s enslavement. Also in 1812, the free black man Albano presented his case to Governor Leiria. He claimed to be a free man who had been enslaved by relatives. Sold to an itinerant trader, he asked the Governor to declare him a free person. Unlike the previous cases, no one came to help Albano prove his freedom. Albano’s request for freedom was denied in 1812, and he remained a slave in Benguela.45 These cases show how support from kin could be crucial in proving someone’s free status. While Maria fought to free her daughter, Albano could not rely on his rela tives because they were responsible for his captivity. The first twenty years of the nineteenth century saw an increase in the number of slaves exported from Benguela, probably a result of Anglo- Luso treaties restricting the slave trade to south of the equator. External demand exacerbated the cycle of violence and increased the incidence of kidnappings taking place around Benguela. Unscrupulous people found many ways to enslave their own kin. Several cases reveal how the profits of the slave trade were so tempting that it obscured moral standards.46 Community members took advantage of people who trusted them, as with the case of Nbena. In 1817, while traveling from Catumbela to Benguela, Nbena met an old woman who belonged to António Leal do Sacramento, a lieutenant colonel in the Benguela army. For reasons that are not clear, Nbena followed the old woman to Sacramento’s house in Benguela. After their arrival, António Leal do Sacramento gave Nbena an ax and forced her to work on his land. Nbena was enslaved, despite the fact she was born a free Ndombe woman from Catumbela, a chiefdom

45 ahna, Cod. 440, fl. 30, Requisition n. 107, August 25, 1812. 46 See among others José Curto, “The Story of Nbena, 1817–1820”; Sparks, The Two Princes of Calabar; Linda M. Heywood, Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles, and the Making of the Foundation of the Americas, 1585–1660 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007); and James H. Sweet, Recreating Africa: Culture, Kinship, and Religion in the African-Portuguese World, 1441–1770 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003).

206 mariana p. candido nominally under Portuguese protection. After two days in Sacramento’s compound, Nbena managed to escape to her village in Catumbela, con vinced that she had regained her freedom. However, Sacramento assumed she was his slave and searched for her. Months later, he learned Nbena and her daughter were in Benguela and ordered their capture. She was branded and sold to João de Oliveira Dias, the captain of the ship Astrea. Nbena and her daughter were sent to Luanda, presumably for eventual transport to Brazil. However, the ruler of Catumbela and several other wit nesses testified to the governor of Benguela that Nbena was a free woman and that Sacramento had enslaved her illegally.47 The governor ordered her return to Benguela so that her case could be further investigated. Though the final outcome is not clear, Nbena’s story illustrates the ability of trusted people to help those who had been enslaved. It is worth men tioning that the soldier Ribeiro as well as Maria and her daughter had knowledge of the Portuguese language and relevant legislation. Although Nbena expressed herself through a tendala, a translator, in her case she was freed because of the intervention of the soba, who came to protect his subject. Since he was a vassal of the Portuguese Crown, he asserted his rights as someone to be protected by Portuguese officers, alongside his subjects. It shows the ability of African authorities to apprehend the lan guage of colonial rights and object to what they considered to be illegal enslavement. Although authorities could order the release of people who had been illegally enslaved, it is not clear if those who were released ever enjoyed life as free people again. A positive outcome was even more challenging for people who had been taken to Brazil. Fortunata Joaquina da Encar nação da Costa Conde, for example, was one of the daughters or subjects of the ManiKongo ruler from the Kingdom of Kongo. Her connection to the ruler is unclear since the term filho was used to designate biological descendents as well as dependents. In any case, Fortunata, who seems to have been an important member of the elite, was kidnapped in Kongo and shipped to Brazil at a very young age. In Brazil, she became a domestic slave in Porto Alegre, where she was able to request her return to Kongo in late 1825.48 Whether any others sent to Brazil were able to return to Benguela is not known.

47 ahna, Cod. 446, fl. 154v-155v., December 11, 1817; ahna, Cod. 447, fl. 16–17, September 16, 1818; ahna, Cod. 447, fl. 25, November 3, 1818; ahna, Cod. 447, fl. 30v-34, October 12, 1818; and ahna, Cod. 447, fl. 9v-10v., July 7, 1818. For more on Nbena see Curto, “Story of Nbena, 1817–1820,” 43–64. 48 ahu, Angola, cx. 151, doc. 5, Prior to January 5, 1826.

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In West Central Africa, Portuguese authorities regulated who could or could not be enslaved, while in Brazil, the Crown tried not to interfere with the slave owner’s power over his or her slaves. The laws repre sented an attempt to bring order during a period of social instability, when boundaries of freedom and enslavement were easily forgotten or ignored.49 Yet, African rulers and the Portuguese authorities were unable to protect people. Families and friends played important roles in locating and guaranteeing the freedom of seized people. In the 1830s, a young woman named Quitéria was kidnapped by someone who she saw daily. Like Nbena, she probably did not expect to be seized during her daily chores. Quitéria was a free woman working for Captain José Joaquim Domingues and his wife, Maria José de Barros. In 1837, Maria reported that her husband, Captain Domingues, had seized her protégée Quitéria and sold her to transatlantic slave traders stationed in Benguela. Quitéria and Maria were both from Caconda, in the interior, and probably shared other social or even kin connections. Quitéria’s widowed mother had trusted Maria to support the young woman and teach her how to be a seamstress. After learning about Quitéria’s kidnapping, Maria de Barros ran to the port looking for the young apprentice. Maria found Quitéria on board a slave vessel, already sold and branded. In a last minute negotia tion, Maria was able to ransom her with one of her domestic slaves.50 Quitéria regained her freedom through ransoming; yet this strategy implied the enslavement of another person, since a slave was given in exchange for the release of the free-born individual. Thus, in itself, ransom ing was not a strategy against slavery more generally, as it required that someone continue in slavery in order to secure another person’s freedom. The stories of freeborn people enslaved in and around Benguela high light some similarities. In all the cases explored in this chapter, Africans relied on colonial authorities to come to their aid. Portuguese agents, who in most cases had participated actively in the enslavement of freeborn people, were given the power to regulate peoples’ destinies. Though free blacks were in a vulnerable position, their peers realized the importance of saving people from captivity and slavery and from being enmeshed in

49 Silvia Lara, Campos da Violência: Escravos e Senhores na Capitania do Rio de Janeiro, 1750–1808 (São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 1988); Keila Grinberg, “Slavery, Manumission and the Law in the 19th Century Brazil: Reflections on the Law of 1831 and the ‘Principle of Liberty’ on the Southern Frontier of the Brazilian Empire,” European Review of History, 16, no. 3 (2009), 401–411. 50 ahna, Cod. 509, fl. 215v., March 17, 1837; and ahna, Cod. 450, fl. 49v-50, February 20, 1837.

208 mariana p. candido the transatlantic slave trade. Through these accounts we have a glimpse of the modes of enslavement in Benguela. Even people who lived in urban areas under nominal Portuguese control, and who were considered to be more integrated into colonial culture and the Atlantic world, were tar geted.51 Disputes and the use of the courts can be seen as challenging the boundaries of the Portuguese empire, but they inevitably reinforced the power of foreign agents over African lives.52

Conclusion

No slave narrative has been found recollecting the life experiences of people enslaved in West Central Africa. Colonial documents, however, provide clues on how, when, and where people were enslaved. In the absence of actual biographies, fragments of biographies of enslaved Africans from the Benguela region allow us to reconstruct how part of the Africans exported from port of Benguela were captured and enslaved. Like the cases analyzed in this essay, people were violently seized in and around Benguela. A Portuguese colony since 1617, Benguela became one of the major slave ports of the transatlantic slave trade. The presence of foreign traders and their slave ships in town accelerated violence. African rulers, coastal traders, and Portuguese colonial agents became deeply involved in warfare that could enslaved people to feed the Atlantic demand. Yet, the same colonial setting that generated violence also cre ated a legal space for people to challenge their enslavement. Wars and raids in regions around Benguela threatened the freedom of free Africans. Portuguese and Africans did not necessarily agree on notions of protection, which required the establishment of mechanisms to defend the rights of free people. Authorities started arriving in Benguela by the mid-eighteenth century to arbitrate and defend the interests of vassals of the Portuguese Crown. According to their mandate, they should have pre vented illegal enslavement. Following the legislation, captives of justified wars were legally enslaved. The process of being captured and declared to

51 For similar cases around the Atlantic, see Jane Landers, Atlantic Creoles in the Age of Revolutions (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2010); José C. Curto, “Struggling against Enslavement: The Case of José Manuel in Benguela, 1816–20,” Canadian Journal of African Studies, 39, no. 1 (2005), 96–122; Linda M. Heywood, “Portuguese into Africa: The Eighteenth-Century Central African Background to Atlantic Creole Cultures,” in Central Africans and Cultural Transformations in the American Diaspora (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 91–115. 52 Benton, “Colonial Law,” 564.

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be a slave by their captors was enough to decide the fate of thousands of people. In a few cases, people who had been kidnapped were able to prove their previous status as free people, getting a chance to regain their freedom. Yet, freeborn blacks who were caught in the middle of conflict had their rights ignored. Relatives and friends realized the importance of acting fast to locate their peers. The cases of Nbena and Quitéria stress the role of the community in defending their own people. Others, such as the soldier Ribeiro, were able to challenge the legality of their enslavement. By defending their freedom, they traced their differences with people living outside of Portuguese-controlled regions. They also demonstrated knowledge of the intricacies of the colonial state and how this knowledge became power to navigate colonial law. By requesting Portuguese arbitra tion, captured Africans and their supporters solidified the role of the colo nial agents as responsible for the destinies of those who lived in Benguela and other Portuguese settlements. These cases can help us to explore an overlooked aspect of the process that led to the enslavement and dispersal of millions of people throughout the diaspora. Portuguese colonial documentation has its own limitations, since it is restricted to those cases brought to the Portuguese authorities or otherwise considered worthy of note. Corrupt officials did not routinely report cases of people claiming illegal enslavement and acted to deny them their freedom. The evidence is also limited in scope, as it is restricted to regions under nominal Portuguese control. Still, the extant primary sources offer interesting perspectives on the enslaving process in West Central Africa. Short-life stories reveal the experiences of enslaved Africans from the Benguela region, and related to other biographical approaches in this volume. Through a selection of cases it is possible to argue that slavery was endemic, in the sense that no one was safe from enslavement. The region was in violent turmoil throughout the period studied, which provoked cycles of internal and external raiding and war fare. Despite this chaos, Portuguese and African officials sometimes acted to limit the violence that underlay enslavement. However, in the end, they were also responsible for the heightened levels of insecurity.

PART THREE

FORGING ATLANTIC IDENTITIES

In Part Three, “Forging Atlantic Identities,” indigenous peoples, Africans, and creoles remade themselves and their environs in facing the challenges of colonization, war and slavery. An important uniting theme within each of these chapters includes how colonial administrators and authorities influenced the lives of these men and women – representing an impor tant elaboration of the metropole versus frontier concept so common in Atlantic studies. In addition, the following chapters illustrate the impor tance of eastward as well as westward trajectories of Atlantic peo ples, revealing the littoral to be one of circumnavigational movement as opposed to simply being on a westward course. Each of the subjects in these chapters grabbed hold of changing circumstances in their commu nities by attempting to refashion their identities amidst imperial conflict, political favoritism, social pressures, or attempts to avoid re-enslavement. CHAPTER NINE

INDIGENOUS LEADERS AND THE ATLANTIC WORLD: THE PARALLEL LIVES OF DOM ANTÔNIO FILIPE CAMARÃO AND PIETER POTY, 1600–1650

Mark Meuwese

From October 1645 to March 1646, an unusual exchange of letters took place between Antônio Camarão and Pieter Poty in Northeastern Brazil. Remarkable about the exchange was that both men were leaders of the Potiguars, an indigenous people from Northeastern Brazil. While Camarão was firmly aligned with the Portuguese, Poty was a loyal supporter of the Dutch West India Company (WIC), which had occupied Northeastern Brazil since 1630. In the letters, written in the indigenous Tupi lan guage, both men tried to convince the other to switch sides in the Dutch- Portuguese struggle for Brazil. Kinship ties played a prominent role in the debate between Poty and Camarão. Both men appealed to each other as “brother”, “father”, “son”, and “cousin,” suggesting that the two were close relatives. Religious affiliation was also used as an argument. Camarão, a proud Catholic, depicted the Dutch Protestants as dangerous heretics in his letters to Poty. Poty identified himself in relation to Camarão as a “Christian and a better Christian than you, not immersing myself in idola try like you do.”1 The letters written by Camarão, Poty, and several other Potiguars have rightly been viewed as a unique ethnolinguistic document, being the earli est surviving letters written in the Tupi language by indigenous people.2

1 The letters are found in the archive of the Old/First West India Company (OWIC) which is located in the National Archives of the Netherlands in The Hague, 1.05.01.01, Letters and Papers from Brazil (LPB), inv. nr. 62 (1646). The letters were translated from Tupi in Dutch by minister Johannes Eduardius who had worked as a missionary in Brazil in the 1630s and early 1640s. The letter written by Poty from which the quotation is taken was published in Dutch by François Lieshout as “Copye, van een Brasiliaensen Brieff gheschreven van Pieter Potty,” (Copy of a letter from a Brazilian Indian written by Pieter Poty) in Amsterdam in 1646. The letter exchange and the translation by Eduardius are discussed in F.L. Schalkwijk, The Dutch Reformed Church in Brazil (1630–1654) (Zoetermeer, The Netherlands: Boekencentrum, 1998), 204–207. 2 While largely neglected by (Dutch) historians of the WIC, the letters were first trans lated and published in Portuguese by the Brazilian historian Pedro Souto Maior in Fastos

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What the letter exchange also reveals is that Camarão and Poty had a shrewd understanding of power relations in the Atlantic world. Both men recognized that the struggle in Northeastern Brazil, in which the Potiguars participated, was connected to a wider Dutch-Portuguese conflict that was fought on both sides of the Atlantic. Poty, who had resided in the Dutch Republic from 1625 to 1630, wrote Camarão in October 1645 that the Dutch would prevail because “I have been in that country [the Republic] and have been educated there: ships, money, and everything there is in abundance like the stars in the sky.” Poty even reminded Camarão that the recent restoration of the Portuguese Crown in 1641 had been made possi ble only with Dutch support. Above all, Poty believed that the Dutch- Portuguese conflict for Brazil would be decided by who controlled the sea-lanes. Emphasizing Dutch naval superiority Poty stated, “the Sea dom inates Brazil.”3 In March 1646, Camarão responded to the allegations made by Poty. Camarão pointed out to Poty that the Dutch would soon abandon their coastal forts in which they were currently besieged by forces that con sisted of Portuguese colonists, free blacks, and indigenous allies. Camarão also suggested that Dutch envoys had recently visited King João IV in Portugal to negotiate a possible surrender of the Dutch possessions in Brazil. Camarão further reminded Poty that the Dutch had provoked the Portuguese and Indians in Maranhão in northern Brazil several years ear lier, resulting in the expulsion of the Dutch from that region. Although Camarão’s references to Dutch offers of surrendering Brazil to João IV were misinformed (in reality the Portuguese were negotiating to surren der Northeastern Brazil to the Dutch), Camarão’s arguments demonstrate that the Potiguar leader, like his counterpart Poty, recognized that the Dutch-Portuguese struggle for Brazil would be decided by developments in Europe as much as by events in Brazil.4

Pernambucanos (Rio de Janeiro, 1913), 149–153 and in his “Dous indios notaveis e parentes proximos. Pedro Poty e Phelippe Camarão” Revista do Instituto do Ceará 26 (1912), 61–82. See also Theodoro Sampaio, “Cartas tupis dos Camerões,” Revista do Instituto Arqueologico Pernambucano 65/70 (1907), 281–305. Sampaio found that the Tupi translations by Eduardius were remarkably strong. The ethnolinguistic value of the letters is noted by Beatriz G. Dantas, José Augusto L. Sampaio, and Maria Rosario G. De Carvalho, “Os povos indigenas no Nordeste brasileiro: um esboço histórico,” in História dos indios no Brasil, Manuela Carneiro de Cunha, et al (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1992), 431–456, esp. 440. 3 Poty, Copye, van een Brasiliaensen Brieff, (quotations). 4 OWIC, LPB, inv. nr. 62: Letter of Antonio Camarão, March 28, 1646 (quotations).

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The correspondence between Camarão and Poty suggests that the Atlantic World for these two politically astute indigenous leaders was not an abstract phenomenon far removed from their concerns. On the con trary, the Dutch-Portuguese rivalries in Brazil, West Africa, and elsewhere in the South Atlantic dramatically shaped the lives and fortunes of Camarão and Poty. Indeed, the missives penned by the two men indicate the pernicious impact European rivalries had on indigenous peoples in the Americas. As Claudio Saunt has recently demonstrated in a case study of the Choctaws and Chickasaws in the (North) American South during the eighteenth century, indigenous peoples were often drawn into impe rial conflicts as proxies, fighting deadly wars on behalf of European powers. Although these imperial conflicts did give indigenous peoples some leverage, ultimately the wars between European powers under mined aboriginal independence by bringing devastation, diseases, and dependency to indigenous communities.5 At first sight, the Potiguars of Northeastern Brazil share some of the same characteristics as the Choctaws and Chickasaws in Saunt’s study. Like the Choctaws and Chickasaws, the Potiguars had become divided in the Dutch-Portuguese war for control of the sugar-producing areas of Northeastern Brazil, with one faction fight ing on the side of the Portuguese and the majority of Potiguars, including Poty, siding with the Dutch. To view Camarão and Poty as leaders of a divided people fighting for survival differs from most existing studies about them. Especially Camarão has often been portrayed as a proto-national hero by Brazilian historians because he successfully fought alongside Luso-Brazilian colonists and free blacks against the Dutch invaders. Poty, traditionally described as a traitor by Brazilian historians, has recently been characterized by scholars of Dutch expansion in Brazil as a Protestant martyr or as a tragic go-between living in two worlds. No study so far has analyzed Poty and Camarão as leaders of an indigenous nation torn apart by the Dutch-Portuguese wars for Northeastern Brazil.6

5 Claudio Saunt, “‘Our Indians’: European Empires and the History of the Native American South,” in The Atlantic in Global History, 1500–2000, Jorge Canizares-Esguerra and Erik R. Seeman, eds., foreword by Thomas Bender (Upper Saddle, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007), 61–75. 6 The most reliable study of Camarão, partially written in the heroic tradition, remains José Gonsalves de Mello, D. Antônio Filipe Camarão: Capitão-mor dos índios da costa do nordeste do Brasil (Recife: Universidade do Recife, 1954). The image of Camarão as proto- national hero originated with the nineteenth-century Brazilian historian F.A. Varnhagen in his multivolume História Geral do Brasil. For a recent study, see Ronald Raminelli,

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At the same time, the Potiguars and their leaders Camarão and Poty also shaped the Dutch-Portuguese wars. Indigenous peoples played an influential, at times indispensable role as military allies in the Luso-Dutch conflict, supplying vital manpower, intelligence, and logistical support to the two European powers. As we will see, the Dutch as well as the Portuguese granted considerable privileges to Camarão and Poty in order to secure their support. On the contested borderland of Northeastern Brazil where both the Dutch and the Portuguese were often dependent on the support from local groups such as indigenous peoples and Africans, indigenous leaders like Camarão and Poty were able to manipulate Dutch-Portuguese rivalries to resolve their struggle for power over who would be the main leader of the Potiguar nation. As Paul Cohen has recently reminded us, for indigenous peoples the creation of an Atlantic World controlled by European maritime powers did not always dominate the concerns of indigenous peoples. Many aboriginal communities such as the Potiguars continued to play an influential role in geographic spaces contested between European powers. Far from being marginalized by European colonialism, indigenous powers such as the Potiguars pursued their own agendas which included preserving political and cultural independence.7 The divergent viewpoints of Saunt and Cohen point to a dilemma for historians interpreting the lives of Camarão and Poty: were the two Potiguars tragic leaders of a divided people or were they shrewdly able to use the Dutch-Portuguese rivalry to their own and their peo ple’s advantage? In this essay I seek a middle ground for this problem of interpretation, suggesting that the answer is situated somewhere in between the views of Saunt and Cohen. While Camarão and Poty served as loyal allies of respectively the Portuguese and the Dutch, they were not proxies who could be ordered around at will by the European powers.

“Honras e malogros: Trajetória da família Camarão, 1630–1730,” in Império de varias faces. Relaçãoes de Poder no Mundo Ibérico da Epoca Moderna, eds. R. Vainfas and Rodrigo Bentes Monteiro (São Paulo: Alameda, 2009), 175–191. For Poty as a Protestant martyr, see Schalkwijk, Reformed Church, 207–211. For Poty as go-between, see my dissertation, For the Peace and Well-Being of the Country: Intercultural Mediators and Dutch-Indian Relations in New Netherland and Dutch Brazil, 1600–1664 (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Notre Dame, 2003), esp. chapter 3. 7 Paul Cohen, “Was there an Amerindian Atlantic? Reflections on the limits of a histo riographical concept,” History of European Ideas 34 (2008), 388–410.

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Diverging Paths, 1600–1635

Camarão and Poty were born during a tumultuous time in Potiguar history. Based on later testimonies made by the two individuals them selves we know that Camarão was born in the captaincy or province of Pernambuco in 1600 or 1601 while Poty was born, probably in the neighboring captaincy of Paraíba, in 1608.8 In the 1590s, after several decades of fierce warfare the Portuguese and their indigenous allies finally defeated the Potiguars, who originally inhabited the provinces of Paraíba and Rio Grande do Norte.9 While most Potiguars grudg ingly acknowledged Portuguese colonial rule and resettled in aldeias or mission villages, several thousand Potiguars fled to Ceará, a province in northern Brazil. Leaders soon emerged among the Potiguars in Paraíba and Rio Grande who were willing to collaborate with colonial officials for motives that varied from gaining prestige to protecting their communities.10 One prominent Potiguar family that was willing to cooperate with the Portuguese was the Camarão/Poty family. The name ‘Poty’ or ‘Poti’ was derived from the name Potiguars, which translated into Portuguese as ‘camarão’ or shrimp, one of the main food sources of the Potiguars.11 There are references to individual leaders named Camarão among the Potiguars since at least the 1590s. In 1599, a Jesuit missionary referred to a Potiguar leader named Camarão-Grande (‘Great-Shrimp’) as negotiating with Portuguese officials in Rio Grande. His title and function suggests that he served as paramount chief of all Potiguar communities in Rio Grande. In 1606, Camarão-Grande accommodated Portuguese demands to receive

8 The place and date of birth of Camarão is discussed in detail by De Mello, Camarão, 7–16. Poty declared himself to be 20 years old in 1628 when he was being interviewed by a WIC official in the Dutch Republic, see Suiker, Verfhout & Tabak: Het Braziliaanse handboek van Johannes de Laet, ed. B.N. Teensma (Zutphen: Walburg, 2009), 32–33, 68. 9 John Hemming, Red Gold: The Conquest of the Brazilian Indians, 1500–1760 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1978), 161–173, contains a detailed account of the military confrontations between the Potiguars and Portuguese. See also Regina Célia Gonçalves, Guerras e açúcares: política e economia na Capitania da Parayba, 1585–1630 (Bauru, São Paulo: Edusc, 2007), esp. chapter 2. 10 Ernst van den Boogaart and Rebecca Parker Brienen, eds., Information from Ceará from Georg Marcgraf (June-August 1639), Dutch Brazil 1 (Petrópolis: Index, 2002), 33. 11 Frans Moonen, Os Indios Potiguara da Paraíba, second augmented digital edition (Recife, 2008), 3 (moonen_indios_potiguara_pb_2008.pdf; last accessed June 2011); Hemming, Red Gold, 71. It should be noted that there is no standard spelling of Potiguar. In Portuguese the term used is often Potiguara.

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Jesuit missionaries.12 Although it is uncertain whether Camarão and Poty were truly cousins according to European kinship definitions, the promi nent status of both men and their rivalry strongly suggests that both men belonged to the same Poty/Camarão lineage whose members played a central role in Potiguar politics during the seventeenth century. At the same time, a centralized form of coercive leadership did not exist among the Potiguars. As was typical among the Tupi-speaking peoples of Brazil, each community was headed by a hereditary male chief whose political powers were limited to uniting the village through his oratorical skills. Only in times of war did multiple Potiguar villages unite and decide on a single paramount chief to lead them on the military campaign. Because of their similarities in surnames to the chief named Camarão-Grande it is possible that Camarão and Poty belonged to a lineage who traditionally occupied the office of paramount chief among the Potiguars.13 Indisputable is that both men received a Catholic education at an aldeia or mission village. These Jesuit and Franciscan mission towns had been established in the aftermath of the Portuguese conquests of Paraíba and Rio Grande. The main goal of the missions was to civilize the Potiguars according to the standards of Christian European civilization. By concen trating the Potiguars in model Christian villages the Jesuits and Franciscans also wanted to protect the defeated Potiguars from being exploited as a cheap labour force by the moradores, the Portuguese settlers. Although the Crown officially supported the Catholic missions, it was afraid to obstruct the moradores since the sugar industry was greatly dependent upon a constant supply of slaves and cheap labourers. The result of the inconsistent Crown policies was that many Potiguars were forced to work in the engenhos, the sugar mill complexes that were established along the fertile river valleys of Pernambuco and Paraíba.14 As members of a prominent lineage it is unlikely that Camarão and Poty were put to work in the engenhos. The available evidence indicates

12 Gonsalves de Mello, Camarão, 15 (Camarão in 1599), Hemming, Red Gold, 207 (Camarão in 1606). 13 For traditional Tupi leadership, to which the Potiguars belonged, see John M. Monteiro, “Invaded Societies: 16th-Century Coastal Brazil,” in The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas, volume III: South America, Part 1, eds. Frank Salomon and Stuart B. Schwartz (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 982–983. 14 Stuart B. Schwartz, “A Commonwealth within Itself: The Early Brazilian Sugar Industry, 1550–1670,” in Tropical Babylons: Sugar and the Making of the Atlantic World, 1450– 1680, ed. Stuart B. Schwartz (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 158–200. For Indian slavery, see Georg Thomas, Die Portugiesische Indianerpolitik in Brasilien, 1500– 1640 (Berlin: Colloquium Verlag, 1968), esp. 27–40.

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that Camarão and Poty were taught by Catholic missionaries to follow in the footsteps of their ancestor Grande-Camarão to become loyal Christian vassals. As their Christian names reveal, Antônio Camarão and Pedro Poty were baptized. For both men, baptism may have been viewed as a ceremo nial and spiritual aspect of the Potiguar relationship with the Portuguese. In addition to being exposed to Catholic indoctrination, Camarão and Poty were also taught how to read and write in the Portuguese and Tupi languages, the latter one which had been made into a written one by Jesuits in the late sixteenth century. While fostering literacy was primar ily intended to teach the Potiguars to read the Bible and become civilized, creating a cadre of indigenous leaders who could communicate in Portu guese was also useful for secular colonial officials. Shortly after defeating the Potiguars in the late 1590s the Portuguese did not hesitate in recruit ing hundreds of Potiguars as allies in wars against other indigenous peo ples, runaway slaves, and European pirates. Some of the most reliable Potiguar fighters, which included relatives of Camarão, were resettled in Pernambuco during the early seventeenth century. Poty, meanwhile, resided in a mission town in Paraíba.15 The Dutch invasions of Northeastern Brazil in the 1620s radically altered the lives of both men. In 1621, the West India Company (WIC) had been chartered by the States-General, the assembly of the seven United Provinces that made up the Dutch Republic, with the intention of concen trating all Dutch trade and colonization in the Atlantic into the hands of one joint-stock company. After the accumulation of enough capital for operations, the Heeren XIX, the central board of nineteen directors of the WIC, launched an ambitious attack on Salvador de Bahia, the capital of Portuguese Brazil, to take control of the rich sugar-producing colony. Although the WIC attack on Salvador de Bahia in 1624 was successful, the Spanish and Portuguese quickly organized an expedition that recaptured the city one year later. A WIC fleet sent to resupply Bahia arrived too late and was forced to turn back. On its way to the Caribbean, the fleet made a stopover at the Bahia de Traição (‘Bay of Treason’), on the border of Paraíba and Rio Grande. The unexpected arrival of the large Dutch fleet at the Bay of Treason caused great consternation. While the settlers and missionaries fled, the Potiguars, with the young Poty among them, received the Dutch

15 On the Jesuit missions, see Serafim Leite, História da Companhia de Jesus no Brasil. Tômo 5: Da Baia ao Nordeste (Rio de Janeiro and Lisbon: Instituto Nacional do Livro and Livraria Portugalia, 1945), 491–503. The Portuguese policy of transforming Potiguar head men into loyal vassals is emphasized by Raminelli, “Honras e malogros.”

220 mark meuwese fleet favorably. The Potiguars welcomed the Dutch because they were angry about being forced to work in the engenhos. During the Dutch visit several Potiguar leaders from Ceará were also present, presumably to per suade other Potiguars to join them. The Potiguars of the Bay of Treason may also have perceived the Dutch as successors to French dyewood trad ers with whom they had been allied until the late 1590s. The Potiguars quickly demonstrated their friendship to the Dutch, supplying them with food and joining them for a military expedition against the Portuguese.16 After the Portuguese organized a counterattack the WIC fleet hastily left the Bay of Treason. The Potiguars greatly feared Portuguese reprisals and pleaded with the Dutch to let them aboard. Eventually a group of thir teen Potiguars was taken along by the Company fleet. Among the Potiguar travelers was the seventeen year-old Poty as well as several Potiguar lead ers from Ceará, including Gaspar Paraupaba and his son Antônio. Poty and his companions arrived in the Republic in the fall of 1625. Because the Heeren XIX viewed the thirteen Potiguars as valuable informants and allies for a future expedition to Brazil, Poty and his companions were taught Dutch. While eight of the Potiguars were housed in Amsterdam, five oth ers were lodged in the northern Dutch city of Groningen. During their resi dency in the Republic the Potiguars also received instruction in the Protestant catechism. In 1628, Poty and several of the other Potiguars were interviewed by Kiliaen van Rensselaer, one of the WIC directors from Amsterdam. During this meeting Poty and his companions supplied a wealth of geographic, ethnographic, and strategic information to Van Rensselaer regarding the coast of Paraíba, Rio Grande, and Ceará.17 One year after Poty’s meeting with Van Rensselaer the WIC had accu mulated enough capital for a second invasion of Brazil. This time the WIC set its sights on Pernambuco, the province with the largest number of sugar mills. In February 1630, a large expeditionary force landed outside Olinda, the capital of Pernambuco. Because of effective Luso-Brazilian resistance the WIC occupation force withdrew to Recife, the harbour of

16 On the WIC and its attack on Salvador de Bahia, see Henk den Heijer, De geschiedenis van de WIC, 3rd rev. ed. (Zutphen: Walburg, 2002), 28–39. For the WIC fleet at the Bay of Treason, see S.P. L’Honoré Naber, ed. Het Iaerlijck Verhael van Joannes de Laet, 1624–1626, Linschoten Vereeniging 34 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1931), 85–92. Hemming, Red Gold, 598-note 286, discusses the movement of Potiguars from Paraiba to Ceará in the 1620s due to the deplorable treatment by the moradores. 17 For the meeting between Van Rensselaer and Poty, see “Journeaux et Nouvelles Tirées de la Bouche de Marins Holandais et Portugais de la Navigation aux Antilles et sur les Côtes du Brésil,” E.J. Bondam, ed. and transl., Annaes da Bibliotheca Nacional (Rio de Janeiro) 29 (1907), 171–177; see also Suiker, Verfhout & Tabak, 32–33, 68–78.

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Olinda. While three of the oldest Potiguar informants accompanied the invasion fleet, Poty arrived later. He and the other Potiguar informants quickly assumed their duties as interpreters for the WIC. In the first half of 1631 Poty interrogated Marica Latira, a Potiguar from Rio Grande. Latira had traveled the great distance to Recife and told Poty that the indigenous peoples of Rio Grande were eager to establish an alliance with the Dutch. Poty wrote a small report of the meeting with Latira in the Dutch language, signed off as “Your obedient servant” and forwarded his missive to WIC officials.18 While Poty supplied his linguistic services to the Dutch, Camarão emerged as a highly skilled guerrilla fighter. Shortly after the landing of WIC troops in Pernambuco, Governor Mathias de Albuquerque desper ately appealed for military help. One of the first responses came from the Jesuit missionary Manoel de Morais who arrived with a contingent of Potiguar and Tobajara warriors recruited from local aldeias. Among the indigenous fighters was Camarão who quickly became a valuable com mander. Camarão and his men were so important in the initial stages of the insurgency against the WIC invaders that colonial officials waved the long-standing Iberian prohibition against the arming of indigenous peo ples with firearms to Camarão and his men. In 1632, 100 of the 300 indige nous fighters under Camarão’s command were using muskets in their confrontations with the WIC soldiers. Thanks to the ambushes of Camarão and his men the Portuguese were able to pin down the Dutch in Recife for several years. The WIC soldiers, unaccustomed to fighting in the tropics, were terrified of Camarão and his fighters.19 News of the valiant exploits of Camarão soon reached the Spanish King Philip IV who ruled Brazil as the monarch of the unified Spanish- Portuguese Crown. In a letter addressed to Mathias de Albuquerque in May 1633, Philip IV expressed his thanks to the Pernambuco governor for keeping the indigenous peoples of his province “obedient and calm” in the wake of the Dutch invasion. To thank the Potiguars and Tobajaras for their

18 Den Heijer, WIC, 39–41 (attack on Pernambuco); Suiker, Verfhout & Tabak, 28, 69 (Potiguars at Cape Verde Islands); Poty’s report and quotation can be found in the Dutch National Archives (DNA), Archive of the Old WIC, Letters and Papers from Brazil (LPB), inv. nr. 49: Item 118: Letter from Pieter Poty (undated, 1631). 19 De Mello, Camarão, 17–18; Evaldo Cabral de Mello, Olinda Restaurada: Guerra e açú- car no Nordeste, 1630–1654, 2nd rev. ed. (Rio de Janeiro: Topbooks, 2007), 284 (firearms). For the strange career of De Morais, who would later collaborate with the Dutch but in 1645 switched back to the Portuguese camp, see Charles R. Boxer, The Dutch in Brazil, 1624–1654 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), 267–269.

222 mark meuwese loyal support the king suggested that Albuquerque distribute cotton cloths, mirrors, knives, and combs among them. “Antonio Phelippe Camarao de Nacao Petiguar,” for being the commander and leader of all the Indians of Pernambuco, as well as for being a good Christian, was awarded by Philip IV with special honours. These included membership in the Order of Christ, and the title of ‘Capitão Mor dos indios petigares’ (Captain-general of the Potiguar Indians). Both offices and titles also came with promises of monetary rewards. Camarão even obtained the privi lege to create a coat of arms, indicating that the Iberian colonizers viewed the Camarão/Poty family as indigenous nobility. Two years later, Camarão even received the noble title of Dom. The rewards and offices bestowed upon Camarão were quite generous and prestigious and reflected the king’s serious concern for maintaining the loyalty of the indigenous peo ples of Brazil as strategic allies in the struggle against the Dutch. Camarão was eager to present himself as a loyal vassal of the Spanish Crown. In the early 1630s, even before obtaining the noble title and membership in the Order of Christ, Camarão adopted as his middle name ‘Felipe’, in honour of Philip IV.20 Despite the effective guerrilla tactics of Camarão, the WIC steadily expanded its influence over Northeastern Brazil. Thanks to Domingos Calabar, a local mulatto who was familiar with the terrain around Recife, the WIC army learned how to counter the guerrillas. Moreover, while the WIC continued to send regular reinforcements to Recife, Governor Albuquerque only sporadically received military aid from the Spanish Crown. Having secured naval superiority, WIC expeditions were able to capture most of the Portuguese forts and harbours in Pernambuco, Itamaracá, and Rio Grande. When the WIC took the coastal fort of Paraíba in January 1635, the Jesuit Manoel de Morais, sensing an imminent vic tory for the Dutch, surprised everyone by aligning himself with the Dutch Protestants. As De Morais switched sides he brought with him 1,600 Potiguars who had fought on the side of the Portuguese up till then. This development gave the WIC war effort a major boost as it now had access to a large number of military allies who were familiar with the terrain and who were skilled in irregular warfare. According to Manuel Calado, a Por tuguese priest from Pernambuco who published an eyewitness account in 1648, the “ungrateful Indios Pitiguares and Tapuyas formed the cause and

20 The letter of king Philip IV is reprinted in De Mello, Camarão, 19–20. See also Documentos historicos, 1637–1639: Patentes, provisões e alvarás (Rio de Janeiro: Bibliotheca Nacional, 1930) vol. XVII, 290–291; Raminelli, “Honras e malogros,” 177–178.

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the principal instrument of the Dutch to take possession of all of the Capitania of Pernambuco and to maintain it the whole time.”21

Converging Paths, 1636–1650

In 1636 the Dutch-Portuguese war for Brazil entered a new stage, with the Hispanic-Portuguese forces put on the defensive but with the WIC unable to firmly defeat their enemy. Out of necessity the battered Hispanic- Portuguese forces resorted to guerrilla attacks in which Camarão and his experienced fighters played a prominent role. To the dismay of the Dutch, the guerrillas especially targeted engenhos and sugarcane fields that had recently come under control of the WIC. Also alarming for the WIC was that Camarão attempted to persuade his fellow Potiguars to return to the Portuguese side. Camarão, encouraged by the prestige bestowed upon him by the Spanish Crown, increasingly viewed himself as leader of all the Potiguars, including those who were now fighting alongside the Dutch. In a missive sent to the Heeren XIX in mid-August 1636, the political council ors based in Recife reported that they had evacuated the aldeias and had sent all the inhabitants to the vicinity of WIC forts so that Camarão would be unable to establish contact with the Potiguars who were allied with the Dutch.22 In early 1637, Camarão’s position was weakened after the newly arrived Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen captured Porto Calvo, the last remaining stronghold of the Hispanic-Portuguese forces in Pernambuco. This military setback forced the Habsburg troops to flee across the São Francisco River to Salvador de Bahia, leaving Camarão and his guerrillas isolated. Soon after the Dutch capture of Porto Calvo almost one hundred ‘Brasilianen’, the Dutch term for Potiguars and other mission Indians, from Camarão’s camp defected to the Dutch because they wanted to return to their old villages that were now firmly in WIC hands. The Potiguars told Johan Maurits that there were even more of their people hiding in the woods, waiting to switch to the Dutch side when it was safe to do so.

21 Iaerlyck Verhael Joannes de Laet, ed. Naber, Linschoten-Vereeniging 40: 128–131 (De Morais switching sides and bringing 1,600 Potiguars); Hemming, Red Gold, 297; Manuel Calado do Salvador, O Valeroso Lucideno Lisbon, 1648 (reprint São Paulo: Ediçóes Cultura, 1943), part I: 71 (quotation). For biographical information on De Morais, see Charles R. Boxer, The Dutch in Brazil, 1624–1654 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), 267–269. 22 De Mello, Camarão, 23–24 (guerrilla attacks); Den Heijer, WIC, 41–43 (defeat of Hispanic-Portuguese army and guerrilla war against engenhos); OWIC, Inv. nr. 51: LPB, Letter from political councillors to Heeren XIX, 12 August 1636 (evacuation of aldeias).

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Maurits promised to treat any Indians who had fought in Camarão’s army leniently. In July 1637, a defected Potiguar community of 36 men and 30 women under their headman named Captain Goija Marcos received from WIC officials a quantity of lijnwaet, a cheap type of linen that was a highly desired commodity among the mission Indians.23 To put more pressure on the fleeing guerrillas, Maurits dispatched Colonel Sigismund von Schoppe with a large contingent of Potiguars and other mission Indians on a counter-insurgency raid south of the São Francisco River in the fall of 1637. In December of the same year WIC offi cials also put the steep price of 1,800 Dutch guilders on Camarão’s head, indicating how valuable the Dutch thought Camarão was for the Hispanic- Portuguese war effort. During the counter-insurgency campaign Poty commanded a unit of Potiguars consisting of 138 men and 40 women, the latter serving as carriers and suppliers of food. This was the first docu mented occasion when Poty and Camarão confronted each other on the battlefield. The campaign in which Poty participated was a success as the Hispanic-Portuguese forces, including Camarão, were forced to retreat fur ther southward.24 Hard-pressed by the WIC army and its indigenous allies, the demoral ized Camarão briefly explored the possibility of defecting to the Dutch. In May and June 1638, Camarão dispatched some of his relatives to WIC offi cials. The envoys related to Dutch officials that Camarão had fallen out with the senior commanders of the Hispanic-Portuguese forces, presum ably about which strategy to pursue in the face of declining military for tunes. The envoys also told Dutch officials that Camarão and his Potiguars wanted to return to their villages. At the end of the meeting, which did not lead to any decisions, Maurits distributed shirts, linen pants, and a hat to the envoys as a sign of goodwill. He also asked the envoys to carry with them a letter, presumably written in Portuguese, addressed to Camarão, inviting him to abandon the Portuguese. Soon after the meeting, however, Camarão reconciled his differences with Hispanic-Portuguese command ers and the Potiguar chief resumed his hostilities against the WIC and its Potiguar allies. Since most of the Potiguars were now sided with the Dutch,

23 LPB, inv. nr. 52, August 21, 1637: missive from Maurits to the Heeren XIX (100 Brasilianen); OWIC, Daily Minutes of the colonial government in Recife (DM), inv. nr. 68: July 13, 1637 (group of Potiguars switching sides receiving lijnwaet). 24 DM, inv. nr. 68: September 29, 1637 (Poty campaigning with Von Schoppe). For Von Schoppe’s campaign, see Boxer, Dutch in Brazil, 85. For the price on Camarão, see De Mello, Camarão, 29.

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Camarão increasingly recruited fighters from other indigenous communi ties, such as Tapuya Indians who lived along the São Francisco River.25 While Camarão continued his guerrilla attacks against the Dutch, WIC officials increasingly viewed Poty as an unreliable leader. In August 1639, Duarte Gomes, a Portuguese settler who had accepted Dutch rule, informed Maurits and the Recife councilors that “Pieter potij, Capt. of the Brazilians is not capable of government.” The blunt accusation referred to the inability or more likely unwillingness of Poty to supply an adequate number of Potiguars to the sugar mill of Gomes. Although the WIC pro hibited the enslavement of indigenous people in order to attract more Indians to its cause, the Dutch colonial government did encourage mis sion Indians to work in the sugar fields and mills as long as they were prop erly compensated. To this end the indigenous leaders of aldeias functioned as brokers who were expected to supply workers to the senhores de engenhos. Since the revival of the sugar industry in Brazil was essential for the WIC, Dutch officials took the complaints of Gomes seriously. Maurits and the councilors subsequently instructed colonel Doncker, the senior offi cial in charge of indigenous affairs, to put forward aldeia leaders who were more reliable than Poty.26 Three years later, in 1642, Poty again was singled out by Maurits and the political council as a flawed leader. In a special meeting with Maurits and the councilors in February 1642, Johannes Listry, the successor of Doncker, concluded that many of the aldeia captains had failed in their tasks of keeping order in the mission towns. Listry stated that “among our Brazilian officers in the aldeias are occurring daily great disorder and errors, because they have in common with their people to do nothing on a daily basis except to produce and consume strong drinks, and as a result they have no leadership skills and neither can they discipline their people.” Listry men tioned Poty as a chronic drunkard “because he seldom or never is sober.” One month later Poty was called to a special meeting with Maurits and the councilors, in which he was threatened with deportation. Poty reportedly “promised to behave himself in such a way that the Council would not encounter any more problems with him.” Despite these promises, in August 1642 the Dutch Reformed minister Thomas Kemp who worked

25 OWIC, LPB, inv. nr. 53: Missive from Maurits and political councillors to the Heeren XIX, June 29, 1638; DM, inv. nr. 68: June 8, 1638. See also De Mello, Camarão, 34–35. For Camarão and the Tapuyas from the São Francisco River, see De Mello, Camarão, 35. 26 DM, inv. nr. 68: August 23, 1639.

226 mark meuwese among the mission Indians in Paraíba, complained about the “improper conduct of the Capt. Pieter Pottij,”27 Although it is not clear what minister Kemp meant with ‘improper con duct’, presumably the accusation referred to the consumption of European alcohol and indigenously fermented drinks by the Potiguars. Among the Potiguars and other Tupi peoples it was customary to consume alcoholic beverages during communal ceremonies. Additionally, Poty may have allowed the continuation of traditional dances and ceremonies in the aldeia of which he was the headman. In September 1644 the assembly of Dutch Reformed ministers in Brazil complained to colonial officials about the widespread persistence of these practices among the mission Indians. Poty’s commitment to traditional Potiguar cultural practices after having lived in the Republic for five years indicates that he did not become the model convert to Dutch Protestant civilization that the WIC directors had hoped for. Clearly, for Poty, despite his role as a go-between for the Dutch, the maintenance of traditional cultural practices was a serious concern. In May 1644, the political councilors in Recife concluded that “Pieter Potti and Antonio Paraupaba, whose education in the fatherland was so expensive for the WIC, live in as savage and wicked manner as the other Brazilians.”28 Despite their strong reservations, the political councilors continued to depend on Poty to maintain stable relations with the mission Indians. After a smallpox epidemic had devastated the population of the mission villages in 1641–1642, many of the Potiguars fled the aldeias, depriving the WIC of a major military auxiliary and workforce.29 Additionally, in 1643 the Potiguars and other indigenous peoples in Ceará forced the Dutch from that province after WIC personnel had resorted to the enslavement of Indians in Ceará. To make matters worse, Portuguese settlers and Indians rose up in rebellion against the WIC garrison on the island of São Luis de Maranhão. Although the WIC had established a temporary truce with the Portuguese in Brazil in 1642 following the restoration of the Portuguese kingdom in 1641, the two rebellions in Maranhão and Ceará came at a difficult time for the WIC. The occupation of Brazil had become

27 DM, inv. nr. 69: February 17, 1642 (special meeting); DM, inv. nr. 69: March 25, 1642 (special hearing of Poty); DM, inv. nr. 69: August 2, 1642 (complaint from Kemp). All the quotations are taken from these sources. 28 DM, inv. nr. 70: September 20, 1644 (ministers complaint about mission Indians); LPB, inv. nr. 59: missive from the High Council to the Heeren XIX, May 10, 1644 (last quotation). 29 DM, inv. nr. 69: February 17, 1642 (aldeias being abandoned); see also Schalkwijk, Reformed Church, 170–171.

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so expensive for the WIC that the Heeren XIX recalled the lavishly spend ing Johan Maurits, who lived as a princely ruler in Recife, as well as most of its soldiers in 1644 as cost-saving measures. To prevent further indige nous unrest, the WIC promised the Potiguars to protect their freedom more firmly. As part of the reforms Poty was appointed regidor or senior administrator of all mission Indians in Paraíba in April 1645. To signify his new status as colonial magistrate Poty even received a personal secretary who was the son of a Dutch Reformed minister.30 Unfortunately for the WIC, a major revolt of moradores against Dutch colonial rule broke out in Pernambuco in mid-June 1645. The rebellion was planned by moradores who had accumulated enormous debts with the WIC to buy African slaves from the Company for their engenhos. The moradores were also inspired by the successful uprising in Maranhão as well as by the correct belief that the Portuguese Viceroy in Salvador de Bahia, despite the truce concluded with the WIC in 1642, would supply military support. In a clever plan Viceroy Antonio Teles da Silva sent Camarão and his men into Dutch-controlled territory to pursue Henrique Dias, a mulatto commander of a unit of free blacks. Anticipating Dutch protests, Camarão was instructed to tell Dutch officials that Dias was a rebel who had to be brought back to Bahia. In reality, Camarão and Dias traveled to the sugar mill district outside Recife to meet with the rebels. The plan was a great success and, thanks to the weakened military state of Dutch Brazil, within several weeks the rebel forces had gained control of most of Pernambuco.31 To counter the rebels the Dutch colonial government desperately called on its indigenous allies. Poty and his Potiguars heeded the request, espe cially because they feared punishment by the Portuguese. The Potiguars never forgot that the Portuguese had killed and enslaved many of their people living around the Bay of Treason after the departure of the WIC

30 Den Heijer, WIC, 48–49 (restoration of Portugal, withdrawal of Maurits and WIC troops); see also Boxer, Dutch in Brazil, 100–111. DM, inv. nr. 70: April 12, 1645 (appointment of Poty); DM, inv. nr. 71: February 17, 1647 (son of minister as secretary of Poty since past 21 months). Caspar Barlaeus, Nederlandsch Brazilie onder het Bewind van Johan Maurits, Grave van Nassau, 1637–1644, transl. and ed. S.P. L’Honore Naber (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1923), 312–313 (Maranhão revolt), 369 (Ceará revolt). For the administrative reforms in April 1645, see my article “Subjects or Allies: The Contentious Status of the Tupi Indians in Dutch Brazil, 1625–1654,” in Caroline A. Williams, ed. Bridging the Early Modern Atlantic World: People, Products, and Practices on the Move (Ashgate, UK, 2009), 113–130. 31 Den Heijer, WIC, 49–50 (background to the rebellion); De Mello, Camarão, 36 (Viceroy plan); OWIC, LPB, inv. nr. 60: Missive from Moucheron to the High Council in Recife, June 8, 1645, discusses rumours about Camarão and Dias infiltrating behind Dutch lines.

228 mark meuwese fleet from the Bay in 1625. Moreover, in 1639–1640, the Dutch intercepted letters from Hispanic-Portuguese commanders instructing their forces, including those commanded by Camarão, not to spare Dutch or indige nous captives.32 With no illusions about their treatment by the rebels, Poty and the Potiguars fought for their survival. The fears of the Potiguars for the rebels proved correct, however, as captured Potiguars were swiftly executed by the Portuguese on several occasions. One of the victims included a relative of Camarão who, like Poty, had aligned himself with the Dutch. The rebels justified their actions by claiming that the executed Indians were rebellious subjects of the Portuguese King, a crime that was punishable by death.33 Both Poty and Camarão actively participated in the chaotic and brutal fighting in the summer of 1645. Poty and about one hundred Potiguar soldiers joined a unit of European Company soldiers to fight the rebels in Pernambuco. On July 24, 1645, Camarão participated in a major rebel assault on Fort Orange, the strategic Dutch stronghold on the island of Itamaracá. More than 1,500 Potiguars and other mission Indians had retreated to this island to bring their women and children to safety shortly after the outbreak of the rebellion. Largely due to the Potiguar defenders the rebels were beaten back with heavy losses after seven hours of fierce fighting. Camarão himself was wounded during this battle.34 Unable to convince the Potiguars to switch sides by force, Camarão initiated an unusual letter-writing campaign to persuade his kinsmen to abandon the Dutch. From October 1645 to March 1646, Camarão and several other prominent Potiguar leaders such as Dom Diogo Pinheiro Camarão, a relative of Antônio, wrote at least ten letters in Tupi addressed to Potiguars aligned with the Dutch. Poty was the recipient of most of the letters, indicating that he was seen by Camarão and his associates as a prominent leader. In a letter signed by Antônio Camarão and dated October 4, 1645, Camarão reminded Poty that “thou had betrayed your brother,” presumably a reference to Camarão himself. But Poty was also told to have betrayed “your grandfather the old man Ammun, your father

32 Boxer, Dutch in Brazil, 92–99 (intercepted letters). 33 Calado, Valeroso Lucideno, part II, 59, 79, cited in De Mello, Camarão, 37. For these massacres and Portuguese justifications, see Johan Nieuhof, Gedenkweerdige Brasiliaaense Zee- en Lantreize (Amsterdam: Jacob Meurs, 1671), 117–121. See also OWIC, LPB, inv. nr. 60: Testimony of three Brasilianen (mission Indians) to the High Council, August 30, 1645 (massacre of mission Indians by rebels). 34 The battle of Itamaricá is discussed in De Mello, Camarão, 38; Nieuhof, Nauwkeurige Beschrijving, 75, 151–152.

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Jaguarani, and all other friends” for siding with the Dutch. In Tupi oratory it was customary to refer to ancestors. By suggesting that Poty had betrayed his parents and grandparents, Camarão appealed to Poty’s identity as a Potiguar who was expected to respect his ancestors.35 In another letter addressed to Poty and signed by Dom Diogo Pinheiro Camarão, Poty is urged to abandon the Dutch because the latter are here tics. In the summary translation by the Dutch minister Eduardus, Diogo Camarão pleads “Senhor Pedro Poti, because thou are a very good friend of mine, leave that place that is like the fire of the devils, don’t you know that you are a Christian.” In a third letter addressed to Poty, dated October 31, and signed by Diogo da Costa, another indigenous leader fighting on the Portuguese side, Poty is referred to as “my brother.” Da Costa writes that he is waiting for a sign from Poty to abandon the Dutch, “that evil people”. Like Antônio Camarão, Da Costa appeals to Poty’s ancestors who had been loyal to the Portuguese, such as “your brother Lippe Tocajau, who has died, and our mother who has died.”36 Poty finally answered the letters by addressing one to Antônio Camarão in which he writes to be ashamed “on behalf of his family and Nation” to have received “so many letters suggesting treachery and Godless disloy alty.” Poty ridicules and strongly rejects all the letters from his fellow Potiguars who are fighting with the Portuguese. Poty emphasizes, “that I am a soldier, loyal to my [Dutch] Lords, for who I will live and die.” Poty contrasts the Dutch, with whom the Potiguars “live as brothers” with the “Godless” Portuguese who treat the Indians as slaves. Poty ends the letter by inviting Camarão to join him on the Dutch side. He even inquires about the wounds that Camarão received at Itamaricá, expressing hope that his relative has recovered. Poty concludes the letter by telling Camarão to come over to his side soon and not to write him anymore. He warns Camarão that he will suffer if he continues the war on the side of the “Godless scoundrels” who have “tyrannically killed our ancestors.”37 Neither Poty nor Antônio Camarão succeeded in persuading each other. For all their rhetoric about being ‘brothers’ and their appeals to common ancestors, both men had become too closely identified with the two

35 OWIC, LPB, inv. nr. 62: 1646: summary of Tupi letters, translated from Tupi in Dutch by minister Johannes Eduardius, letter of October 4, 1645 (quotation). For the significance of oratory and ancestors in Tupi culture, see Monteiro, “Invaded Societies,” p. 984–988. 36 OWIC, LPB, inv. nr. 62: 1646: summary of Tupi letters, translated from Tupi in Dutch by minister Eduardius: letters of October 22, 1645 (Dom Pinheiro Camarão) and October 31, 1645 (signed by Diogo da Costa). All quotations are from these two letters. 37 Copye van een Brasiliaensen Brieff (quotations).

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European powers that were driving them apart. The chaotic and tense situation in Northeastern Brazil after 1645 in which military fortunes frequently shifted also made further communication almost impossible. Camarão did not write Poty again, although he and his fellow Potiguar leaders wrote several other letters to fellow Potiguars who supported the Dutch. In Camarão’s letter of March 28, 1646, Poty and Antônio Paraupaba are portrayed as “heretics” who “have adopted the mentality of the Hollanders” during their stay in the United Provinces. At the same time, Camarão presented himself as a senior leader who is willing to forgive Poty and Paraupaba, because, “although they have done much evil to us, they are still young and do not know what they do.” Additionally, since Poty and Paraupaba “have been raised by the Portuguese and are indebted to them, I still will give quarter to them and pardon them because of God’s will.”38 Camarão’s last message was also in vain as Poty, Paraupaba, and the other Potiguars remained firmly committed to the Dutch. The High Council, the WIC government in Recife, was relieved to learn of Poty’s ongoing loyalty, especially since military aid from the Dutch Republic was initially not very forthcoming. When the councilors learned of Poty’s strongly worded reply to Camarão they rewarded him with two pieces of lijnwaet. The High Council was also delighted that many of the letters sent to their Indian allies had been left unopened. In correspondence with their superiors the High Council admitted that Brazil would have been lost if not for the effective and heroic support of the Potiguars and other Indians.39 As the Dutch-Portuguese struggle for Northeastern Brazil continued into the late 1640s, Camarão and Poty lost their lives within a few years of each other. After the arrival of a large relief expedition from the Republic in Brazil in early 1648, the High Council attempted to force a breakthrough by sending the newly arrived troops against the Portuguese rebels outside Recife. During the first battle of Guararapes, a hilly region outside Recife, in April 1648, however, the outnumbered rebels forced the WIC soldiers back to the port-city. Although Camarão successfully participated in this battle he died several weeks later of an unknown disease. The unexpected death of Camarão was a great shock for the rebels. The deceased leader

38 OWIC, LPB, inv. nr. 62: 1646: summary of Tupi letters, translated from Tupi in Dutch by minister Eduardius: letter of March 28, 1646, signed by Antônio Camarão (quotations). For a Portuguese copy of the letter, see De Mello, Camarão, 39–43. 39 Nieuhof, Nauwkeurige Beschrijvinge, 156 (presents to Poty, unopened letters).

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was given a funeral with full honours on the main rebel-base outside Recife.40 Determined to break the siege of Recife once and for all, the High Council again dispatched its numerically superior army, including Poty and 200 Potiguars, against the rebels in February 1649. The second battle of Guararapes, however, was a complete disaster for the Dutch and their Indian allies. The WIC army had a very low morale as salaries had not been paid by the bankrupt Company. When they confronted the small rebel army, almost 1,000 out of a total of 3,000 WIC soldiers were killed or wounded. Moreover, the rebels captured Poty. The High Council was greatly concerned about the fate of its loyal Potiguar leader, also because they feared that Poty would switch sides.41 For half a year Poty was kept in terrible circumstances while being harassed by missionaries and Potiguars loyal to the Portuguese. Eventually Poty was taken out of his dungeon and imprisoned together with WIC personnel. During this time Poty report edly told his fellow prisoners that they should inform the High Council that he would “die as their loyal servant.” He also urged the officers to tell the Potiguars “to remain loyal to God all their lives and loyal to your High and Mighty [the States-General].” Concluding that Poty remained firmly committed to the Dutch Protestant cause, rebel commanders shipped Poty to Portugal where he could no longer pose a threat. During his forced oceanic crossing, sometime in 1650, the weakened Poty died under myste rious circumstances.42 After the deaths of Camarão and Poty the Potiguars continued to par ticipate as a divided nation in the Dutch-Portuguese war for Brazil. The Portuguese appointed Diogo Pinheiro Camarão as the new commander of the indigenous forces in 1648.43 The Potiguars fighting on the Dutch side continued to be commanded by Antônio Paraupaba. Despite the major victory at the second battle of Guararapes in 1649 the Portuguese rebels were unable to capture Recife. As soon as a Portuguese fleet managed to put up a blockade around Recife in December 1653, however, the rebels captured the port-city. In January 1654, Dutch officials formally surren dered Recife and all the other possessions of the WIC in Brazil.44 Paraupaba

40 De Mello, Camarão, 47–49. 41 OWIC, DM, inv. nr. 73: April 23, 1649. 42 Lodewijk Hulsman, “Brazilian Indians in the Dutch Republic: The Remonstrances of Antonio Paraupaba to the States-General in 1654 and 1656,” Itinerario 29, nr. 1 (2005), 51–78, esp. 66–67 (quotation). Schalkwijk, Reformed Church, 211 (death of Poty). 43 Raminelli, “Honras e malogros,” 182. 44 Den Heijer, WIC, 51–53.

232 mark meuwese and his Potiguar fighters were shocked when they learned of the Portuguese victory. Hoping to escape Portuguese reprisals several thousand Potiguars and other mission Indians sought refuge in Ceará. Paraupaba even trav eled to the Republic to seek aid for his people. The embattled Paraupaba twice petitioned the States-General, reminding Dutch officials of the loyal services performed by his former comrade Poty, “a pillar of the faith” for the Dutch Reformed Church in Brazil. Since the WIC was bankrupt and the States-General were no longer interested in supporting further costly adventures in Brazil, Paraupaba’s requests fell on deaf ears.45 When Paraupaba died in the Republic sometime in 1656, his death marked the end to the Potiguar alliance with the Dutch which had appeared to be so promising when Poty and Paraupaba first traveled to the United Provinces thirty years earlier. With the Dutch gone from Brazil, the Potiguars remained a divided nation. The Potiguars of Diogo Pinheiro con tinued to play a vital role as military allies of the Portuguese into the early eighteenth century. The Potiguar allies of the Portuguese were eventually resettled in aldeias at, ironically, the Bay of Treason where their descen dants live to this day. Meanwhile the Potiguar allies of the Dutch who had fled to Ceará in 1654 were concentrated in mission villages in that cap taincy. Today their descendants still live in Ceará, separated from their cousins in Paraíba.46 Although Poty and Camarão can be construed as doomed chieftains of an indigenous nation hopelessly divided by the colonial rivalries of two aggressive European powers, the two Potiguar leaders can also be viewed as shrewd individuals who used the European dependency on indigenous powers to their advantage. European vulnerability in Brazil gave Camarão and Poty the opportunity to obtain personal gifts and prestige from their Dutch and Portuguese allies. It also enabled them to preserve Potiguar autonomy and cultural traditions, despite the protestations from Dutch Calvinists. Ultimately, of course, Camarão and Poty lost their lives while serving as allies of their European partners. The Luso-Dutch struggle for Northeastern Brazil also greatly weakened and fragmented the Potiguars. At the end of the Luso-Dutch wars the Potiguars were decisively split, with one group living in the sugar-growing areas of Pernambuco and Paraíba

45 Hulsman, “Brazilian Indians,” 51–78; see also Schalkwijk, Reformed Church, 210–211 (‘pillar of the faith’ discussion). 46 Raminelli, “Honras e malogros,” 181–189; Hemming, Red Gold, 355 (Pinheiro and Potiguar allies of the Portuguese); Moonen, Os Indios Potiguara (Potiguars in Paraíba today).

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and the other seeking refuge from the Portuguese in the remote hills of Ceará. Without doubt, the destructive processes of warfare and disloca tion set in motion by the Dutch-Portuguese rivalries had a devastating impact on Camarão, Poty, and the Potiguars. For Camarão and Poty, the Atlantic World was not an abstract concept but a dangerous reality repre sented by the Dutch-Portuguese struggle for control of the sugar-growing regions of Brazil. However, the intelligence and resourcefulness by which the two Potiguar leaders were able to maintain influence and further their own interests demonstrates that indigenous peoples were sometimes able to turn European weakness to their advantage.

CHAPTER TEN

LAW AND COLONIAL REFORM IN THE 18TH CENTURY SPANISH WORLD: THE LIFE OF FRANCISCO XAVIER GAMBOA, MEXICAN LAWYER

Christopher Albi

Did law matter in Spain’s transatlantic empire? The picture drawn by historians depicts colonial Spanish America as a society with little respect for legal rules. Spanish settlers, in pursuit of gold and glory, defied royal laws enacted to protect the Indians. Government officials proclaimed their obedience to the king but refused to enforce his orders. The court system was slow, erratic, and tilted towards the rich and powerful. Law, at best, just camouflaged the brutal domination of a privileged white elite over people of indigenous, African, and mixed-race descent. This colonial disdain for law supposedly set the stage for the weak rule of law today in Latin America. But does this story of legal dysfunction reflect more the unshakeable Black Legend of Spanish iniquity than the historical reality of colonial Spanish America? Could it not be reading into the past the unde- niable failures of the administration of justice today? The career of Francisco Xavier Gamboa, a Mexican jurist of the eighteenth century, tells a much different story, in which law appears at the center of colonial processes.1 Born in Guadalajara in 1717 to a Basque immigrant family, Gamboa served as a lawyer for Mexico’s elite merchants and silver miners. His most important patrons came from within the powerful Basque community in Mexico. They sent him to Madrid in 1755 as the representative of Mexico’s consulado, or merchant guild. There he wrote a detailed analysis of the legal and technical aspects of silver mining in

1 On Gamboa see Toribio Esquivel Obregón, Biografía de Don Francisco Javier Gamboa, Ideario politíco y jurídico de Nueva España en el Siglo XVIII (Mexico City: La Sociedad Mexicana de Geografia y Estadistica, 1941); Mariano Otero, ““Apuntes para la biografía de Don Francisco Javier Gamboa”,” in Mariano Otero Obras, ed. Jesús Reyes Heroles (Mexico City: Editorial Porrua, 1967); Elías Trabulse, Francisco Xavier Gamboa: un político criollo en la Ilustración mexicana (1717–1794) (Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1985); Christopher Albi, “Contested Legalities in Colonial Mexico: Francisco Xavier Gamboa and the Defense of Derecho Indiano” (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Texas, 2009).

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Mexico, the Comentarios a las Ordenanzas de Minas.2 This text, published in 1761, brought him acclaim throughout the Spanish world and was translated into English in 1830 as a guide for British miners in early republican Mexico.3 In recognition of his accomplishments, the crown appointed Gamboa in 1764 to the Audiencia of Mexico, the viceroyalty’s high court of royal justice. This was an exceedingly rare achievement for a creole lawyer at the time. Without the assistance of his Basque benefactors, he would not have received the opportunity. Gamboa’s three decades on the bench coincided with what histo rians have called the Bourbon reforms, an ambitious effort by Spain to bolster its authority in America. After the Seven Years War, Spain needed to increase tax revenues, especially from silver-rich Mexico, to cover the mounting military expenditures necessary to compete with Britain. To make America more secure, productive, and above all profitable, the Bourbon crown targeted colonial institutions and practices considered corrupt, inefficient, or obsolete. One such institution was the independent judiciary, seen as a bastion of obstructionism. Gamboa emerged as the judiciary’s most determined champion, defending the broad jurisdiction of the ordinary courts, the autonomy of the Audiencia from political control, and the legal pluralism that fostered judicial discretion. Against the Bourbon attempt to legislate from above, Gamboa argued that local customs, rooted in the particular circumstances of America, deserved recognition as valid law. Admittedly, Gamboa expressed his views with a notable lack of moderation, incurring the wrath of viceroys and powerful ministers of the crown. Twice the crown removed him from Mexico for his insubordination, sending him first to Spain in 1769 and then to Santo Domingo in 1783. Yet in 1787, as the reform winds abated, he returned to Mexico as the regent, or chief justice, of the Audiencia of Mexico, the first creole to hold this office. He remained dedicated to the end to protecting the power of the court against political interference. That his advocacy for judicial power clearly served his own professional interests should not obscure the fact that this fight was ultimately about the future of the rule of law in Mexico. Without an assertive and independent judiciary, there was little chance that arbitrary power could be checked. A Mexican patriot, a transatlantic Basque, and a loyal subject of the Spanish monarchy,

2 Francisco Xavier de Gamboa, Comentarios a las Ordenanzas de Minas (Madrid: Joachin Ibarra, 1761). 3 Francisco Xavier de Gamboa, Commentaries on the mining ordinances of Spain, trans. Richard Heathfield, 2 vols. (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown & Green, 1830).

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Gamboa’s fascinating life illustrates both the fluidity of identity in the eighteenth-century Spanish world and the struggle over the power of law in the final decades of colonial rule.

The Basque Transatlantic World

Francisco Xavier Gamboa was born in 1717 in Guadalajara, one of eight children of Antonio Gamboa and María de la Puente y Arámburu, respectable folk of Basque ancestry. His father’s unexpected death when Gamboa was a child left the family destitute. Gamboa claimed that at the age of eight he begged from door-to-door to support his mother and younger siblings.4 The family’s plight and the boy’s bookishness – he read on the street corner when not seeking hand-outs – attracted the sympathy of José Mesía de la Cerda, a young judge on the Audiencia of Guadalajara. Mesía de la Cerda offered to pay for his schooling at the Jesuit college of San Juan Bautista. There Gamboa received a classical education, studying Latin, grammar, rhetoric, mathematics, and philosophy. In 1733, at the age of sixteen, he accompanied Mesia de la Cerda, who had been promoted to the Audiencia of Mexico, to the capital to begin his legal studies at the ancient University of Mexico, founded in 1551. He lived at the elite Jesuit college of San Ildefonso, perhaps the most advanced educational institution in eighteenth-century Spanish America.5 Legal education in colonial Mexico still followed a curriculum established in medieval Italy, based on the Roman law of the sixth-century Corpus Juris Civilis. Roman jurisprudence remained the foundation of the legal order, a compendium of legal principles that continued to shape the interpretation of contemporary legislation.6 Advocates of regal power in the eighteenth century tried in vain to deemphasize Roman law, as well as customary law, in order to establish the inviolate supremacy of royal law. Law students in the Spanish world also studied canon law, reflecting the prestige and power of the Catholic Church. Gamboa’s Jesuit education prepared him well for law school, with its requirements of Latin, prodi- gious memorization, and dialectic reasoning. He graduated in 1739 at the

4 Archivo General de Indias [hereinafter agi], Indiferente General, 157, “Relación de méritos, 1757.” 5 Pilar Gonzalbo, Historia de la educacion en la Epoca Colonial. La Educacion de los criollos y la vida urbana (Mexico City 1990). 6 On Roman law see Harold J. Berman, Law and Revolution: the Formation of the Western Legal Tradition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983); Peter Stein, Roman Law in European History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

238 christopher albi top of his class and passed the bar exams the following year that allowed him to practice in the Audiencia of Mexico. Gamboa’s legal career flourished within a well-rooted Basque transatlantic community. Of the distinct ethnic and linguistic groups making up the Iberian peninsula, Basques had always displayed the strongest sense of group solidarity. They took pride in being the original inhabitants of Spain, speaking at home a unique language that their propagandists insisted originated at the Tower of Babel.7 Having expelled the Moors from their provinces in northeastern Spain shortly after the eighth-century invasion, Basques also claimed to be free of Muslim or Jewish blood. In 1590 the Spanish crown recognized their supposed racial purity, proclaiming the “universal nobility” of the Basque people.8 Confident of their “Old Christian” pedigree, Basques could thus pursue occupations, such as commerce, mining, and navigation, shunned by more status-conscious Spaniards. A tradition of primogeniture and the limited economic opportunities of the Basque country drove many young people to emigrate. By the eighteenth century, Basque clans conducted much of Spain’s overseas trade from hubs in Bilbao, Madrid, Cadiz, Mexico City, Lima, and Manila.9 Wherever they went they founded religious, social, and educational organizations that reinforced their solidarity.10 It was natural for Gamboa as a young and ambitious lawyer to join the main Basque association in Mexico City, the confraternity of Nuestra Señora de Aránzazu.11 Besides organizing masses and feasts for Basque saints, such as the Jesuits Ignacio Loyola and Francisco Xavier, Aránzazu acted as a mutual aid society and credit union. The leading Basque merchants, estate owners, government officials, and miners all belon ged. At a time of frequent disputes in New Spain between creoles and

7 Basque has no linguistic relation, suggesting it pre-dates the Indo-European family of languages. On Basque linguistic exceptionalism see Baltasar de Echave, Discursos de la antiguedad de la lengua cántabra Bascongada (Mexico City, 1607). 8 José Manuel Azcona Pastor, Possible Paradises: Basque Emigration to Latin America (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2004), 2. 9 On one such clan see Josefina María Cristina Torales Pacheco, ed. La compañía de comercio de Francisco Ignacio de Yraeta (1767–1797), 2 vols. (México: Instituto Mexicano de Comercio Exterior, 1985). See also Xabier Lamikiz, Trade and Trust in the Eighteenth- Century Atlantic World: Spanish Merchants and their Overseas Networks (Woodbridge, UK: The Boydell Press, 2010). 10 For an excellent study of the Atlantic world of the Basques, focused on people from Oiartzun, see Juan Javier Pescador, The New World inside a Basque Village: The Oiartzun Valley and its Atlantic Emigrants, 1550–1800 (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2004). 11 Elisa Luque Alcaide, La Cofradía de Aránzazu de México (1681–1799) (Pamplona: Ediciones Eunate, 1995).

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peninsula-born Spaniards over office and privilege, the Basque community accorded equal rights to both groups. Many creole members, like Gamboa, served as rectors of the brotherhood.12 In fact, the confraternity honored the Virgin of Guadalupe, the icon of Mexican Catholicism, as much as its name-sake Virgin. In 1729 Aránzazu formed an official alliance with the principal Basque brotherhood in Madrid, the Congregation of San Ignacio de Loyola.13 This organization, with many royal officials and veterans of colonial service in its ranks, pledged to help their fellow Basques of Mexico in any business at the royal court. It was through Aránzazu that Gamboa met the businessmen who pro- pelled his career.14 His biggest supporter was Manuel Aldaco, the head of a trading house and a major investor in silver mines. By the 1740s, Aldaco was widely regarded as the unofficial head of the Basque community in Mexico and, by the 1750s, led both the confraternity of Aránzazu and the consulado of Mexico. Through his sponsorship, Gamboa became the leading lawyer of Mexico City’s mercantile community. He advised both Aránzazu and the consulado on legal matters, as well as representing individual merchants in their private lawsuits.15 This was the core of a busy practice that included representation of miners, landowners, and religious communities, as well as counsel to the viceroyalty’s main governmental and ecclesiastical authorities. In later speaking of his time as a private lawyer, Gamboa claimed, without much exaggeration, to have “gained credit as an astute, eloquent and wise advocate, to the extent that

12 Archivo Histórico del Colegio de las Vizcaínas [hereinafter ahcv], 006-III-015, “Aránzazu Book of Elections”; Pescador, New World inside a Basque Village, 110. 13 ahcv, 006-IV-006 “Decree, November 6, 1729.” See Alberto Angulo Morales, “La Real Congregación de San Ignacio de Loyola de los naturales y originarios de las tres provincias vascas en la corte de Madrid (1713–1896),” in Los Vascos en las Regiones de México Siglos XVI a XX, Vol. V, ed. Amaya Garritz (Mexico City: unam, 1999). Basques from Navarra had their own powerful confraternity dedicated to San Fermín. See Julio Caro Baroja, La hora navarra del XVIII (personas, familias, negocios, e ideas) (Pamplona: Institución Príncipe de Viana, 1969), 17–18. 14 On Aldaco see David A. Brading, Miners and Merchants in Bourbon Mexico, 1763–1810 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), 176–79; Pescador, New World inside a Basque Village, 84–90. 15 Gamboa successfully defended the non-Basque merchant, Manuel de Rivas-Cacho, in an estate case on charges of spousal cruelty. He published his brief in the matter in 1753: Francisco Javier de Gamboa, Por el coronel D. Manuel de Rivas-Cacho, en el pleyto que sobre testamento de Da. Josepha Maria Franco Soto, su muger, le ha movido el Bṙ. D. Juan Joseph de la Roca, presbytero de este arzobispado de Mexico: para que los Señores de la Real audiencia se sirvan de confirmar la sentencia de vista de l. de junio de este año: en que declararon por ultima voluntad de Doña Josepha el testamento nuncupativo de 24. de febrero de 1751 (Mexico City 1753).

240 christopher albi in the last few years there has hardly been an important legal matter in Mexico in which I have not taken part.”16 In 1755 the merchant guild of Mexico City chose Gamboa to represent them at the royal court in Madrid. The appointment of a young Mexican lawyer to handle the affairs of a mostly Spanish-born body of merchants in the imperial capital demonstrated not only his lofty reputation but also how Basque solidarity overcame the differences between creoles and pen- insulares. Aldaco provided a letter of introduction to the Congregation of San Ignacio: We expect that you will extend to him all the influence in his favor, as our business demands, and for being the son and grandson of a paisano. He knows how to handle himself with the highest honor; and his accomplishments, long personal experience and most honorable conduct have earned him the confidence of this mercantile community, especially my own.17 Gamboa and a second deputy, Francisco de la Cotera, representing the non-Basque members of the consulado, sailed for Cadiz in the fall of 1755. The mid-1750s was an especially anxious time for Mexico’s merchants. The viceroy, the conde de Revillagigedo, had repeatedly infringed on their rights in favor of their Cadiz-based counterparties. He had allowed Spanish commercial agents to set up shop in Mexico, in contravention of the overseas trade rules, and interfered in the jurisdiction of the consulado’s adjudicative tribunal, where all commercial disputes were heard. In 1753 he cancelled the consulado’s contract to collect the alcabala sales tax in Mexico City, a lucrative source of funds tapped by members like Aldaco to invest in silver mines.18 To top it off, the consulado faced the imminent arrival of a merchant fleet from Cadiz in 1756, even though inventories of cloth and consumer goods remained high in Mexico City.19 It was the task

16 agi, Indiferente General 157, “Relación de méritos, 1757.” 17 Quoted in Enrique de Olavarría y Ferrari, El Real colegio de San Ignacio de Loyola, vulgarmente, Colegio de las vizcaínas, en la actualidad, Colegio de la Paz; reseña histórica escrita, por Enrique de Olavarria y Ferrari e impresa por acuerdo y con la aprobación de su Junta directiva (Mexico City: F. Díaz de León, 1889), 64. 18 Guillermina del Valle Pavón, “Los excedentes del ramo Alcabalas. Habilitación de la minería y defensa del monopolio de los mercaderes de México en el siglo XVIII,” Historia Mexicana LVI, no. 3 (2007). 19 In order to protect the shipments of silver from America to Spain, overseas trade was conducted since the sixteenth century by fleets of merchant vessels escorted by warships. In the late 1730s this system broke down. Trade was then conducted by individual ships sailing from Cadiz, the monopoly port for overseas commerce. The fleet system was restored for Mexico from the 1750s to the 1770s. See Stanley J. Stein and Barbara H. Stein, Silver, Trade, and War: Spain and America in the Making of Early Modern Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000); Jeremy Baskes, “Risky Ventures: Reconsidering Mexico’s Colonial Trade System,” Colonial Latin American Review 14, no. 1 (2005), 27–54.

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of Gamboa and Cotera to present submissions to the crown on all these points, starting with a plea to delay the sailing of the Cadiz fleet.20 The Basques on the consulado had another vital task for Gamboa. Since 1751, as members of Nuestra Señora de Aránzazu, they had been trying to open a residential school for poor girls, their main philanthropic project. The confraternity always intended to run this school, known officially as the Colegio de San Ignacio de Loyola but more commonly as the Vizcaínas, free of the jurisdiction of the Church. They began construction of a massive edifice, still standing today, in the mid-1730s, financed entirely by donations. Gamboa, as lawyer of Aránzazu, drafted the school’s charter, which set out its “total exemption and absolute independence” from eccle siastical authority.21 This provision echoed the traditional Basque call for self-government, most famously embodied in the fueros that limited the rights of the Spanish crown in Basque territory. The plan was not to establish a non-denominational school but simply a Catholic school under lay control. Unfortunately for them, the archbishop of Mexico at the time, Manuel de Rubio y Salinas, flatly refused to allow the school to open, unless they recognized his authority. He even ignored a direct royal order in 1753, secured with the help of the Congregation of San Ignacio, endors- ing lay control.22 Aránzazu felt its last remaining hope was to petition the papacy for a bull recognizing the school’s independence. While in Madrid, therefore, Gamboa was expected to assist the Congregation of San Ignacio in the negotiations with Rome and keep his Basque brethren back in Mexico City informed.23 Gamboa had one more reason to cross the Atlantic, important enough to leave behind his wife and family in Mexico City.24 Only by presenting his credentials at the royal court could he hope to win a judicial post on an American Audiencia. The Council of the Indies, responsible for colo nial appointments, had tightened the selection process since the early 1750s, stopping the sale of seats, a controversial practice that had at least

20 Archivo General de la Nación, Archivo Histórico de Hacienda [hereinafter agn, ahh], 635–8, “Instructions to the deputies, June 8, 1755.” 21 Olavarría y Ferrari, El Real colegio de San Ignacio de Loyola, Doc. 2, Appendix 21. 22 ahcv, 005-V-007, “Aldaco to San Ignacio, June 15, 1752” and “Ensenada to Rubio, Sept. 1, 1753.” 23 Pope Clement issued the bull in 1766, the same year Rubio died. The Vizcaínas finally opened in 1767, the building having remained shuttered for fifteen years. Remarkably, it continues to operate today in the same location, still managed by a board of Basque businessmen. 24 In 1747, at the age of twenty-nine, Gamboa had married seventeen-year old Maria Manuela de Urrutia, also of Basque descent. The couple had seven children.

242 christopher albi increased creole participation on the courts. The Council began to openly favor young peninsula-born candidates on the theory they were less susceptible to local pressure and more impartial in the administration of royal justice.25 Peninsular Spaniards also had the practical advantage of being close to the selection committee in Madrid. Thus to achieve his career ambition, to follow in the footsteps of his first benefactor, José Mesia de la Cerda, Gamboa had to make the trip to Madrid to lobby the counselors of the Indies in person. He came armed with impressive letters of recommendation, from the viceroy of New Spain, the Audiencia of Mexico, the city council, and the Cathedral of Mexico City. During his early years in Spain, Gamboa found the time to write the book for which he is best remembered, the Comentarios a las Ordenanzas de Minas, a comprehensive analysis of the law and practices of Mexico’s mining industry. Silver mining was the heart of the Mexican economy, supplying the bulk of exports and sustaining agriculture and commerce throughout the viceroyalty. The Spanish crown remained as fiscally dependent as ever on the silver produced by Mexico and Peru. Gamboa’s experience of “many years as a lawyer practicing at the Audiencia of Mexico, handling the most bitterly-fought lawsuits over mines in the main districts of that kingdom” had convinced him that mining could be far more productive if its legislation was better understood, its techniques updated, and its financing reorganized.26 A book showcasing his legal expertise might also impress the selection committee for Audiencia posts.27 Published at the end of 1761, the Comentarios was immediately recognized as an authoritative guide to the Mexican mining industry. Gamboa offered a lucid analysis of the 1584 Royal Ordinances that governed the industry. He drew upon his own courtroom experience and formidable knowledge of classic and contemporary legal authorities, from Roman jurists to juridical literature on Spanish America, such as Juan Solórzano’s Política Indiana of 1647. His goal was to clear away the interpretative thick- ets that prevented the original intention of the Ordinances from being

25 See Mark A. Burkholder and D.S. Chandler, From Impotence to Authority: the Spanish Crown and the American Audiencias, 1687–1808 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1977). 26 Gamboa, Comentarios, Prologue, unpaginated. 27 Writing books or policy papers was a common strategy for office seekers of the time. A fellow creole judge, Antonio Joaquín de Ribadeneyra, wrote a treatise on the royal patronage over the church to hep him secure an Audiencia post. Antonio Joaquin de Ribadeneyra y Barrientos, Manual compendio de el Regio Patronato Indiano: para su mas facil uso en las materias conducente á la practica (Madrid: Antonio Marin, 1755).

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put into effect. He identified the law’s purpose as the encouragement of individual enterprise in mining for the sake of the royal treasury and general public.28 Long before Adam Smith wrote about the invisible hand in The Wealth of Nations, people in the Spanish world, perhaps especially within the pro-commerce Basque community, appreciated the social benefits of economic self-interest.29 To complement his legal commentary, Gamboa included a wealth of technical information to educate Mexican miners. The Jesuits at the library of the Colegio Imperial in Madrid helped him with translations of recent German works, as well as lending him older mining treatises unknown in America. He commissioned a young Spanish printmaker, Juan Minguet, to prepare illustrations of tools and methods. Gamboa devoted a chapter to discussing various refining processes, including the so-called patio method of mercury amalgamation that Mexican refiners had raised to a fine art. The Comentarios was a classic product of the Spanish Enlightenment, clearly written and argued, empirical in focus, and engaged with the latest ideas of law, political economy, and applied science.30 The most controversial aspect of Gamboa’s book was the proposal he made in it for a mining bank under the control of the merchants of the consulado. This was likely Aldaco’s idea. His own silver bank was in trouble in the 1750s from bad loans and the loss of funding after the cancellation of the consulado’s contract to collect sales tax.31 The scale of mining projects had seemingly become too great for any single merchant-financier as miners dug deeper and deeper to access ore deposits. The costs of excavat- ing drainage tunnels was particularly onerous. Gamboa argued that only the consulado had the capital, expertise, and prudence to manage a mining bank. It was likely on account of the inclusion of the proposal that the consulado willingly supported Gamboa during his time in Madrid and paid for the book’s publication by Spain’s most prestigious printer, Joachin Ibarra. Gamboa’s book brought him the official recognition he desired. The crown endorsed its publication and Pedro Rodríguez Campomanes, one of the most influential advisors of Charles III, praised it as “truthfully very

28 Gamboa, Comentarios, 187. 29 On liberal economics before Smith, see Albert O. Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before its Triumph (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996). 30 On Gamboa’s scientific interests see Trabulse, Gamboa. 31 Del Valle Pavón, “Los excedentes del ramo Alcabalas,” 998.

244 christopher albi useful and the study employed in its composition immense.”32 Campo manes, however, did criticize the mining bank proposal, warning that it would give the merchant guild of Mexico City, already too powerful in Madrid’s eyes, a virtual stranglehold on the Mexican economy. Mexico City merchants would become so strong as to subvert the colonial relationship between Mexico and Spain. In 1764, thanks to the positive recep- tion of the Comentarios and likely the support of influential members of the Congregation of San Ignacio, the Council of the Indies at last named him to the Audiencia of Mexico.33 He was the first native of Mexico to be named directly to his home court, without having to purchase the office, in over fifty years.34 He returned to Mexico City in late 1764, reunited with his family after almost a decade in Spain.

Crime and Punishment in New Spain in the 1760s

Gamboa’s duties as an alcalde del crimen, a magistrate in the Audiencia’s criminal court division, called the Sala de Crimen, could hardly have differed more from his life in Spain. Instead of the salons, libraries, and coffee houses of Madrid, he was pitched into the maelstrom of Mexico City, judg- ing criminal trials, patrolling the streets, and visiting city jails. The Sala de Crimen operated as the high court for criminal matters in the viceroyalty, focusing mostly on the capital. Gamboa took a proactive stance, cracking down on gambling dens and bootleggers and quelling brawls that erupted in pulquerías, the taverns that supplied the urban poor with cheap agave alcohol.35 Yet he also showed a paternalistic side, at least towards Indians caught in the gears of the judicial system. In February 1765, just months after assuming office, he ordered the release of an estimated one thousand Indian convicts serving their sentences in the bakeries of Mexico City. He called their detention unlawful, as the bakers treated them like slaves, and “there were no laws in all the Recopilación [the 1681 collection of

32 Pedro Rodriguez Campomanes, Reflexiones sobre el comercio español a Indias (1762), ed. Vicente Llombart Rosa (Madrid: Instituto de Estudios Fiscales, 1988), 435. 33 AG Simancas, Dirección General del Tesoro 24-184-58, “Appointment as Alcalde de Crimen.” 34 Burkholder and Chandler, From Impotence to Authority, 162–76. 35 agi, Mexico, 1701, “Gamboa to the crown, May 6, 1767. Gamboa earned commenda- tions from the crown in early 1766 for breaking up two street disturbances that started in pulquerías. Pulque is fermented agave juice, the most popular alcoholic beverage in Mexico from pre-Columbian times to the twentieth century. It is now making a come-back among the young and fashionable in Mexico City.

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legislation for the Indies] more important than those that protected the liberty and good treatment of Indians.”36 His intervention impugned the whole system of leasing out convicts to workplaces, a practice known in Mexico as the collera for the yoke that bound prisoners together as they marched to the bakeries, butcher shops and textile mills that hired them. Gamboa’s most notable action in his first years as an Audiencia judge was his successful resolution of a violent labor dispute at Real del Monte, a mining district a day’s ride north of the capital.37 Workers rioted in July 1766, protesting reduced wages and especially the elimination of the partido, their customary share of extracted ore. During the rampage, they killed a foreman and local crown official and almost captured the mine owner, Pedro Romero Terreros, who fled for his life to a nearby hacienda.38 Terreros, later ennobled as the conde de Regla, had spent years and countless pesos digging a drainage tunnel to rehabilitate the rich but flooded mines of Real del Monte. His eventual success earned him one of the greatest fortunes in colonial Mexico. Gamboa praised him in the Comen tarios as a model miner, even though he also represented a client in a pro- tracted lawsuit against Terreros over a property in Real del Monte. Commissioned to pacify the unrest by the outgoing viceroy, the marqués de Cruillas, Gamboa arrived a few days after the riot, escorted by a company of soldiers. With authority to use force if necessary, the judge instead took a judicial approach, convening the parties to give testimony and consulting with outside experts, including his old friend Manuel Aldaco, another Real del Monte investor. In just a few weeks, Gamboa completed a new set of labor regulations for the district, which severely penalized worker theft and insubordination but also reinstated the partido. In the Comentarios, he had endorsed the practice of sharing raw ore with workers as a necessary incentive for their labor.39 He then issued arrest warrants for the ringleaders of the violence, offered an amnesty to the rest of the strikers, and returned to Mexico City by the end of September.

36 agi, Mexico 1130, “Representation by Gamboa to Cruillas, May 31, 1765.” 37 See Doris Ladd, The Making of a Strike: Mexican Silver Workers’ Struggles in Real del Monte 1766–1775 (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1988). 38 In the early 1750s, Gamboa had represented the wealthy landowner and mine investor, the marqués de Valle Ameno, in a bitter dispute with Romero Terreros over a property in the district. Although the Audiencia and Council of the Indies decided in favor of Gamboa’s client, Terreros eventually pressured the heirs of Valle Ameno to surrender the property. On Terreros, later enobled as the Conde de Regla, see Edith Boorstein Couturier, The Silver King: the Remarkable Life of the Count of Regla in colonial Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 2003). 39 Gamboa, Comentarios, 337–38.

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Gamboa’s first years in the Audiencia of Mexico coincided with the start of what historians have called the Bourbon reforms. This was a multi- pronged effort by Spain, under the Bourbon dynasty since 1700, to recon- figure its American empire, centralizing authority, improving security, diversifying the economy, and upgrading the fiscal system. Driving it was the monarchy’s need for increased revenue to fund its costly rivalry with Britain.40 To kick-start reform in New Spain, the largest and richest overseas dominion, the crown sent José de Gálvez, a lawyer from Andalusia with experience in treasury matters, as visitor-general in 1765. He arrived in Mexico with a crowded agenda, beginning with cleaning up treasury operations and setting up a crown monopoly over tobacco. The crown also instructed him to take steps to boost silver production and implement the intendancy system for local administration.41 Gálvez was a true believer in the need for reform. Like many Bourbon officials in Madrid under Charles III, he assumed that colonial customs and institutions, rooted in the Habsburg past, were obsolete or corrupt. He also harbored a prejudice against people of American birth, distrusting the loyalty of creoles and condemning their appointment to local Audiencias.42 He seemed destined to clash with Gamboa. Gálvez was assisted by a new viceroy, the marqués de Croix, who arrived in Mexico City in September 1766 while Gamboa was in Real del Monte. A French army commander, Croix lacked colonial experience and spoke Spanish imperfectly. With Gálvez focused on tax collection and the tobacco monopoly in 1766, Croix took the lead in issues of public security. He was horrified by the unruliness of Mexico City, claiming that in his first month in the capital, a total of twenty-nine dead bodies turned up in its streets.43 Having left Spain just after the popular riots in Madrid in March

40 There is a vast historiography on the Bourbon reforms. See especially Brading, Miners and Merchants; Josefina Zoraida Vázquez, Interpretaciones del siglo XVIII mexicano: el impacto de las reformas borbónicas (México, D.F.: Nueva Imagen, 1992); Carlos Marichal, La bancarrota del virreinato. Nueva España y las finanzas del Imperio español, 1780–1810 (Mexico City El Colegio de México/Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1999); Enrique Tandeter and Jorge Hidalgo Lehuedé, eds., Procesos americanos hacia la redefinición colonial (Paris: UNESCO, 2000); Stanley J. Stein and Barbara H. Stein, Apogee of Empire: Spain and New Spain in the Age of Charles III, 1759–1789 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003); Barbara H. Stein and Stanley J. Stein, Edge of Crisis: War and Trade in the Spanish Atlantic, 1789–1808 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009). 41 Herbert Ingram Priestley, José de Gálvez, Visitor-General of New Spain (1765–1771) (Philadelphia: Porcupine Press, 1916; repr., 1980). 42 Gálvez set out his ideas for colonial reform in policy paper written in 1759, which like Gamboa’s Comentarios was intended to help him win a government posting. BRP, MS Ayala II/2816, “Discurso y reflexiones de un vasallo sobre la decadencia de Nuestras Indias.” 43 Real Academia de Historia, Bucareli correspondence 4313, “Croix’s instructions, Sept. 1, 1771.”

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1766, which chased Charles III from the city and toppled his prime minister, Croix feared that disorder in Mexico City threatened colonial con trol. He issued a flurry of decrees, backed by Gálvez, aimed at combatting crime, idleness, and delinquency.44 These measures, however popular with residents of the capital, exemplified an authoritarian strain in the larger Bourbon reform process. Gamboa, acclaimed by Croix and Gálvez upon his return from Real del Monte, emerged as their most bitter foe. At stake, in his mind, was the integrity of a legal system well suited to Mexico’s peculiar circumstances. The first major controversy concerned the police force commissioned by the Sala de Crimen in Puebla, New Spain’s second city. Upon his arrival in Mexico City, Croix received an anonymous letter denouncing the corruption of this force, which accused its captains of extortion, the protection of prostitution and gambling, and the brutal treatment of suspects in their custody. The viceroy’s legal advisor, Diego de Cornide, a Spanish lawyer with no experience in America, examined the sixteenth-century charter of the Audiencia of Mexico and found no legal basis for the Sala’s authority over the police in Puebla or elsewhere outside Mexico City. He then looked to the practice of Spanish high courts, which only supervised policing in their home cities. Encouraged by this legal opinion and after consulting with Puebla’s bishop and army commander, Croix ordered the disbanding of the Sala’s police in Puebla and invited the Acordada, a con- stabulary created in the 1720s to combat rural banditry, to police Puebla and the other cities of New Spain. Free of judicial oversight, answerable only to the viceroy, the Acordada employed rough methods with impu- nity, including summary executions and the public display of body parts.45 Six months later, in May 1767, Croix took another radical step in the name of public security. He decreed that all convicts, regardless of the severity of their crimes or racial status, would henceforth serve their sentences laboring on the presidios, or fortifications, of Veracruz and Havana.46 This measure addressed the need to bolster Caribbean defenses and additionally did away with the collera, the leasing of convicts to

44 For example, he directed soldiers to arrest suspects who sought sanctuary on church property. He tried to criminalize idleness, by ordering all unemployed people to secure a job within one month or face arrest. He also banned the traffic in unminted silver, used as an unofficial currency in northern mining districts short of legal tender. 45 On the Acordada see Colin M. MacLachlan, Criminal Justice in Eighteenth Century Mexico: A Study of the Tribunal of the Acordada (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974); Jesús Mendoza Muñoz and Enrique D’abbadie Soto, El capitán Miguel Velázquez Lorea y el Real Tribunal de la Acordada de la Nueva España: Antología Documental, 1. ed. (Querétaro: Fomento Historico y Cultural de Cadereyta, 2006). 46 agi, Mexico 1130, “Decision by Council of the Indies, May 21, 1777.”

248 christopher albi private workplaces. As Gamboa recognized in his February 1765 order to free Indians confined to bakeries, this practice was notoriously abusive. Often employers treated their convict labor like slaves. The problem was that the Sala de Crimen required the income from the collera to pay its support staff of public defenders, scribes, jailers, and custodians. Croix’s sentencing decree thus also deprived the Sala of the funds needed to function effectively. Croix’s public security initiatives naturally outraged Gamboa and his colleagues in the Sala de Crimen. Gamboa wrote the Sala’s responses, with an acerbic tone that must have infuriated the viceroy. In the Puebla police matter, Gamboa admitted the original charter of the Audiencia limited the Sala’s police power just to Mexico City. But conditions in the viceroyalty never made this restriction possible in the first place. In the sixteenth century the Sala was forced to assume responsibility for policing outside of the capital because no other state organ had the capacity. After more than two centuries of uninterrupted and unquestioned authority, the Sala had acquired a prescriptive right that superseded the text of its charter. The proposition that local custom, if ancient and not offensive to justice, outweighed written law was well founded in Spanish legal tradition and especially applicable to Spanish America, where custom more than legislation set everyday norms.47 Gamboa had made this point in the Comentarios, in discussing the Audiencia’s jurisdiction over mining. According to the 1584 Ordinances, the Audiencia was barred from hearing mining cases, as the law contemplated the creation of a specialized court system for the industry. But as the crown failed to set up this alternative system, the Audiencia took responsibility out of necessity. The broad jurisdiction of the Audiencia over criminal and civil matters, the basis of its influence and prestige in New Spain, thus derived as much from unwritten custom as written law. Instead of suppressing the Sala’s force in Puebla, Gamboa claimed that the viceroy should have shared the infor mation of alleged wrongdoing and allowed the court to clean up its own mess.48 He also warned that the Acordada’s lack of accountability would imperil the administration of justice. Gamboa accused Croix directly of acting “without consultations, against the Laws, without the

47 Víctor Tau Anzoátegui, El Poder de la Costumbre: Estudios sobre el Derecho Consuetudinario en América hispana hasta la Emancipación (Buenos Aires: Instituto de Investigaciones de Historia del Derecho, 2001). 48 agi, Mexico 1265, “Sala de Crimen to Council of the Indies, Nov. 24, 1766 (Puebla police).”

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effects corresponding to his desires, but rather with unavoidable and manifest harm to the vassals” of New Spain.49 Gamboa was equally scathing in his criticism of Croix’s plan to sentence all convicts to presidio labor. The viceroy might have requested that the Sala send more prisoners to the presidios, as his predecessor Cruillas had done, but he had no legal right to demand it. Gamboa found himself in the awkward position of having to defend a practice, the collera, that he had just attacked two years earlier. In 1765 he liberated Indians from the bakers; in 1767 he argued that sending them to workplaces near their homes was far preferable than to distant fortifications: Banishing an Indian to a presidio would, it’s true, punish his offence, but it would also gradually consume his race and impede his reproduction, very important matters since without the Indians, there would be no Indies, no Agriculture, no Mines, no Irrigation, no work of any sort.50 Gamboa reasoned that his earlier action had curbed the abuses of the collera and that, in any event, the Sala had no other source of income to replace it.51 By the summer of 1767, resentment in New Spain over the higher taxes, new militia obligations, and the imperious style of Croix and Gálvez reached a fever pitch. The last straw for many was the expulsion of the Jesuits, coordinated by Croix and Gálvez at the end of June. The Spanish crown had earlier blamed the religious order, founded by the Basque Ignacio Loyola in 1534, for spurring on the March 1766 anti-government riots in Madrid.52 No hard evidence was presented but the Jesuits made convenient scapegoats, due to their wealth, independence, and aristocratic ties. In New Spain, however, the order enjoyed widespread support, especially among creoles educated in their schools, like Gamboa, and Indians in their northern missions. The forced expulsion sparked popular riots in towns north of the capital, put down by Gálvez himself with exem- plary force.53 With the appearance of pro-Jesuit pamphlets in the streets of Mexico City in the fall, Gálvez, Croix and archbishop Francisco Antonio

49 agi, Mexico 1265, “Sala de Crimen to Council of the Indies, Nov. 24, 1766 (Acordada).” 50 agi, Mexico 1130, “Representation to crown, June 26, 1767.” 51 This case took a decade to be resolved, with the collera partially reinstated, except for the leasing of convicts to textile mills, and the Sala assigned a share of the pulque tax to fund its operations. 52 José Miguel López García, El Motín contra Esquilache: Crisis y protesta popular en el Madrid del siglo XVIII (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 2006). Stein and Stein, Apogee of Empire, 81–115. 53 Priestley, Gálvez, 215–24.

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Lorenzana feared an imminent rebellion against Spanish rule. The viceroy warned Madrid of a reported conspiracy uniting Jesuits, their creole partisans, officials opposed to the visita, and British forces.54 He and the archbishop also sent a list of nine government and church officials said to be sympathetic to the Jesuits and hostile to the government. This list included Gamboa.55 The situation in Mexico naturally raised alarm in Spain. The same special committee that implicated the Jesuits in the Madrid riots, headed by the prime minister, the conde de Aranda, and advised by two ambitious crown attorneys of the Council of Castile, Pedro Rodríguez Campomanes and José Moñino, took charge of the matter.56 Campomanes and Moñino, future senior ministers under Charles III, recommended the immediate dispatch of troops, the suppression of all Jesuit literature, and the arrest of the nine anti-government officials. But they also admitted that creoles had cause for complaint: “How can they love a government that they accuse of mainly trying to extract taxes and profits?” Besides recommending a freeze on tax hikes, Campomanes and Moñino suggested the government placate creoles by opening up opportunities for them in Spain. Creoles should be encouraged to attend Spanish universities, serve in their own regiments in the Spanish military in Europe, and hold positions in the Spanish bureaucracy. The American colonies should also send deputies to sit on the councils of state in Madrid, which would “inspire the most appropriate laws, to provide essential information in the most timely manner, and even to foster public happiness, by creating a united body of the Nation.”57 While the immediate crisis warranted a tough response, these two influential ministers of the crown suggested that in the long term only a more equitable relationship between Spain and America could save the empire. Campomanes and Moñino identified Gamboa as an ideal guinea pig for their idea of bringing creole officials to serve in equivalent posts in

54 agi, Mexico 2778, “Lorenzana to Arriaga, Dec. 1, 1767.” 55 On the crown’s move against the alleged anti-government ministers see Luis Navarro García, “Destrucción de la oposición política,” Anales de la Universidad His palense XXIV(1964). Gamboa was a close friend of an outspoken opponent of the visita Juan Antonio de Velarde, the veteran peninsula-born crown attorney in New Spain. Gamboa also denounced Gálvez to Croix for his alleged illegal gambling. 56 Aranda, a military officer of aristocratic background but anti-clerical views, and Campomanes and Moñino, both lawyers of middle-class origin, played central roles throughout the reign of Charles III. Campomanes became the governor of the Council of Castile and Moñino, ennobled as the conde de Floridablanca, succeeded Aranda as prime minister. 57 agi, Mexico 2778, “Opinion of Special Council, March 5, 1768.”

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Spain.58 There was no specific charges against him, save for the vague ones of insulting Gálvez and Croix and speaking out too openly against the visita. He was obviously a jurist of talent and experience, as Cam pomanes had acknowledged in 1762 when he favorably reviewed the Comentarios. But they believed it would still be prudent to remove him from Mexico, at least for the duration of the visita. Gamboa did not receive the official summons to Spain until August 1769, although it probably come as no surprise.59 He again had to leave behind in Mexico City his family. To support them in his absence and provide travelling and living expenses in Spain for himself and teenage son Juan José, who would attend university there, Gamboa was forced to liqui- date most of the assets he had accumulated during his prosperous years as a lawyer. He transferred to his friend the Basque merchant Ambrosio Meave his stake in a trading company worth 19,000 pesos.60 He sold off jewels, articles of silver, his coach and mules, and most painfully of all, “the best editions from one of the most complete libraries in Mexico, amassed over many years.”61 To rub salt in the wounds, Croix purchased many of these books himself at fire-sale prices. Gamboa later estimated that the total cost for the move to Spain amounted to 26,000 pesos, equivalent to more than six years his salary as an Audiencia judge.62 He left Mexico with “the greatest resignation” in December 1769. But upon his arrival in Spain in early 1770, he was again in a fighting mood. He began to fire off letters to Julían Arriaga, the minister of the Indies and an acquaintance from his earlier stay in Spain, protesting his innocence and demanding an immediate return to Mexico. In Valladolid, where Juan José attended university, Gamboa prepared a massive submission, consisting of forty notarized documents that reviewed his entire career, including such highlights as his mediation at Real del Monte.63 He also enlisted his wife to write letters to Croix and Arriaga on his behalf, begging for his return on account of her poor health and the family’s financial distress.64 These pleas, however, fell on deaf ears. In August 1770 Gamboa received notice of his appointment to the Audiencia of Barcelona.65 Although an

58 Ibid., “Opinion of Special Council, Jan. 6, 1769.” 59 Ibid., “Gamboa to Croix, Aug. 7, 1769.” 60 Ibid., “Escriptura Gamboa to Meave, 1769.” 61 Ibid., “Gamboa to Arriaga, Aug. 25, 1772.” 62 Ibid. 63 agi, Mexico 1876, “Representation, June 13, 1770.” 64 agi, Mexico 2778, “Urrutia to Arriaga, Dec. 1, 1770.” 65 Ibid., “Gamboa to Arriaga, Sept. 7, 1770.”

252 christopher albi unprecedented honor for a creole to be selected to such a senior court in Spain, Gamboa refused, fearing that accepting the position would jeopardize his chances of ever seeing his family or Mexico again. Gamboa’s stubborn insistence on his innocence forced Madrid to examine his case again in 1772. Campomanes and Moñino admitted that authorities in New Spain had failed to furnish any evidence of his involvement in anti-government activities. His only wrongdoing was speaking out too strongly against the visita, though in this he had plenty of company in New Spain and indeed in Madrid itself. Since his departure, in any case, the political atmosphere in Mexico had relaxed markedly. In 1771 the crown replaced Croix with the conciliatory Antonio Maria Bucareli, a veteran colonial official friendly to creoles and skeptical of radical reform.66 Gálvez himself, after an apparent nervous breakdown, had concluded the visita and returned to Madrid in early 1772.67 It seemed safe to let Gamboa return home to his old position on the Audiencia of Mexico.68 Campomanes and Moñino did admonish him “to abstain in the future of mixing in or speaking publicly of governmental matters, confining himself to the duties of his judicial office.”69 Gamboa arrived back home in early 1773. In April 1774, the Council of the Indies promoted him to the civil division of the Audiencia as an oidor.70 While his banishment from Mexico was unusual, prompted by the particularly fraught circumstances of the late 1760s, his return to grace was standard procedure in the Spanish bureaucracy. The crown could not afford to waste men of talent, even ones prone to defiance and insubordination.

Mexican Silver and Imperial Reform in the 1770s and 1780s

Oidores, the civil magistrates on the Audiencias, played a fundamental role in colonial government, the guardians of the system of justice. The Spanish crown in fact established Audiencias in Santo Domingo and

66 Bucareli expressed his hostility to Gálvez in confidential letters to his friend, Antonio de Ulloa, the naval commander. See Francisco de Solano, Antonio de Ulloa y la Nueva España (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1987). 67 Priestley, Gálvez, 296–302. 68 Perhaps as a favor to him, his fellow judges had recommended to the crown to leave his seat empty, with them filling it on a rotating basis. agi, Mexico “Audiencia to Croix, Aug. 8, 1769.” 69 agi, Mexico 2778, “Opinion of Special Council, April 7, 1772.” 70 Simancas, Dirección General del Tesoro 24-185-119, “Appointment as oidor, March 15, 1774.”

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Mexico before the first viceroyalty of New Spain. Oidores were proud that they represented royal authority as much as did the viceroys, only in the sphere of justice rather than government. In fact, certain decisions of the viceroy could be appealed to the Audiencia but no decisions of the Audiencia could be appealed the other way. Only the Council of the Indies exercised superior authority over judicial matters. Among the most educated of royal servants, oidores also carried out many political and administrative duties, including advising the viceroy on important matters of state. They constantly clashed with viceroys over jurisdiction and honors, as illustrated by Gamboa’s contests with Croix in the 1760s over public security. Although easy to dismiss as the self-interested scramble for status, institutional competition played an essential function. In colonial Mexico, an independent court of law had the clout to stand up against the viceroyalty’s chief executive. Warned to keep an eye on him, viceroy Bucareli quickly came to value Gamboa’s advice and abilities. He entrusted him with several special commissions, such as the administration of the former Jesuit schools of San Gregorio and Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, both dedicated to the education of Indian pupils. To rescue Guadalupe, a school for girls, Gamboa prevailed upon his old merchant and miner friends to fund a foundation.71 He also served as the first commissioner of the state lottery, perhaps becoming best known to the general public as a name on their lottery tickets. Meanwhile, his social life continued to revolve around the Basque community. He was a charter member of the Mexican branch of the Basque economic society, the Real Sociedad Bascongada de los Amigos del País, and presided as rector of Nuestra Señora de Aránzazu for two terms in the late 1770s.72 Bucareli calmed the political waters of New Spain after the turmoil of the visita. Unlike Croix and Gálvez, he saw no need for radical change. Indeed, he declared that “one of the principal maxims of good government is not to disturb ancient customs when they are not offensive.”73 Gálvez and the reform impetus he personified, however, were hardly finished. In 1776, recovered from the mental illness that afflicted him in his final years in Mexico, Gálvez attained a position of unparalleled influence

71 Elisa Luque Alcaide, “Francisco Javier Gamboa y la educación del indígena en México (siglo XVIII),” in Los vascos en las regiones de México siglos XVI–XX, ed. Amaya Garritz (Mexico City: Universidad Autónoma de México, 1999). 72 Josefina María Cristina Torales Pacheco, Ilustrados en la Nueva España: Los socios de la Real Sociedad Bascongada de los Amigos del País (México, 2001). 73 agi, Mexico 1129, “Bucareli to the Crown,” Dec. 24, 1771.

254 christopher albi over colonial policy, as both minister of the Indies and president of the Council of the Indies. He saw his new mission as extending the reforms he began in Mexico to the entire empire. He started by overseeing the creation of the new viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata in 1776, a response to the rising prominence of Buenos Aires. In 1778 he achieved a central part in the reform program, ending Cadiz’s monopoly over overseas trade. The libre comercio decree opened up trade between most Spanish and Spanish American ports and did away with the fleets, except to Veracruz due to the strategic importance of its silver shipments. Gálvez also sent a trusted collaborator from his Mexican days, José Antonio de Areche, to carry out a visita of the viceroyalty of Peru. This ended in calamity when the new tax burdens triggered the biggest rebellion in colonial history, the Tupac Amaru uprising of 1780.74 In New Spain, Gálvez placed first his brother and then nephew on the viceregal throne in the mid-1780s to consolidate his family’s wealth and power. But both died soon after assuming office. Gálvez still had unfinished business in Mexico, namely mining reform and the establishment of intendancies. In 1765 Gálvez carried with him to Mexico Gamboa’s Comentarios a las Ordenanzas de Minas.75 But his ideas about mining quickly diverged from those of the creole jurist. As visitor-general, he embraced a radical plan promoted by another Mexican lawyer, Joaquin Velázquez de León, to create an official miners’ guild, modeled on the merchants’ consulado.76 Velázquez de León and Spanish miner Juan Lassaga first floated the idea in their 1767 petition, sponsored by Gálvez, requesting the reduction in the official price of mercury.77 In 1774 they published a formal proposal.78 They envisioned a self-governing organization, called the Mining Tribunal,

74 On the Andean uprisings of the 1780s see Ward Stavig, The World of Tupac Amaru: Conflict, Community and Identity in Colonial Peru (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999); Charles F. Walker, Smoldering Ashes: Cuzco and the Creation of Republican Peru, 1780–1840 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999); Sergio Serulnikov, Subverting Colonial Authority: Challenges to Spanish Rule in Eighteenth-Century Southern Andes (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2003). 75 Francisco Rodas de Coss, ed. Mexico en el Siglo XVIII, vol. 1 (Mexico City: Secretaria de Relaciones Exteriores, 1983), 51. 76 On Velázquez de León see Roberto Moreno, Joaquín Velázquez de León y sus trabajos científicos sobre el valle de México, 1773–1775 (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1977). 77 Alan Taylor, The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, & Indian Allies, 1st ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010). 78 Juan Lucas de Lassaga and Joaquín Velázquez de León, Representación que a nombre de la Minería de esta Nueva España, hacen al Rey Nuestro Señor (Mexico City: D. Felipe de Zúñiga y Ontiveros, 1774).

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with elected deputies in each district and a board of directors in Mexico City. The Tribunal would adjudicate mining disputes, manage a mining bank, and run a technical college. To provide a steady source of income, it would collect a fee from silver delivered to the Mexico City mint. Velázquez de León promised to draft a new mining code to replace the old Ordinances of 1584. Gálvez perceived right away the advantage to the government of bringing together miners in a single corporate body. Just as the consulado mobilized merchant capital that the crown drew upon for loans and donations, the Tribunal could do the same in the mining sector. For the Spanish crown, the ultimate purpose of the Tribunal was to channel Mexico’s silver to government coffers more efficiently. Anyone who read Gamboa’s Comentarios would have guessed his reaction to the 1774 Tribunal proposal. He had praised the 1584 Ordinances; Velázquez de León and Lassaga derided the statute as obsolete and even judged Gamboa’s Comentarios a wasted effort. Gamboa defended the jurisdiction of the Audiencia over mining litigation; the proponents of the Tribunal claimed the court imposed burdensome costs and delays and lacked the requisite knowledge of mining. Gamboa believed the best way to encourage investment in the mines was by a bank controlled by the merchants of the consulado, already experienced in mining finance. Velázquez de León and Lassaga countered that only miners could understand the investment needs of their peers. Gamboa asserted in the Comentarios that miners were by nature anti-social spendthrifts: “The first enemy of the miner is the miner himself. They are prodigal, without mode or end to their spending on luxuries, extravagances, and even vices.”79 Velázquez de León and Lassaga portrayed miners as noble men of science, oppressed by scheming lawyers, ignorant judges, and greedy merchants. Gamboa advocated reforms that built on existing institutions, such as the consulado and the Audiencia, not a wholesale restructuring of the industry. At first, Gamboa was understandably circumspect in opposing the Tribunal. But his Comentarios provided the material its other critics needed. His close friend on the bench, the veteran oidor Domingo Valcárcel, authored the Audiencia’s official response.80 The sorest point for the court was its loss of jurisdiction. According to the scheme, local deputies of the Tribunal would hear cases at the first instance, with appeals going to the board of directors. Valcárcel repeated what Gamboa

79 Gamboa, Comentarios, 378. 80 agi, Mexico 2240, “Opinion of Valcarcel against the Mining Tribunal, Aug. 29, 1774.”

256 christopher albi had written in the Comentarios, that if the Audiencia lost jurisdiction over mining, miners would lose their basic legal right, founded in natural justice, to appeal decisions to an impartial and authoritative court. This was especially vital since mining deputies, untrained in the law and likely with interests at stake in the disputes they heard, would not provide a very satisfactory level of justice. In attacking the proposed Tribunal bank, Valcárcel echoed Gamboa in the Comentarios, calling miners irresponsi- ble spendthrifts who lacked the judgment to manage a bank. As for the technical college, Valcárcel said everything miners needed to know could be found in the pages of Gamboa’s book. Viceroy Bucareli also voted against the Tribunal, in an opinion reputedly dictated by Gamboa himself.81 Even, the Council of the Indies, not yet under Gálvez’s control, made liberal use of Gamboa’s Comentarios in slamming the Tribunal. It asked whether it made sense “to create a guild for subjects so dispersed and scattered in the vast extension of the whole kingdom and who were judged essentially unsocial, or if it would be more opportune that the merchants of the Consulado, who generally finance mining and the rehabilitation of old mines,” be entrusted with a bank?82 Despite this impressive show of opposition, the crown still approved the Tribunal on July 1, 1776, clear proof of the sway Gálvez now commanded over colonial policy. Gamboa then reverted to his old confrontational self. In 1778, while Madrid was still deciding how to implement the new adjudicative system, the Audiencia of Mexico heard an appeal of a case from the mining district of Guanajuato. Tomás Liceaga, the Tribunal’s local deputy and a charter member of its board of directors, was found to have breached the 1584 Ordinances by claiming that scavengers looting one of his old mines were actually his paid employees. To retain title to this property, he had to show that he maintained an active workforce on site. Gamboa used Liceaga’s conduct to discredit the Tribunal. In letter to the Council of the Indies he asked sarcastically, “If the first deputy of the most famous and opulent mining district in the kingdom approves as legal and consistent with the Ordinances the fraud of claiming scavengers as proper workers,” what hope was there for the administration of justice under the Tribunal? The mining industry of Mexico would be ruined, Gamboa predicted, if such “illiterates, without judgment, discretion, or experience” were put in charge.83

81 Walter Howe, The Mining Guild of New Spain and its Tribunal General, 1770–1821 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1949; repr., 1968), 49. 82 agi, Mexico 2240, “Dictamen of Council of the Indies, April 23, 1776.” 83 Ibid., “Audiencia Representation to crown, April 26, 1778.”

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If Gálvez was not already apprised of Gamboa’s maneuverings, Lassaga soon made sure of it: In spite of the well-known protection that the mining profession owes Your Excellency, a few judges of the Audiencia attack us through various means. In the last post, they sent a representation to the Council, promoted and redacted by the oidor Don Francisco Xavier de Gamboa (signed as well by Señor Don Domingo Valcárcel, who in these matters will never be retired)… They add nothing new this time, but if Your Excellency does not see fit to show them your displeasure, they will continue in their conduct and even thwart whatever provisions Your Excellency may take to benefit this body.84 As far as Gálvez was concerned, the Tribunal had already proven its worth. In 1777, it advanced the government a huge loan to construct a naval ship- yard in the Mexican port of Coatzacoalcos.85 Rather than use its income from the mint to back credit for miners, the board continually acquiesced to raise loans for the crown. In 1779, it awarded Gálvez himself an annual pension in perpetuity in gratitude for his patronage.86 Whether it benefited miners was moot as long as it supported an increasingly cash- strapped Spanish monarchy. In late 1780, Gálvez found a convenient way to show his displeasure. He appointed Gamboa to the vacant post of regent, or chief justice, of the Audiencia of Santo Domingo.87 A trip to the Caribbean was hardly welcome in the eighteenth century. Gamboa protested the “promotion,” claiming that at sixty-three he was “more ready for the tomb than voyages by sea.”88 He feared that the diseases or hurricanes of Santo Domingo would kill him. He was also loath to leave behind his family, for his wife was too ill to travel and two of his daughters were housebound because of poor health. If the king no longer desired his services in Mexico, he requested permission to retire honorably.89 For three years, Gamboa dug in his heels and refused to report to duty in Santo Domingo, a replay of his behavior ten years earlier in rejecting

84 agi, Mexico 2240, “Lassaga to Gálvez, June 27, 1778.” Gamboa was also identified as a threat to Gálvez’s plans by Pedro Antonio Cossío, the controversial head of the viceregal secretariat in Mexico City. See AGI, Mexico 1511, “Cossio to Gálvez, Nov. 20, 1780.” 85 agi, Mexico 2238, “Posada to Valdés, Dec. 30, 1788.” 86 agi, Mexico 2235, “Royal decree, July 21, 1779.” 87 The crown had created the office of regent in 1776, as a way to better control the American Audiencias. Rather than seniority determining leadership of the court, the crown could install its own choice. 88 agi, Mexico 1876, “Representation to the king, March 14, 1781.” 89 agi, Mexico 1511, “Cossío to Gálvez, March 14, 1781.”; AGI, Mexico 1876, “Mayorga to Gálvez, March 16, 1781.”

258 christopher albi the appointment to the Audiencia of Barcelona. In 1783, perhaps in an effort to lessen the dread of leaving behind his family, Gálvez facilitated the placement of his son Juan José, a priest, in the Mexico City cathedral. Upon his arrival home in May, after fourteen years in Spain, Juan José was shocked by the condition of his family. He wrote immediately to Gálvez: My father old, annihilated, almost dead, my mother and sisters finished, suffering from such constant afflictions that I do not see how they survive. This was the sight my household presented to me and I thus see its irremisible destruction if the mercy of our lordship the king is not disposed to exonerate my father from the regency of Santo Domingo.90 But Gálvez would not give up. And finally in October 1783, Gamboa, close to sixty-six, set off for Santo Domingo, accompanied just by a servant.

Sugar, Slaves, and Old Age

Santo Domingo was a miserable backwater, Spain’s first permanent American settlement but overshadowed by the dynamic plantation colonies around it, especially its neighbor on Hispaniola, the wealthy French sugar colony of Saint-Domingue. Gamboa’s arrival in early 1784 as its chief magistrate, however, coincided with an effort by the Spanish crown to transform its economy from cattle to sugar. Coincidentally, the project was headed by a member of the Council of the Indies Gamboa had met decades earlier in Madrid, Bernardo de Iriarte, then a teenager and nephew of Gamboa’s friend, Juan de Iriarte, the distinguished humanist writer and librarian of the king. It must have at least brought Gamboa some consolation to start a correspondence with the younger Iriarte and be counted on to help him in the economic reform of the colony.91 The work had begun before Gamboa’s arrival, with the drafting of a slave code by a young oidor on the Audiencia, Agustín de Emparán. Gamboa praised Emparán’s work, considering his proposed law “less bloody” than the French code. Gamboa made the interesting suggestion that a crown attorney be appointed to act as the official protector of blacks, equivalent to the protector of the Indians in Mexico. Besides the importation of slaves, Gamboa emphasized the need for more European immigration, even non-Spaniards if necessary as long as they professed Catholicism. Iriarte incorporated Gamboa’s ideas into a formal proposal,

90 agi, Mexico 1876, “Juan José Gamboa to Gálvez, May 30, 1783.” 91 British Library, Egerton Collection “Gamboa-Iriarte Correspondence.”

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approved by the crown in 1785. The plan would adopt Emparán’s slave code, authorize the free importation of African slaves, offer tax exemp- tions for planters, and grant permission to produce rum on the island.92 Most residents of Santo Domingo, however, especially the cattle ranchers, abhorred the scheme and did everything in their power to stop it. Gamboa did not apparently see the irony that now he was in the position of outsider demanding fundamental change in a Spanish colony. The collapse of the plan exasperated him, as he remarked to Iriarte, “This island is utterly miserable in all proceedings.”93 In retrospect, Santo Domingo’s failure to rouse itself from its economic torpor proved a blessing. A few years later, its neighbor, Saint-Domingue, exploded in the New World’s greatest slave rebellion.94 Gamboa survived Santo Domingo and outlasted his old adversary, José de Gálvez, who died in 1787. The new minister of the Indies responsible for matters of justice, Antonio Porlier, a former Audiencia judge in Peru, knew and respected Gamboa. In late 1787 he named him as regent of the Audiencia of Mexico, the first creole to hold this office, second only to the viceroy in civil rank. A grateful Gamboa called Porlier his “redeemer,” who had “stopped the clamors of my distressed family.”95 He returned to Mexico City in early 1788. His wife, who also survived his Dominican exile, died the following year, at the age of fifty-eight.96 Although racked by old age, Gamboa reached the peak of his power as regent of the Audiencia, more pugnacious and irascible as ever in defending the jurisdiction of the Audiencia and the prerogatives of its magistrates. He obstructed the reformist viceroy, the second conde de Revillagigedo, whose father had antagonized the merchants of the consulado in the 1750s. Revillagigedo complained to Madrid about Gamboa’s “scornful tone, his lack of obedience to my orders, and the bad example of insubordination in a minister who should be the first in manifesting respect and submission to the superior chief of the kingdom.”97 They did at least agree that the Mining Tribunal had been a disaster, at least for the miners. Its bank collapsed in 1786, shortly after the death of both Velázquez de León and Lassaga, with unpaid loans to insiders and its mint income

92 Ibid., 217–224, “Royal decree, April 12, 1786.” 93 British Library, Egerton Collection 310, “Gamboa to Iriarte, April 25, 1787.” 94 See Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World: the Story of the Haitian Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004). 95 agi, Mexico 1642, “Gamboa to Porlier, Jan. 25, 1788.” 96 agn, Civil 23, “Gamboa to Audiencia, April 30, 1789.” 97 agi, Mexico 1131, “Revillagigedo to Porlier, Jan. 10, 1792.”

260 christopher albi committed to cover interest on government loans. Even before the Tribunal’s restructuring in the early 1790s, the government had brought in civil judges to help with adjudication and consulado merchants to sit on its board. In January 1790 Gamboa made one last stab, to no avail, at convincing Madrid to set up a new mining bank under the consulado, a proposal backed by Revillagigedo.98 The final campaign of Gamboa’s life was against the intendancy system, installed in New Spain in 1786 after twenty years of discussion and delay. The purpose of the reform was to replace the alcaldes mayores, the crown’s local administrators, with a smaller number of better-paid and more capable regional intendants, the equivalents of state governors. Few defended the alcaldes mayores, whose insufficient salaries led them to take advantage of Indians, most notoriously by forcing them to purchase goods at inflated prices in exchange for credit. But most veteran colonial officials feared that the expansive powers delegated to intendants would make them unaccountable tyrants in the vast expanses of New Spain.99 Gamboa led a rearguard action to limit their authority. Manuel de Flon, the first intendant of Guanajuato, complained about him to Madrid: This man, who as a native of this kingdom and for his advanced age, should not command in it, let alone lead it, is the decisive vote in many delibera- tions. Because of his character, fertile in machinations, he easily attracts others to his side and uses them for whatever mischief he finds convenient. This evil would not be so bad if this minister conducted himself in all things with a loyal and sincere desire to carry out the great responsibilities with which the king has entrusted him, but disgracefully, instead he commonly favors the worst interest.100 There was little Madrid could do at this point. Porlier himself doubted the wisdom of the intendancy system and by the 1790s Spain was more concerned with revolutionary France and the might of the British navy than domestic politics in New Spain. Gamboa died in June 1794 at the age of seventy-six. Nuestra Señora de Aránzazu, the Basque lay brotherhood he joined as a young lawyer fifty years earlier, held a funeral mass in his honor. A eulogy appeared in the

98 agi, Mexico 2238, “Opinion of Gamboa on Mining Tribunal, January 1, 1790.” The Tribunal was reorganized in the 1790s under the Basque chemist Fausto de Elhuyar, who concentrated more on the technical and scientific aspects of mining than its financial and judicial. It continued, however, as an intermediary for government loans. 99 Viceroy Bucareli was a particular opponent, stalling the plan during his term in Mexico from 1771 to 1779. See Solano, Antonio de Ulloa y la Nueva España, 158. 100 agi, Mexico 1976, “Flon to Gardoqui, June 27, 1792.”

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Gacetas de México, one of Mexico’s first newspapers, written by the poly- math priest José Antonio Alzate, the paper’s editor.101 He praised Gamboa as “the first lawyer of the kingdom,” highlighting his representation of the consulado in Madrid, his settlement of the Real del Monte strike, and his success in saving from financial ruin the former Jesuit schools of San Gregorio and Guadalupe. A fellow alumnus of the Jesuit college of San Ildefonso, Alzate particularly celebrated Gamboa’s scientific interests, exemplified by the “immortal” Comentarios. Not surprisingly in a published elegy, Gamboa’s troubles with the crown, in particular his contentious relationship with José de Gálvez, went unmentioned. Alzate portrayed his 1769 recall to Spain and his 1783 transfer to Santo Domingo as happily-received promotions. He also noted that Gamboa left his personal papers in disarray, making it hard to write a more complete account of his life.102

Conclusion

Historians of colonial Latin America have paid little attention to mid-rank officials like Gamboa, neither a top policymaker nor a subaltern renegade. Yet his life offers a unique vantage point to multiple facets of colonial Spanish America and the Atlantic world. First, he personified the multilay ered identities of the Spanish Atlantic. There was nothing incompatible in being a proud Mexican creole, an active participant in the transatlantic Basque community, and a loyal subject of the Spanish king. For Gamboa, the Basque connection was particularly crucial in launching his career. Their preoccupation with restraining central power, institutionalized in the Basque fueros, also seemed to rub off on him, reinforcing his determination as an Audiencia judge to fight against any measure that limited judicial independence. Even their unapologetic embrace of commerce came through in the economic ideas he expressed in the Comentarios a las Ordenanzas de Minas. Such ethnic affiliations from the old country continued to shape social and cultural life in America, and often outweighed the distinction between creole and peninsular.

101 José Antonio de Alzate y Ramírez, “Elogio histórico del Señor D. Francisco Xavier de Gamboa, Regente que fue de esta Real Audiencia de México,” in Gacetas de literatura de México (Puebla: Reimpresas en la Oficina del Hospital de S. Pedro, a cargo del ciudadano M. Buen Abad, 1831). 102 Juan José Gamboa eventually deposited his father’s papers in the Cathedral library, where most apparently disappeared in the course of the nineteenth century.

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Gamboa should, above all, be recognized for the role he played in trying to save the rule of law in Mexico. By most measures, the law enjoyed greater legitimacy during the colonial era than today. From the start, Spain encouraged popular access to the courts and open legal communication. Anyone in America could write to the king with a complaint, with the reasonable expectation of receiving a reply.103 Indians embraced Spanish law to defend their land and liberty and in Mexico the crown established a special Indian court to expedite their proceedings.104 Most importantly, the pivotal institution in colonial government was the independent judiciary, headed by the Audiencias, equivalent to royal courts of appeal. The Audiencias predated the Viceroyalties, as the crown first extended its authority in America through the provision of justice. To be sure, the administration of justice left much to be desired, but functioned surprisingly well considering the gross inequities embedded in colonial society. In the Bourbon reform era, however, the government lost sight of the value of judicial independence and indeed the legal pluralism that under- pinned it. Seeking to assert central authority, as a means to increase the tax haul from America, the crown tried to rein in the traditional courts, whose power derived as much from unwritten custom as law. Gamboa led the opposition to this centralization. Even if he was just motivated by greed or vanity, this fight mattered. The rule of law is never willed into existence. It requires assertive and sometimes power-hungry judges, willing to take on political leaders in the name of a law that enjoys social legitimacy. Unfortunately for Mexico, this tradition began to erode during Gamboa’s lifetime, despite his best efforts to stop it, and crumbled completely after Independence.

103 Richard J. Ross, “Legal Communications and Imperial Governance: British North America and Spanish America Compared,” in The Cambridge History of Law in America, Early America (1580–1815), ed. Michael Grossberg and Christopher Tomlins (2008): 104–143. 104 Woodrow Borah, Justice by Insurance: The General Indian Court of Colonial Mexico and the Legal Aides of the Half-Real (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983); Brian Philip Owensby, Empire of Law and Indian Justice in Colonial Mexico (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2008).

CHAPTER ELEVEN

BENKOS BIOHÓ: AFRICAN MAROON LEADERSHIP IN NEW GRENADA

Omar H. Ali

A la cabeza del movimiento [de los cimarrones] se encontraba el valiente y atrevido Domingo Bioho … el rey Benkos-Bioho. - Historias, Leyendas, y Tradiciones de Cartagena1

The history and legend of the seventeenth-century African maroon leader Benkos Biohó is among the most dramatic of the Atlantic world. Captured and enslaved along the shores of Guinea-Bissau, West Africa, Biohó was shackled and shipped to New Grenada (in present-day Colombia) in 1596. Within three years of his arrival to the port of Cartagena de Indias—the principal point of entry for Africans into colonial Spanish South America— Biohó organized a slave rebellion, leading thirty men and women into the tropical forest south of the city where he formed one of the earliest maroon communities in the Americas.2 From his maroon settlement (palenque) at the base of the Montes de María, Biohó launched multiple attacks on Spanish authorities. The attacks went on for fourteen years, until 1613, when the colonists negotiated a peace settlement with Biohó, who had become known as “el rey del arcabuco” (the king of the swamps).3 Six years later, however, the treaty was betrayed by the Spanish and the African leader was executed. Although Biohó was dead, his palenque and spirit of rebellion lived on, haunting

1 “At the head of the movement [of maroons—runaway slaves] was the brave and daring Domingo Bioho … the king Benkos-Bioho” quoted in Camilo S. Delgado, Historias, Leyendas y Tradiciones de Cartagena, Tomo IV (Cartagena: J.V. Mogollón, 1947), 11, a compilation of oral history and documentary sources dating to the mid-sixteenth century. 2 Nina S. de Friedmann and Richard Cross, Ma Ngombe: Guerreros y Ganadores en Palenque (Bogotá: Carlos Valencia Editores, 1979), 63. N.B. New Grenada is here and throughout the chapter used as the short-hand for ‘The New Kingdom of Grenada’ (Nuevo Reino de Granada), the group of Spanish colonial provinces in northern South America from the sixteenth through the early eighteenth century. 3 Fray Pedro Simón, Noticias historiales de la conquistas de Tierra Firme en las Indias Occidentales. 5 vols., ed. Juan Friede (Bogotá: Biblioteca Banco Popular, 1981), 223; Richard Price, Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), 20.

264 omar h. ali colonial authorities for generations to come. The image of Biohó, protected by treaty, walking freely into Cartagena “con tanta arrogancia” [with such arrogance], dressed in Spanish gentleman’s attire, with sword and golden dagger at his side, seared into the minds of the Iberians.4 Such audacity by an African in a Spanish colonial stronghold could only be tolerated for so long; such audacity would also inspire ongoing rebellion among captives who followed in Biohó’s footsteps into the forests. Over the next two centuries, successive maroon leaders in New Grenada bore Biohó’s name, or variations thereof, as a tribute to their predecessor.5 Biohó, the person and the name (if not title), had effectively become synonymous with African resistance to slavery in New Grenada.6 Soon his story would form part of the growing body of folklore in the Atlantic world—of heroes, villains, and rebels, including those of other nota ble African maroon leaders: Nyanga of Veracruz (Mexico); Miguel of Barquisimeto (Venezuela); and Ganga Zuma of Palmares (Brazil).7 Today, Biohó is a national folk hero, especially among Afro-Colombians. His story is culled from a combination of documentary sources and oral histories which keep his legend alive.8 In addition to the stories recounted

4 Simón, Noticias historiales, 223. 5 Friedmann and Cross, Ma Ngombe, 67. 6 Margaret M. Olsen, “African Reinscription of Body and Space in New Granada” in Mapping Colonial Latin America: Places and Commonplaces of Identity, Culture, and Experience, ed. Santa Arias and Mariselle Melendez (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2002), 63. Olsen notes “[The] highest leadership in warfare was assigned to an individual who had the status of Bioho, whether this be the name of a place, or the symbolic terminology given to the most daring and brave warrior of the palenque.” 7 See Price, Maroon Societies, 36, 82–104, 170–190; Olsen, “African Reinscription of Body,” 51; George Reid, Afro-Latin America, 1800–2000 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 38; Lucas Fernández de Piedrahita, Historia General de las Conquistas del Nuevo Reyno de Granada, ed. Juan Baptista Verdussen (Amsterdam: Amberes, 1688), 584. Other legend ary maroon leaders from the Americas include Nanny of Jamaica, Macandal of Saint- Domingue, Abraham of Florida, as well as Leonor of Limón and Barûle of Chocó, in New Grenada and Colombia respectively. See Kenneth Bilby, True Maroons (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2008), passim; Sylviane A. Diouf, Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 150–151; Jane Landers, Atlantic Creoles in the Age of Revolutions (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 202; Charles Beatty-Medina, “Alonso de Illesca: African, Ladino, and Maroon Leader in Colonial Ecuador” in The Human Tradition in the Black Atlantic: 1500–2000, ed. Beatriz G. Mamigonian and Karen Racine (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009), 9–21; Kathryn Joy McKnight, “Elder, Slave, and Soldier: Maroon Voices from Palenque del Limon,” Afro-Latino Voices: Narratives from the Early Modern Ibero-Atlantic World, 1550– 1812, ed. Kathryn Joy McKnight and Leo J. Garofalo (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing, 2009), 64. 8 See Andres Garcia Becerra, Ramiro de Jesus Delgado, et al., Etnografías y Patrimonios: Relatos de San Basilio de Palenque: Un Proyecto Educativo Desde la Historia Oral (Medellin:

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by his palenque’s descendents, there are written historical accounts: Biohó’s contemporary Fray Pedro Simón’s Noticias Historiales de la Conquistas de Tierra Firme en las Indias Occidentales (1627); historical compilations, including José P. Urueta’s Documentos Para la Historia de Cartagena (1890) and Camilo S. Delgado’s Historias, Leyendas y Tradiciones de Cartagena (1914), combine oral traditions with documented accounts; selected documents from the Archivo General de Indias (Seville, Spain) and Archivo General de la Nación (Bogotá, Colombia) add to ethnographic accounts, beginning with the pioneering work of the Colombian anthropologist Aquiles Escalante. However, to re-construct Biohó’s story we begin on the other side of the Atlantic, in West Africa.9

Upper Guinea

Born in Bioho, Guinea-Bissau, in approximately 1564, Biohó, an ethnic Bijago, joined his countrymen and women of Upper Guinea (including the Cassanga, Beafata, Diola, Balanta, Nalu, and Banhun) as part of the wider hemorrhaging of humanity out of West Africa during the sixteenth century.10 Feeding the insatiable colonial demands for slave labor in the Americas was the nefarious transatlantic slave trade. A war captive swept into the intercontinental system of exploited black labor, Biohó, unlike many of his fellow Bijago—known to commit suicide upon capture, rather than submit to a lifetime of enslavement—chose to live. Although enslaved, Biohó refused to be a victim of his newfound condition. Even aboard the unnamed slave ship that carried him—one of scores of dreaded vessels that plied the Atlantic, ultimately carrying over ten and half million Africans to the Americas—Biohó remained obstinate. He and

Universidad de Antioquia, Centro de Investigaciones de Ciencias Sociales y Humanas, 2003). 9 Simón, Noticias historiales; José P. Urueta, Documentos para la historia de Cartagena (Cartagena: Tipografia de Araujo L., 1890); Delgado, Historias; Friedmann and Cross, Ma Ngombe; Aquiles Escalante, “Notas sobre el Palenque de San Basilio, una communidad negra de Colombia,” Divulgaciones Etnologicas, 111: 5 (1954), 207–351. 10 Biohó’s name is derived from the area of Upper Guinea that encompasses the peoples and cultures of the Bijago Islands and those on the immediate coast of modern day continental Guinea-Bissau; his year of birth is offered here based on a calculation of the age of his eldest child, Orika, at the time of the formation of his palenque (she was allegedly sixteen; if Biohó was about eighteen years old when she was born, then 1564 would be his birth year). For the ethnic diversity of Upper Guinea as noted, see Sylviane A. Diouf, ed. Fighting the Slave Trade: West African Strategies (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2003), 155, 161.

266 omar h. ali his family, including his wife Wiwa, daughter Orika, and son Sando-Bioho, were captured in Guinea together.11 For security reasons to the crew and captain, Biohó, like other adult male captives, would have been kept in manacles apart from the women and children aboard the slave ship. Although men revolted on slave ships more often than women, the latter were critical players in the planning of such revolts—by gaining access to crewmembers, gathering intelligence, and acting as decoys. Wiwa and Orika may very well have plotted sabotage, but their secrets remain theirs. What is known is that Biohó, along with his family would have neither been spared the mistreatments nor the discomforts that other captives endured below decks on the transatlantic journey, regardless of their previous rank or social status. If not of royalty (as Biohó claimed), he was probably of Bijago’s commanding class given his extraordinary military and leadership skills. Circumstances favored Biohó keeping his immediate family from being split up early in the process of enslavement. For those Africans in the Atlantic world captured into slavery beyond the seventeenth century, the journey and descent from freedom to slavery could begin many hundreds of miles inland, leading to family members being torn apart even before reaching the West African coast. At the time that Biohó was captured, West Africans were still being taken from near the shores of the continent, as the slave trade had not yet fully expanded into the interior regions. Once on the coast, men, women, and children, were kept in ‘factories’ (armed holding stations, or forts), where they awaited transport or some unknown fate. Whether Biohó and his family went straight to a slave ship upon capture or were held in a factory is not known. Either way, his family was shipped together. Portuguese captains and merchants conducted business with a range of Africans in Upper Guinea—the former offering iron, as well as rum, tobacco, muskets, gun powder, swords, or other finished goods, in exchange for people captured in war or caught by slave raiders. The Portuguese had joined and, over time, dramatically increased existing slave raiding and trading among various political forces in Upper Guinea with their insatiable demand for captives. Other Europeans—Dutch, English, French, and Spanish—followed in their wake, accelerating the drive for captives over the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the desire for imported products among Africans, both for wealth and defense.

11 Delgado, Historias, 11.

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The Bijago Islands, an archipelago just off the Upper Guinea Coast, were on the frontier of the powerful Mandika state of Kaabu to the interior (comprising approximately twenty monarchies) and the smaller coastal state of Casamance. Bijago societies, dispersed across some thirty islands, were fiercely independent and politically decentralized.12 Like other societies during the rise of the Atlantic slave trade, they shifted their resources and simultaneously adapted to and shaped their newfound conditions. With the rise of the transatlantic slave trade the Bijago increasingly turned away from fishing and agriculture towards slave raiding as a means of accumulating wealth and maintaining their autonomy. As the historian Walter Hawthorne describes the Upper Guinea during the period, slave raiding as a process was chaotic, attracting myriad participants from a variety of types of political configurations. Powerful states certainly harvested slaves, but some decentralized societies chose to produce and trade captives as well. When small-scale communities entered the slave trade, elevated elites—kings or other state leaders—were not the decision makers; common people—village chiefs, age grade members, committees of elders, and others who controlled the most local of power structures—were.13 For many smaller politically-decentralized societies in the era (as opposed to the larger imperial states, in which the acquisition of captives was part of their expansion) their best survival strategy was often to become slavers themselves. The Bijago excelled in this. By producing and trading captives the Bijago gained access to valuable imports, namely iron (the strongest of forged materials), to make the iron and iron-reinforced weapons—swords, knives, spears, and arrows—necessary to best defend themselves and to go on the offensive. Iron and the ore from which it was produced, being less available in the region, placed those societies that had access to them on the cutting edge of slave raiding. In the case of the Bijago, iron weapons in combination with imported guns, made them a small but highly effective group of warriors.14 An officer of the British Royal Navy, Philip Beaver, offers a detailed description of the Bijago, providing a glimpse into their form of combat and weaponry. The British officer begins by noting that “Every Bijuga is a warrior.” In one hand, Beaver notes, the armed Bijago carried a long

12 Some of the key Bijago trading islands included Ponta, Ago, Una, Camona, Nhoco, and Xoga. See Walter Hawthorne, Planting Rice and Harvesting Slaves: Transformations Along the Guinea-Bissau Coast: 1400–1900 (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2003), 28, 102. 13 Walter Hawthorne, “Strategies of the Decentralized: Defending Communities from Slave Raiders in Coastal Guinea-Bissau, 1450–1815,” in Fighting the Slave Trade, 2003, 154. 14 Ibid., 154, 161.

268 omar h. ali gun; in the other hand, they held a round convex shield, behind which they kept a spear. Slung over their shoulder Bijago warriors carried a razor-sharp, four-foot long sword, which they used with lethal precision: When they attack, they first discharge their guns, kneeling and supporting the left elbow on the left knee, they then throw it down, and advancing to a proper distance, covering themselves with their shield, they launch their assagaye [spear], and then have recourse to their sword. They approach squatting, with their shield nearly covering their whole body, its convex form is admirably adapted to turn off the enemy’s shot; indeed a musquet ball will not penetrate it.15 Redirecting their navigation and boat-building skills from fishing and trading to slave raiding, Hawthorne explains that the Bijago employed hit-and-run attacks on both coastal villages and fishing villages off of the Rio Cacheu and Rio Grande. They did so heavily-armed in boats, pow- ered by dozens of rowers. According to the French explorer Gaspar Théodore Mollien, the Bijago typically affixed “a piece of wood, armed with two iron horns” on the sterns of their boats, which he described as the “tutelary [i.e. guardian] deity to protect them from the fury of the winds.”16 As Álvares described in 1594, “Canoes rise level with the water, but it is the habit of the Bijagos to raise [the sides] with two planks that we call false-sides, fitted on top, so that the canoes can ride deeper and carry more robbers and loot. A canoe normally carries 22–24 men, each rowing; and as well as the men it carries their weapons.”17 (176). Such navigation and fighting skills would serve Biohó on the other side of the Atlantic, even if they were not enough to keep him from becoming enslaved himself. His coming from a decentralized political society, it seemed, would also serve as a basis for the political structures of palenques—which were autonomous and militarized units, like those of the Bijago.

15 Phillip Beaver, African Memoranda: Relative to an Attempt to Establish a British Colony on the Island of Bulama, on the Western Coast of Africa, in the year 1792 (London: Dawsons of Paul Mall, 1968), 335–336; Hawthorne, Planting Rice and Harvesting Slaves, 103. 16 Gaspar Théodore Mollien, Travels in the Interior of Africa to the Sources of the Senegal and Gambia Performed by the Command of the French Government in the Year 1818, ed. T.E. Bowdich (London: Frank Cass, 1967), 336; Hawthorne, “Strategies of the Decentralized,” 98. 17 André Álvares Almada, Tratado Breve Dos Rios de Guiné, trans. Paul E.H. Hair, (Liverpool; University of Liverpool, Department of History, 1984), quoted in Hawthorne, Planting Rice and Harvesting Slaves, 176.

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Back in the Upper Guinea, by as early as the turn of the seventeenth century slave raiding had become a mainstay of Bijago life. In 1606, the Portuguese Jesuit missionary Baltasar Bareira wrote: “[the Bijago] make a living out of continual attacks on neighboring kingdoms, and as they are great sailors, very courageous and skilled in arms, they have ravaged and destroyed all that coast, because it is cut up by many rivers and creeks, where they enter at night.” Bareira goes on to discuss how the Bijago carry out their surprise attacks: reaching the mainland before dawn, they would set fire to the grass houses “and so that those inside do not get away, they place themselves one at each door, with several poisoned spears in the left hand, and a single one in the right, and if the person that comes out does not come out with his arms crossed and throw himself at their feet, he is immediately run through, even if he offers no resistance.” Such captives were then taken to their islands, “where they always find Portuguese ships awaiting their return to buy slaves.”18 The iron Bijago exchanged for captives came in the form of “country bars”—iron bars forged between eight and twelve inches in length, with one end being two fingers and the other being three fingers thick. The dimensions of the iron bars used by smiths in Upper Guinea were based on the Mande standard, which in turn were embraced by Europeans. Not only was iron used by the Bijago to make strong weapons, but it also helped them to increase their agricultural productivity by having it reinforce digging and cutting tools. But while iron was particularly valued among the Bijago both for weapons production and agriculture, they demanded other products as well, including cloth, tobacco, beads, guns, gunpowder, wine, and rum. Iron, nevertheless, remained the most important import.19 Politically, although Biohó was referred to as a “king” in New Grenada, decentralized Bijago societies did not have monarchs; each of the Bijago islands was independent of the next, which were ruled by a single or group of elders—variously described as “nobles” or “lords.” As the Luso- Cape Verdean writer André Álvares de Almada noted in 1594 “There is no king among them … they only have nobles, whom they obey, the lords of the inhabited islands. In any one island there may be two or three nobles who live there and form settlements along the seashore or nearby.”20 Still,

18 Hair and Mota, Jesuit Documents, doc. 16, quoted in Hawthorne, Planting Rice and Harvesting Slaves 102. 19 Hawthorne, Planting Rice and Harvesting Slaves, 98. 20 André Álvares de Almada, Tratado Breve Dos Rios de Guiné, trans. Paul E.H. Hair, 1984, 96; quoted in Ibid., 101.

270 omar h. ali as the Portuguese observer Francisco de Lemos Coelho concluded, “Because the Bijagos have no king, each man wishes to be king in his village [as] they greatly desire [European ships, with their products] to go to the harbor of their own village.”21 Bijago social conventions, however, mitigated against the outward distinction of leaders and those who followed them. Their dress was similar to others of their age-grade, they divided war booty relatively evenly, and all ate out of the same serving bowl—a very different dynamic than societies to the interior of the continent where nobles set themselves apart. Beaver wrote “Their government … is monarchical, but the power of the sovereign seems trifling; he cannot be known from his subjects by any external mark of dress, or respect shown to him; and he eats out the same calabash with any of his people.”22 Álvares underscores this by stating that “the tagarra or gourd, from which they eat is common to all … The man of standing, the slave, the child, all dip their hand in.” The egalitarian spirit is also seen in how the Bijago divided the spoils of war and slave raiding: according Álvares, the captain of the boat received one part, the “war- captain” another and the warriors the final third.23 Slave raiding, how ever, was a double-edged sword, where raiders, and those who directed them, sometimes became captives themselves. African nobility that were captured were sometimes able to exchange themselves for several other lower-ranking members of their societies; in Biohó’s case this was apparently not possible. If one survived the forced march to sea and the confining and disorienting factories (where captives were sometimes kept in almost complete darkness—as in Elmina castle further south, on the Gold Coast—and for weeks at a time), one then faced a brutal two to three week journey across the sea. Survivors of the transatlantic journey like Biohó, along with millions of other West Africans, would never forget their experiences—although they tried (detailed accounts of this part of the Middle Passage in survi- vor’s autobiographies are conspicuously absent).24 Escape was next to impossible once secured aboard a slave ship: armed guards were forever

21 Coelho, Description, chapter 7. 22 Beaver, African Memoranda, 338. 23 Manual Álvares, Ethiopia Minor and General Account of the Province of Sierra Leone, trans. Paul E.H. Hair, 1990, Chapter 9; Hawthorne, Planting Rice and Harvesting Slaves, 101, 103. 24 Most prominently, Olaudah Equiano’s late eighteenth century biography is largely devoid of such details. See Robert J. Allison, ed., The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Written by Himself, With Related Documents (Boston, MA: Bedford St. Martin’s Press, 2007).

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on alert, a forbidding ten to twelve foot high barricado separated most of the crew from the cargo when captives were ‘let out’ on deck; iron shackles confined, sleep deprivation confused, dehydration and sickness weakened, and madness raged all around.25 For captives, time was lost at sea. For days, then weeks, the bare decks scraped at one’s skin ever closer to the bone; thirst was foremost, with little relief after the buckets were let down; delirium set in; for many, death was the only likely and desirable escape.26 The slave ship was a scene of horror. Vapors from the heat produced by black bodies below decks could be seen rising through the gates that kept captives confined in the bowels of the ship.. Strangers and family members, like those of Biohó, young and old, were thrown together, packed in close quarters in pools of collective sweat, feces, and urine swooshing around from one side of the deck to the other with each motion of the wooden hull—described by one observer as a massive floating coffin.27 Although escape was next to impossible once the ships were out to sea, whiffs of the wretched conditions onboard did—it was said that on days when the winds blew towards the shore, one could smell the foul odor of the slave ships even before sighting them on the horizon. At sea, sharks forever circled the vessels, knowing that they would sooner or later feast on carcasses thrown overboard—the dead and the dying, sometimes dozens on a single journey, unable to withstand the passage, were dumped overboard: lost cargo, lost profits, lost people. Biohó’s character, endurance, and resolve were tested to its limits on his forced voyage across the Atlantic. His thoughts must have been swirling about his family’s safety, his previous life, desire for revenge, and what he could do to escape. He must have been planning, organizing those around him, but never finding the right moment, or perhaps the necessary support to strike. He may have conceded temporary defeat to his captors, knowing that a mutiny leading to a safe return home was a shot in the dark. Once at sea, perhaps he knew that the best chance he had to regain his and his families’ freedom was to survive and find some opportunity on the other side of the Atlantic, somewhere, somehow.

25 Markus Rediker, The Slave Ship: A Human History (New York: Viking, 2007), 70. 26 As Marcus Rediker notes in The Slave Ship, captives were often lost even if they could overtake their captors at sea. Their best chance of escape was before the ships set to sea. 27 Rediker, The Slave Ship, 274. Walter Rodney notes that Portuguese slave ships were packed with between 300 and 500 “‘pieces’ of humanity”; they were also often packed over the limits set by authorities of the House of Seville. See Walter Rodney, A History of the Upper Guinea Coast, 1545–1800 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), 96–97.

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Those who survived the Middle Passage were undoubtedly trans formed. Many referred to each other as “shipmates.” As the historian Markus Rediker notes, the designation was “the equivalent of brother or sister, and thereby inaugurated a ‘fictive’ but very real kinship to replace what had been destroyed by their abduction and enslavement in Africa.”28 Whether or not they acknowledged it, captives had forever gained common ground with all other captives on their journey—irrespective of ethnicity, nation, social strata, or religious practice. They had become ‘African’ by virtue of their shared experience, less divided. Differences among captives, nevertheless, remained—certainly among the first generation or two. In time, the descendents of those who came via the slave ships would become increasingly Americanized, as they were exposed to a range of cultural influences (African, European, and Indian). Biohó would experience these changes in his lifetime, seeing the Americanization of his people, comprising multiple nations, religions, and ethnicities. The Spanish had their own categories to divide Africans. The most significant division in the taxonomy created by the Iberians was between those men and women born in Africa versus those born in Spain and its realms. Men and women born in Africa were referred to as negros bozales; those born in the Americas (or Iberia) were negros criollos. Bozales like Biohó brought their world with them—their languages, cultures, histories, knowledge, skills, and sensibilities. In Upper Guinea, Biohó’s people, the Bijago, were a combination of rice and yam cultivators, fisherman, and warriors. Many lived with one foot on the land, the other at sea—or the river.29 Their riverine and coastal trading networks stretched from Senegambia to Lower Guinea, and went north-south and west-east. Politically decentralized with chiefs at the head of their communities, male and female age-grade systems governed daily affairs of Bijago society, which included slaves—albeit slaves that formed part of larger kin networks, unlike the kind of chattel slavery typical of colonial South American slave societies (and societies with slaves). The Bijago were considered to be among the most defiant people along the West African coast.30 A minority population practicing a combination of ancestral veneration and animism, the Bijago repeatedly repelled

28 Rediker, The Slave Ship, 8. 29 Hawthorne, Planting Rice and Harvesting Slaves, passim. 30 Other groups that gained a reputation for their defiance in West Africa included the Coramantee of Akan ethnicity along the Gold Coast (modern Ghana).

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incursions by Muslim powers around them.31 When Iberians landed on their shores, captains were quick to negotiate terms of trade with them, or incur their wrath (the Portuguese had tried, and failed, to conquer the Bijago Islands as early as 1535).32 Although agriculture and fishing continued to sustain the coastal dwellers, their military skills and ferocity increasingly lent themselves to slave raiding. Mounting their almadías (as the Iberians called them)—agile sixty foot-long war canoes holding two dozen men at a time—Bijago warriors, adorned with plumes and bodies painted in red ochre and white pigment, were a formidable sight to see, and force to contend.33 As the late historian Walter Rodney describes, “The Bijago, who resided in the islands off the Cacheu and Gaba estuaries, were particularly noted for their piratical activities, and steadily supplied the Portuguese with Djola, Papel, Balanta, Beafada, and Nalu captives.”34 The arms gained in the slave trade with the Iberians, in turn, fueled Bijago slave-raiding and war—the two having become inextricably linked by Biohó’s time (iron however, was key to their military success). Biohó lived and fought during a tumultuous period in Bijago history. As Rodney continues, “Bijago hostilities were at their height at the turn of the seventeenth century, when the raids of their formidable war canoes forced the three Beafada rulers of Ria Grande de Buba to appeal to the king of Portugal and the Pope for protection, offering in turn to embrace Christianity.” Such heightened hostilities may have also provoked a military alliance against the Bijago that led to Biohó’s captivity. The Bijagos as a whole, however, were not subdued; they grew strong, and continued to supply the Portuguese with captives. As Rodney notes, “Long after this peak period, the inhabitants of the tiny Bijago islands were still supplying over 400 captives per year, all taken from the coastal strip between the Cacheu and the Cacine.”35 Biohó would embody the spirit and practice of his times. He was a slave captor who traded people with the Portuguese yet fell prey to the very slave system of which he was part.36 Re-channeling his energies on the

31 Omar H. Ali, “Muslim Africans in the Iberian Atlantic, 1521–1888,” Rethinking the Iberian Atlantic, conference paper, University of Liverpool, U.K. (September 14, 2007), 1–14. 32 John Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1800 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 39. 33 Friedmann and Cross, Ma Ngombe. 34 Rodney, A History of the Upper Guinea Coast, 331–332. 35 Ibid. 36 Diouf, Fighting the Slave Trade, x-xii.

274 omar h. ali other side of the Atlantic, he refashioned himself a different kind of leader, yet one which still involved securing slaves of his own. Slavery, as an institution, was woven into the fabric of Atlantic societies. Bijagos—as Biohó’s case makes plain—captured others, but were also captured themselves, remaining defiant even as they were enslaved. Writing of Biohó’s people in the early eighteenth century, the French traveler Jean-Baptiste Labat observed, “the Bijago were noted for rebellion on board ship and were sold with great difficulty because of their ferocity and tendency to escape, harm themselves, or commit suicide.”37 Suicide deprived captors of their labor, and, as Iberian legend has it, Bijago captives rolled their tongues back to choke themselves to death. Although physiologically impossible, the lore speaks to the extraordinary lengths to which Bijagos would go to defy their captors.38 Biohó’s people actively resisted their enslavement on the American side of the Atlantic, forever testing the limits of their owners. As Rodney notes, Bijagos “would not work, except under the whip,” or other forms of punishment.39 Violence would beget more violence, along with fear, hostility, and mistrust—all elements of the transatlantic culture of domination and subjugation. As a Bijago leader and warrior Biohó would have been obstinate in his resolve not to work for his master in Cartagena, the merchant Juan de Palacios who had purchased the troublesome African from Juan Gómez, who had in turn purchased him from the Portuguese trafficker Pedro Gómez Reynel.40 In Cartagena, however, Biohó’s options were limited. There he was a slave, neither a master nor a warrior, and in unfamiliar territory. Somehow he would need to find a way out of the city where he could breathe freely, a place and space where he could create himself anew.

37 Jean-Baptiste Labat, Nouvelle Relation de L’Afrique Occidentale, (Paris, 1728), 5: 198; Rodney, A History of the Upper Guinea Coast, 340. 38 Nina S. de Friedmann, Presencia Africana en Colombia: La Saga del Negro (Bogotá: Instituto de Genetica Humana, Facultad de Medicina, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, 1993), 42; as Markus Rediker notes, “Bijago men [were] known to commit suicide upon capture”; Markus Rediker, The Slave Ship. Agradezco mi esposa y médica, Dra. Diana Muñoz, para confirmar esta informacion. In 1594, André Álvares Almada noted of neighboring Balantas in Upper Guinea that if they were enslaved “they die from their obsti- nancy”; Tratado Breve Dos Rios de Guiné, trans. Paul E.H. Hair, 1984, quoted in Diouf, Fighting the Slave Trade, 152. 39 Rodney, A History of the Upper Guinea Coast, 110. 40 Delgado, Historias, 11.

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The Walled City

Cartagena, founded in 1533, was the principal disembarking and distribution center for enslaved Africans into the areas encompassing modern- day Colombia, Panama, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Peru—that is, most of Spanish South America. Although African captives were used in domestic and plantation capacities, the majority worked in the gold mines of the region (especially in Antioquia, and later Chocó). They replaced enslaved indigenous labor; and like the Indians before them, Africans enriched the global Spanish empire. Under constant vigilance and threat of force, African captives removed precious ores from the earth, from which bullion was extracted and used as part of the wealth that purchased more captives for more labor, for more wealth. For generations, enslaved Africans and their descendents worked the deadly mines of South America—that is, in addition to their wider kin who built the roads, constructed the churches, cleared the fields, and cooked, cleaned, and tended the homes of Spaniards and their descendents.41 The first Africans brought to work the gold mines of New Grenada arrived in 1543.42 Between 1580 and 1630 goldmines were worked by African captives in the inland towns of Remedios, Cáceres, and Zaragoza, each of which were accessible by river from Cartagena. Many tens of thousands more Africans were sold and sent to points well beyond the city—to colonial centers and outposts further west and south: Esmeraldas, Guayaquil, Lima, and beyond. In 1595, just before Biohó’s arrival, Spain had granted Portugal the coveted asiento—an imperial contract to privateers and companies to provide colonial Spanish America with enslaved Africans. The contract had been previously restricted to Spanish vessels but between 1580 and 1640 Portugal and Spain joined their monarchies, leading to Portuguese ships supplying the Spanish colonies with African captives who were increasingly taken from Central Africa, where the Portuguese had established trading relations.43 By 1610—Biohó’s

41 Roberto Burgos Cantor, ed., Rutas de Libertad, 500 Años de Travesia (Bogotá: Ministerio de Cultura/Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, 2010), 48; Thornton, Africa and Africans, 174–175. 42 Friedmann, Presencia Africana, 57–58. 43 Jane Landers, “The Central African Presence in Spanish Maroon Communities,” in Central Africans and Cultural Transformations in the American Diaspora, ed. Linda M. Heywood (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 238–239. As the historian Michael A. Gomez notes, “captives destined for Lima arrived initially in Cartagena, as did many Africans headed for Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo during the period [1580–1640]” in

276 omar h. ali time—some 80,000 African captives had been imported into Cartagena; they mostly came from Senegambia and the Gulf of Guinea region, although growing numbers were being brought from Angola, further south (Angolans constituted upwards of 46 percent of all captives in Cartagena between 1596 and 1637).44 From 1595 to 1640 Portuguese slave ships would end up bringing a total of 135,000 enslaved men, women, and children from Africa to Cartagena, dubbed ‘the walled city,’ because of its heavy fortifications.45 In addition to being a major slave entrepôt, Cartagena was also the key transshipment point for gold and silver from Peru and manufactured goods from Spain. It was therefore a strategic center of great wealth whose resources and capital, which included slaves, needed to be tightly guarded and controlled. In 1600 there were approximately 300 Spaniards and 3,000 black slaves living in Cartagena and environs: Spaniards were literally surrounded by Africans, outnumbered ten to one.46 As a result, insurrection and dissent among African captives in Cartagena were met with severe consequences. Captives had to be physically threatened and coerced for their labor to be extracted—that is, for the colonial and larger Spanish imperial system which depended on their labor to function. Fear among Spaniards and captives permeated colonial life, but for different reasons. As a minority population, colonists were acutely aware of their vulnerability to black retribution for being coerced and otherwise abused. In this context, black resistance was ever present (in the form of refusal to work, the damaging of tools, taking flight, and the like); violent slave insurrection was always possible. Under such hostile conditions, black independence could not be permitted. Individual escape (absentee- ism) translated into lost profits; maroonage of groups of captives—those who left colonial-controlled spaces for spaces of their own—was more

Black Crescent: The Experience and Legacy of African Muslims in the Americas (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 40. For a detailed account of the slave trade going to Peru via Cartagena, see Browser, The African Slave in Colonial Peru, 52–87. 44 Enriqueta Vila Vilar, Hispano-America y el comercio de esclavos: Los Asientos portu- gueses (Sevilla: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos, 1977), 148–152. 45 Cartagena had significantly built up its defenses after the pirate Sir Francis Drake plundered the city in 1585. 46 Jorge Orlando Melo, Gran Enciclopedia de Colombia, Vol. 1 (Bogotá: Circulo de Lectores, 1991), 169; Enriqueta Vila Villar, “The large-scale introduction of Africans into Veracruz and Cartagena,” in Comparative Perspectives on Slavery in New World Plantation Societies, ed. Vera Rubin and Arthur Tuden (New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1977), 275, 267–280; and Hispanomerica y el Comercio de Esclavos. See also Paul E. Lovejoy, “The Volume of the Atlantic Slave Trade: A Synthesis,” The Journal of African History, 23: 4 (1982), 473–501. In all, more than one million slaves were brought to Cartagena between the sixteenth and nineteenth century.

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damaging still. Such collective action posed a powerful threat to the slave system as a whole, inciting dissent and further flight among the masses of captives in the walled, yet vulnerable city. In order to control the enslaved population, Spanish authorities attempted to terrorize would-be rebels into submission, making them as dependent on their masters as possible. Legal mechanisms were put into place in Cartagena as early as 1552, when a law was passed making it illegal for an African to travel the streets of the city without a proper Christian (i.e. Spaniard). This was followed by an ordinance in 1554, which prohibited slaves from having any type of dwelling outside of their owner’s residence, with one hundred lashes as penalty for non-compliance. In 1573, other ordinances strictly forbid enslaved persons from carrying any tools that could be used as a weapon: “ni cuchillos, ni machetes, ni macanas” [neither knives, nor machetes, nor clubs].47 Any African who took up arms against a Spaniard was summarily sentenced to death. Over time, legal punishments grew alongside the city’s growing black population. The range and types of ordinances passed in Cartagena during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries make plain the ways in which enslaved Africans were feared, the ways in which colonial officials attempted to terrorize captives and intimidate those who might support the latter. The following order in Cartagena from Biohó’s time exemplifies the legal efforts to control the black population: No slave, male or female, shall run off and leave the service of his master under penalty … of receiving 100 lashes as follows: he shall be tied up at the city pillory in the morning, decorated with strings of bells around his body, whipped 100 times, and left in that position all day long for the other slaves to see. And whosoever dares to remove him from the pillory during that day shall have to pay a fine … Furthermore, a captured runaway who has been absent from the service of his master for more than one month shall have his genitals cut off in public and displayed at the city pillory, so that other slaves may come to realize the consequences. Furthermore, captured slaves who have been runaways for over a year shall be sentenced to death … [and] who- ever captures and keeps a slave who has been away from his master for more than 15 days and does not return him to his rightful owner shall have to pay a fine of 5 pesetas, plus a contribution of 10 pesetas to encourage others to pursue runaways. Also, a large enough force is to be formed to go on expeditions against the maroons, who live in the wilderness, and to bring them

47 María del Carmen Borrego Plá, Cartagena de Indias en el Siglo XVI (Sevilla: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos, 1983), 481–482, 493; quoted in Olsen, “African Rein scription,” 55.

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back to the city. Since some of these blacks are going around and defen ding themselves with weapons (like those used by the authorities), the Government has decreed that individuals who foresee a threat of danger from maroons shall have permission to kill them, if and when they cannot be captured alive. Such permission has been granted especially since it would be advantageous to clean up the territory where these blacks are based and from where they raid the neighboring roads. Therefore, those individuals who kill blacks for these reasons shall not be subject to any form of legal prosecution.48 In other words, depending on the period of time they went missing, black captives who had escaped would be publicly punished in Cartagena by either being whipped, have their genitals cut off, or executed. Those who attempted to help captives were fined, with the funds used to capture other maroons. Additionally, Spaniards could hunt and kill maroons (and, presumably, do what they pleased with them) without fear of legal repercussions. Despite the dire consequences of being caught, Biohó decided to lead an exodus out of Cartagena. The outflow from the city and into the forest began with a handful of people; in time, it grew into thousands.

Rebellion

Within three years of disembarking alongside dozens of Africans at the slave port of Cartagena, Biohó rallied and organized a group of thirty captives to strike for their freedom. In doing so, not only was Biohó stealing away with the ‘property’ of several Spanish slave masters, including his own, Juan Gómez, but challenging the authority of Cartagena’s incoming governor, Jerónimo de Suazo Casasola. De Suazo, much to his frustration, had assumed office just as Biohó’s rebellion was underway. The Franciscan Father (Fray) Pedro Simón offers a compelling account of the rebellion. He begins, “por fines de 1599 … comenzó un alzamiento y retiro de ciertos negros cimarrones …” [at the end of 1599 … began an uprising and flight of certain black maroons]; its leader, who he calls “Domingo Bioho,” as Benkos was known among the Spaniards, is described by Fray Simón as nothing short of “brioso, valiente y atrevido,” [audacious, brave and daring]. In three sections—“(1) The uprising of the blacks of Cartagena (2) The effort to subdue, and the death of several Spaniards (3) Damages done in the land, and the death of other soldiers”—the Franciscan elaborates

48 Escalante, “Notas sobre el Palenque de San Basilio,” 74–75; Urueta, Documentos, I: 219.

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on the rebellion and its consequences. What comes across from the brief Spanish account is that of an uncontained black revolt which leads to colonial frustration, yet guarded admiration for the maroon leader.49 Like that of previous maroon leaders, Biohó’s decision to revolt, as well as those of the men and women who followed his lead, was bold—but it was not brash. It may have been a suicidal undertaking, but it was not an impulsive choice. Biohó and his conspirators—one can imagine them assembled late at night, plotting away—had carefully planned their insurrection: observing the Spaniards, gathering intelligence, coordinating what actions needed to be taken, including what materials to steal, when to strike, where to go, and how. Among the closest of Biohó’s conspirators was “Lorencillo,” a skilled leader in his own right who would later become “captain general” of the multi-national palenque governed by the Bijago rebel king.50 On an unrecorded day during the final months of 1599, Biohó, along with his wife, their two children, three black women close to his wife, and nineteen black men, seized their opportunity for liberty. With emotions running high in what was a dangerous and frightening journey into the wilderness, the group of runaways moved quickly, without hesitation. Traveling by canoes, of which the Bijagos were skilled at handling, Biohó led the rebels down to the area of what became La Matuna, south of the coastal town of Tolú. With alarms sounded, the Africans were pursued by a posse of slave owners, soldiers and mercenaries, including three Indians and a black archer.51 Having anticipated that the slave owners would be at their heels, Biohó ordered part of his guerilla force to hold back in order to set up an ambush. Although the specifics of the ambush have not been recorded, the Spanish forces—totaling twenty—were undoubtedly taken by surprise, loosing several men in the process, including their leader, Juan Gómez—Biohó’s former master. Gómez, as Fray Simón notes, had been particularly abusive towards his slaves. Stunned survivors of the now dead Gómez posse, some of whom apparently thought that the maroons would

49 Simón, Noticias historiales, 219. There are other undocumented accounts of Biohó having tried and failed to escape once before by going down the Magdalena River. 50 Jerónimo de Suazo to king, January 25, 1604, Arrázola, Palenque, 41–42; Thornton, Africa and Africans, 294; Rediker, The Slave Ship, 2007, writes of African captives plotting “in small groups, probably twos and threes, literally conspiring (breathing together) in the dank, fetid air belowdecks [of slave ships], probably at night away from the ears of captain and crew,” 292. 51 Simón, Noticias historiales, 219.

280 omar h. ali simply surrender upon sight, retreated in haste to the safety of Cartagena, where they sought the Governor’s help.52 Seemingly overnight, Biohó had become the undisputed leader of a new maroon community. He had won his first battle but many more were to follow, with Spanish forces numbering up to one hundred in a single assault. Over and again, however, the maroons repelled the Iberians. The maroons protected themselves by drawing on the forest for materials. Surrounded by mangrove marshlands, they built a wooden fortification with spikes deep in the forest at the base of the Montes de María. The structures were likely reminiscent of tabancas—the fortified walls of villages that coastal farmers in Upper Guinea built to protect themselves from slave raiding. As the Luso-African observer André Donelha wrote in 1625, “Their villages are walled around with very large timbers, firmly fixed in the ground, in three or four circling fences, and surrounded outside the ditches. And on these walls, which are here called tabancas, there are very high towers and guard-posts, made of very tall timbers, with wooden walks.”53 Similarly, Coelho described one tabanca during the late seventeenth century as “a stockade formed of pointed stakes with sharp tips, fastened together with cross-bars, and it has two gates which are closed at night.”54 Within the settlements huts were arranged in a circle. Such defensive structures and designs were carried across the Atlantic and shaped the building of palenques for similar defensive purposes. At La Matuna, among other maroon settlements beyond the reach of Cartagena, hundreds of men and women from a variety of nations—from Senegambia down to Angola—joined Biohó’s palenque in seeking their freedom. Each came with their own experiences and knowledge, which were variously used for the protection of their own and other maroon settlements. Biohó, now known as “rey del arcabuco,” quickly grew his force. As Fray Simón writes, “cada dia iban tomando mas fuerzas con mas numero de cimarrones … [con] Bioho, a quien tomaron por cabeza, rey del arcabuco” [each day they gained strength with growing numbers of maroons… with Bioho, who they took as their leader, king of the swamps.]55

52 Ibid. 53 Diouf, Fighting the Slave Trade, 159, André Donelha, An Account of Sierra Leone and the Rivers of Guinea of Cape Verde (1625), trans. Avelino Teixeira da Mota and ed. Paul E.H. Hair (Lisbon: Junta de Investigações Cientificas do Ultramar, 1977), 102–103. 54 Francisco de Lemos Coelho, “Description of the Coast of Guinea (1684)” trans. Paul E.H. Hair, quoted in Diouf, Fighting the Slave Trade, 159. 55 Simón, Noticias historiales, 219.

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Word was out of the successful slave rebel and his guerilla army. Captives liberated themselves and joined the war in droves, launching offensive tactical attacks as part of their larger defensive strategy. As Escalante describes, Biohó targeted “Cartagena, Tolú, Mompós, Tenerife, and so forth, by assaulting and robbing plantations, cattle ranches, … farms … even canoes carrying [black captives] who had been sent to fell large trees for lumber.”56 Maroons secured blunderbusses (a short musket with a wide bore) and fashioned bows, arrows, and macanas “de indio” (stone- studded wooden clubs designed and used by Indians).57 In addition to gaining arms, they also raided plantations and farms for supplies and black female captives (Biohó’s palenque initially had a high male-to- female ratio). Like maroons before and after them, they sustained themselves by cultivating cassava, corn, beans, potatoes, and plantains; they hunted wild pigs and birds; and rustled cattle and other animals for milk, eggs, and meat. They also relied on local woods, palms, and rattans for making thatch roofs, matting, and baskets for daily use; they carved out mortars and pestles for preparing their foods; and they made drums, flutes, and rattles for entertainment, healing ceremonies, and other religious purposes. Here the knowledge of skilled artisans and elders was vital, as many of the techniques they came to use (such as wattle and daub for building houses) were drawn from their prior societies, infused with Spanish and local Indian knowledge.58 Sustaining themselves over a period of years in a hostile environment required a high degree of organization and solidarity.59 Early on, a strict hierarchy of command was instituted to keep security tight. Biohó and his palenqueros at La Matuna may have learned from earlier attempts, including Indian maroons, as their settlement followed in the footsteps of other uprisings and maroon settlements in New Grenada. As early as 1529 runaway African captives formed a palenque at La Ramada near the city of Santa Marta, which maroons later seized and burned. In 1560 maroons formed a palenque at Guachaca in the valley of Upar. And then in 1598,

56 Escalante, El Palenque de San Basilio, 78. 57 Delgado, Historias, 15. 58 See Escalante, “Notas sobre el Palenque de San Basilio,” 207–351; Jane G. Landers, “Maroon Ethnicity and Identity in Ecuador, Colombia, and Hispaniola,” conference paper delivered for the Latin American Studies Association, Miami, FL, 2000, 1–10. 59 Roberto Arrázola, Palenque, Primer Pueblo Libre de America: Historia de las Sublevaciones de los Esclavos de Cartagena (Cartagena: Ediciones Hernandez, 1970).

282 omar h. ali a year before Biohó’s successful uprising, another rebellion erupted in Zaragoza, down the river from Cartagena, leading to maroonage60 In a constant state of alert, even after negotiating peace settlements (which were always tenuous when dealing with the Spaniards), palenques that survived in New Grenada—as elsewhere in the Americas—were organized in military fashion. Several key positions were created, beginning with a supreme leader, often considered a monarch (as in the case of Biohó, or those of Leonor at the nearby Palenque de Limón in the 1630s or Barûle of Palenque de Tadó in Chocó a century thereafter); there was also a war chief (or captain), a governor (or mayor), a treasurer, and a religious leader—or zahorí.61 As the historian John Thornton notes, “Bioho … ruled in conjunction with a ‘captain general’ named Lorencillo, and their settlement had a complicated system of ranks that the Spanish officer Jerónimo de Suazo believed included a ‘treasurer, war lieutenant (teniente de Guerra), baliff (alguazil mayor),’ and others.” Thornton further notes, these Spanish titles may have been a sign of the Americanization of these Africans or, alternatively, like so many European descriptions of Africa, simply a translation of another social system.”62 Whether the titles universally corresponded to the ones used by palenqueros is not known, but the importance of security for which many of these positions were created was clearly paramount. In the midst of ongoing Spanish colonial efforts to recapture or subdue maroons, actual or perceived disloyalty to the group among maroons was little tolerated, as Biohó’s own family soon learned. According to Spanish lore, Biohó’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Orika, would become the victim of maroon cruelty and vengeance. Delgado recounts the story of Orika having fallen in love with the Spaniard Francisco de Campos, the son of her and her mother’s former slave master. De Campos had joined the posse to hunt down her father, Biohó, and served as second-in-command in what was the second attempt to capture the maroons. De Campos, however, was wounded in the battle and captured. Discovering that he had been wounded, Orika requested that she personally tend to the Spaniard’s wounds, which she did with her mother Queen Wiwa. However, one evening Orika decided to declare her love to

60 Rodrigo Isaza Llano, “Hechos y Gentes de la Primera Republica de Colombia,” Boletin de Historia y Antiguedades, 789 (Abril 1995), 501–523. 61 Friedmann and Cross, Ma Ngombe, 86; Olsen, “African Reinscription,” 59. 62 Jerónimo de Suazo to king, January 25, 1604, Arrázola, Palenque, 41–42; Thornton, Africa and Africans, 294–295.

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De Campos and help him try to escape. The two ran, but the Spaniard was shot down by maroon forces. Biohó could hardly believe his daughter would help the enemy. Orika then faced a trial of her peers, which decided that she had to drink a concoction made of “higantón” (datura stramo- nium, also known as jimsonweed) and “cabalonga” (thevetia neriifolia, also known as yellow oleander) to determine her ultimate fate. If she survived, she would be free to go; if she died it was divinely ordained. The cruelty, as it is implicitly understood in the Spanish account, was Biohó allowing his daughter to face such maroon justice. Not only had she helped the Spaniard try to escape, but her declaration of love (which she made known to the palenqueros when the Spaniard died in her arms) was viewed as particular betrayal to the unity of maroons against the Spanish.63 As the literary scholar Margaret Olsen notes regarding Orika, “while such a union was unacceptable from the dominant, European perspective (yet frequent nonetheless), it was equally unacceptable from the African Palenque perspective that Orika should love the son of the white man who had owned her family. Within the legend, Orika betrays her family—and her people –by freeing the prisoner, but the source of the betrayal arises with her love for him. To permit such a union would undermine the foundation of opposition on which the palenques were founded.”64 From the Africans’ perspective Biohó’s task was to ensure the security of his palenque; not even family members were excluded from the consequences of betrayal to the settlement. Maroon leadership in New Grenada would require such action. Biohó, along with other maroon leaders of New Grenada, would therefore have the ongoing challenge of keeping disparate people together, irrespective of ethnic ties. Orika, a Bijago, could not be favored over others in the maroon community when it came to such a breach in palenque security, even if she was the king’s daughter. The immense diversity of Africans in Cartagena required maroon leadership that could unite (and keep united) disparate people. Men and women from West, West-Central, and Central Africa formed part of the great mix of nations comprising the black population of New Grenada. Fray Alonso de Sandoval, a Jesuit missionary who lived in Cartagena from 1605 to 1617, observed that the Fulani, Bebeci, Mandingo, and Wolof were the largest groups of Africans living there at that time. He also noted that

63 Delgado, Historias, 11–23. 64 Olsen, “African Reinscription,” 66, fn 17.

284 omar h. ali despite their different languages and customs, these groups were united through the “cursed sect of Mahomet” (i.e. they were Muslims).65 The historian Jaime Borja writes that the “presence of black Muslims in Cartagena is indisputable.” “The Spaniard was accustomed to the threatening presence of Islam,” he notes, “But Islam and blackness were truly a dangerous combination. These elements reinforced the image of the savage, about which [Alonso de] Sandoval is a witness.”66 Five centuries of Christian Crusades against Muslims, combined with even longer Muslim control of the Iberian Peninsula (which, ironically, brought Iberia its most sophisticated civilization), led Spaniards, whose Reconquista was accomplished only decades earlier, from being particularly fearful of sub-Saharan Muslim Africans, who they were now enslaving en masse. According to the historian Sylviane Diouf, “The Wolof [a predominantly Muslim people] were the only African population targeted by name [by Spanish authorities].” These West Africans—many of whom were warriors captured during the wars of Senegambia that saw the dissolution of the Jolof Empire through the mid sixteenth century had led the first revolt of Africans in the Americas: in 1522 on the sugar plantation of Christopher Columbus’ son Admiral Don Diego Colon in Hispaniola. Indeed, as Diouf continues, “No fewer than five pieces of anti-Muslim legislation were issued by the Spanish authorities in the first fifty years of Spain’s establishment in the New World.” So concerned were Spanish authorities about black Muslim resistance to slavery that they placed limits on the importation of captive Wolof (as well as Muslim Fulani and Mandingo) into the Spanish colonies in the Americas.67 In West Africa, the Bijagos prided themselves on remaining distinct from the Muslims who surrounded them, but they were now in a different environment—one which required finding commonalities. Biohó had taken the lead in bringing Africans of different nations together. His maroons at La Matuna would have likely included Muslims, given the large number of “servants of Allah” coming into Cartagena and the composition

65 Jaime Borja, “Barbaricacion y redes de indoctinamiento en los negros cartageno XVII y XVIII,” in Contribucion Africana a la cultura de las Americas (Bogotá: Instituto Colombiano de Antropología, 1993), 249; Diouf, Servants of Allah, 20. 66 Borja, “Barbaricacion,” 249; De Sandoval’s 1627 treatise De Instauranda Aethiopum Salute, which notes the influx of predominantly Muslim African nations into the port city is among the first systematic efforts to document the ethnicities of Africans in the Americas; see Eduardo Restrepo, “De Instaurande Aethiopum Salute: Sobre las ediciones y caracteristicas de la obra de Alonso de Sandoval,” Tabula Rasa, 3 (Jan. 2005), 13–26. 67 Diouf, Servants of Allah, 18–20; 145–146.

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of nearby palenques.68 In 1693 the Palenque of Matudere, comprised Cartagena runaways, included maroons from nearly one dozen African nations, including Wolof (who were also among the earliest slave rebels in New Grenada, having led two revolts in Santa Marta during the 1520s).69 Over time hundreds of Africans would join Biohó’s palanque at La Matuna. It was one of several settlements in the foothills of the Montes de María and San Lucas which he had either established or helped to inspire—the most notable being Palenque de San Basilio, founded in 1603. There, at San Basilio, strategically located in the Montes de María, lookout posts anticipated any Spanish movement into maroon territory.70 Although massive stone ramparts studded with parapets and lined with cannons surrounded Cartagena, the city’s ominous defenses were unable to contain black rebels from rising up within the city and mounting attacks from the forest. Notably, as was the case on the African side of the Atlantic, European forts had their cannons facing out to sea to protect against invasion from fellow European powers. Maroons and their palenques could not so easily be targeted, as they remained either invisible or highly inac- cessible. Defeating Biohó’s palenque would require guerilla warfare, which favored the Africans, who had turned the forests and marshes against the Spanish, and with deadly force—camouflaged traps, thorns that cut deep, and marshes that drowned (snakes and other deadly animals preyed on Spaniards and Africans alike). Although the Spanish mounted numerous efforts to capture Biohó and his maroons, including those led by Gómez, followed by De Campos’ forces, palenqueros relentlessly counter-attacked, and even went on the offensive until the Spanish finally conceded Biohó and his palenque’s freedom. The “guerra de los cimarrones” (war of the maroons), a fourteen- year-long period, would come to a temporary end in 1613.71 Fray Simón describes the number of Spanish soldiers lost and the financial drain on the colonial government in their efforts to defeat Biohó’s forces; these costs, added to those incurred by hacendados (planters) and other settlers due to maroon attacks, forced the government to negotiate with Biohó.

68 Extrapolating from the composition of the nearby Matudere palenque, as described by Landers, “The Central African Presence,” 240, La Matuna would have been a diverse settlement. Also see Diouf, Servants of Allah, passim. 69 Landers, “The Central African Presence”; Report of Martin de Cevallos, May 29, 1693, Santa Fe 213, Archivo General de la Nacion; Diouf, Servants of Allah, 18. 70 María Cristina Navarrete P., “Cimarrones y Palenques en las Provincias al Norte del Nuevo Reino de Granada Siglo XVII,” Fronteras de la Historia, Vol. 6 (2001), 87–107. 71 Friedmann, Presencia Africana, 68.

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As early as 1605, Governor De Suazo considered a peace offer that would recognize the palenque’s autonomy. Still, war raged on. Peace would not come for another eight years, when in 1613, under a new governorship— that of Diego Fernandez de Velasco—a truce was settled. According to the settlement, no armed Spaniard was allowed to enter the palenque, although the maroons could move freely in and about Cartagena. It was a treaty that did not sit well with Cartagena’s elites—especially when Biohó began flaunting his freedom in the heart of the Spanish stronghold: [The maroons were given] license to enter and leave the city … which they did at all hours, and Biohó went about with such arrogance that on top of going around well dressed in the Spanish style, with sword and golden dagger, he acted as if were some kind of great gentleman. [(Los cimarrones tuvi- eron) licencia para que entrasen en la ciudad y saliesen … como lo hacian á todas horas, y el Bioho andaba con tanta arrogancia que demás de andar bien vestido á la española, con espada y daga dorada, trataba su persona como un gran caballero.]72 Colonists seemed to be looking for an excuse to get rid of the insolent and unworthy Biohó. However, Fray Simón says it was “some sort of treacher- ous evil dealings,” a conspiracy on the maroon leader’s part which led to his arrest near the city walls in 1619. The new governor Don Garcia Girón had ordered Biohó’s arrest, as well as his execution by public hanging.73 The accusation of the maroon leader plotting another revolt may have been true, though it seems more likely that he was framed by colonial authorities. Either way, Biohó’s audacity was no longer tolerable.74

Biohó’s Legacy

Biohó was hung in 1619, but his spirit lived on in the black rebellions of New Grenada. The number of palenques grew over the course of the seventeenth century; at various times attacks from these maroon settlements, combined with other revolts and conspiracies, gripped Cartagena and other cities and towns. In 1607, black captives working in the mines of Remedios in the province of Antioquia took up arms; in 1630, Leonor, commander of the palenque of Limón, directed her forces in the Montes de María to attack local planters and towns; in 1650 black captives fought their masters in Cartagena and formed the Palenque de Matudere; and in

72 Simón, Noticias historiales, 223. 73 Ibid. 74 Olsen, “African Reinscription,” 62–63.

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1693 rumors of black captives allied with maroons conspiring to take over Cartagena swept through the city.75 Such slave uprisings, attacks, and conspiracies disrupted colonial life, commerce, and production in New Grenada’s mining, agricultural, and urban centers—they also spoke to ongoing forms of black resistance to enslavement.76 Long after his death, Biohó would capture the imaginations of Spaniards and Africans alike. His legacy, however, was distinctly American. As the historian Jane Landers carefully notes, “Biohó founded an American dynasty” [emphasis added].77 The Colombian anthropologist Nina S. de Friedmann observes, “the name Bioho was imbued with such social, hereditary and heroic value that for 190 years, between 1600 and 1790, documents are full of hangings of various Domingo Biohos—Biho, Bioho, and Bioo.”78 In 1796 Biohó’s last descendent (fictive or not) was publicly hung like his forefather for conspiring against the government of Cartagena. This later Biohó had apparently been working with “unos negros franceses … contra el gobernador” [some black Frenchmen … against the governor].79 These “negros franceses” from Saint-Domingue (soon to become the free black republic of Haiti) were among others helping to incite rebellion.80 A generation thereafter, in 1816, Haiti’s president Alexandre Pétion would provide a freshly defeated Simón Bolívar (soon to become Latin America’s great liberator) with soldiers and arms when Bolívar sought Pétion’s aid to overthrow Spanish colonial rule. Pétion provided the military support on the condition that Bolívar abolish slavery. Although Bolívar eventually won his war for independence, he did not secure abolition (he offered freedom to captives who joined his revolutionary army during the

75 See Sandra Beatriz Sánchez Lopez, “Fear, Rumor and Rebellion: The Slave Conspiracy of 1693 in Cartagena de Indias,” Historia Critica, 31 ( Jan 2006), 77–99; also Map 8 “Palenques (Maroon Settlements),” McKnight and Garofalo, xxx, for a distribution of palenque sites in New Grenada and early republican Colombia; and for a list of palenques and slave uprisings in New Grenada, see Isaza Llano, “Hechos y Gentes,” 501–523. 76 Navarrete P., “Cimarrones y Palenques,” 87–107; McKnight, “Elder, Slave, and Soldier,” 64; Isaza Lano, “Hechos y Gentes,” 501–523. 77 Landers, “The Central African Presence,” 239. 78 Friedmann, Presencia Africana, 67; Olsen, “African Reinscription,” 63. African captives in New Grenada also petitioned for the freedom, both collectively and individually. See Renée Soulodre-La France, “‘Los Esclavos de su Majestad’: Slave Protest and Politics in Late Colonial New Grenada,” in Slaves, Subjects, and Subversives: Blacks in Colonial Latin America, ed. Jane G. Landers and Barry Robins (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006), 187. 79 Delgado, Historias, 23. 80 Aline Helg, “A Fragmented Majority: Free ‘Of All Colors,’ Indians, and Slaves in Caribbean Colombia during the Haitian Revolution,” in The Impact of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003), 158.

288 omar h. ali war but the republic of Colombia did not abolish slavery until 1851). The revolts of black slaves in New Grenada were therefore, and in various ways, tied to Haiti, which had played a decisive role in Colombia’s independence. Like the specter of Haiti, Biohó (and the palenque he mostly came to be associated with—San Basilio, not La Matuna) weighed on the colonial establishment while inspiring generations of captives. By the end of the seventeenth century, over one dozen maroon communities existed in several provinces under the jurisdiction of the audiencia of New Granada. Still, the most notable of the nearly two dozen palenques recorded from colonial times through the early republic, remains that of San Basilio. Located approximately 44 miles southeast of Cartagena, San Basilio would eventually become the first officially recognized free black town incorporated into New Grenada’s political structure.81 However, as Landers clarifies, “San Basilio was not ‘reduced’ into a legitimate and law-abiding town until 1686, by which time it had been in existence for over 60 years and numbered more than 3,000 inhabitants, including 600 warriors, ruled by four war captains, each of his own ‘nation.”82 In 1774 Lieutenant Antonio de la Torre, advisor of the black mili- tias in Cartagena, visited San Basilio, providing valuable historical detail: With strength and perseverance, I was able to overcome the many horrors and difficulties stemming from encounters with the [black people] of the Palenque de San Basilio, as well as from the thickness of the jungle which made it difficult to see sunlight. One must also add to the sum of our problems a number of cliffs, precipices, and swamps which we had to overcome … These black people are the descendents of others who, protected by those rugged mountains, defended their freedom by killing many individuals—including a few of their former masters who intermittently attempted to recapture them. These expeditions finally ended in a treaty mediated by the Most Illustrious [Bishop] Casiani, which allowed the

81 San Basilio was made into a township in 1686. Treaties with maroons were signed across the Americas—including in Jamaica, Brazil, and Suriname. The terms were usually written at the expense of future runaways, who were to be returned to their masters. Treaties giving maroons their freedom under Spanish (or other European crowns) lasted for different lengths of time. See Herbert S. Klein and Ben Vinson III, African Slavery in Latin America and Caribbean (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 183. 82 Landers, “The Central African Presence,” 239, fn 47; AGI, Réal Cedula, July 13, 1686, Santa Fe 531, libro 11, folio 217; Anthony McFarlane, “Cimarrones and Palenques: Runaways and Resistance in Colonial Colombia,” Slavery and Abolition, 6 (1985), 134–135. N.B. The first Africans and their descendents in South America to gain their freedom from Spanish authorities was in Esmeraldas (in modern-day Ecuador, bordering Colombia). On July 13, 1600, the Sebastián de Illescas, son of the founder of this maroon community, was given his and his people’s freedom (which by then also included a mix of African and Indian descendents). See Burgos Cantor, Rutas de Libertad, 32, and Beatty-Medina, “Alonso de Illesca,” 20.

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maroons to remain at their original site on the slope of the Maria Mountain at three leagues from the Gambote pass. They were also granted the right to name a political leader and to exclude all white men (except for the priest) from the town, and the maroons agreed in return to forbid future runaways to live among them.83 For the next century and a half palenqueros continued living largely independent of the dominant societies and markets of colonial and republican Colombia.84 As the anthropologist Aquiles Escalante writes about San Basilio, where he conducted ethnographic fieldwork beginning in the 1950s:

The palenqueros remained totally isolated from our civilization until the latter part of the nineteenth century. Consequently, they were able to develop a closed type of economy: rudimentary agriculture based on rice, corn, manioc, banana, and peanut; cattle raising in the Bajo Grande de Palenque, where they harvested corn in January and grazed cows until September. Occasionally, they left the town to exchange their produce, and during the days prior to the traditional district festival, they usually commissioned someone to buy general supplies in Cartagena.85 As Landers notes, “Almost three centuries later … Escalante found the modern residents of San Basilio living in a material culture which seems remarkably little altered from what we can see described in colonial documents of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.” She goes on to sum- marize his findings: As earlier maroons had done, the men of San Basilio cut down the large trees and prepared the fields, while women and children performed most of the agricultural labor, with rice and yucca being the most important staple crops. The residents of San Basilio also grew corn, peanuts, [yams], plantains, a variety of bananas, melons, tobacco, and cotton. They protected these fields with a fascinating amalgam of rituals, placing a cow’s head or crosses at the corners … Prayers to Saint Paul protected crops, animals and humans alike.86

83 Urueta, Documentos, IV, 51; Escalante, El Palenque de San Basilio, 80. 84 There were occasional efforts by local planters to destroy San Basilio. One such effort was led in the 1790s by Manuel José Escovar, who wanted control over land being used by the town’s residents. See Aline Helg, Liberty and Equality in Caribbean Colombia, 1770–1835 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 38, 274 fn 41. 85 Escalante, El Palenque de San Basilio, 80–81. 86 Aquiles Escalante, El Palenque de San Basilio: Una Comunidad de Descendientes de Negros Cimarrones (Barranquilla: Editorial Mejoras, 1979), 26–27, 30–32, 34–38; Escalante, “Notas sobre el Palenque de San Basilio,” 207–351; Landers, “Maroon Ethnicity and Identity,” 1–10.

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San Basilio’s resident’s would long adopt aspects of Christianity into their religious practices—which were themselves numerous, since palenqueros had come from a range of African nations, each with their own belief systems. The syncretism created—partly a result of the peace settlement that allowed a single Catholic priest to be able to visit and proselytize in their town—continues to be visible in both the funerary practices and celebrations of San Basilio. However, beginning in the first decade of the twentieth century, life in the town began to be significantly altered as the society became more open (some might say more susceptible) to outside influences. The Panama Canal, the burgeoning banana plantation industry, the sugar mill in Sincerin, and a refinery in Santa Cruz, all drew younger members out of San Basilio for jobs. As Escalante recounts, “Some [residents] even wept [for those who left] as one does for a funeral, particularly for those who were going off to work on the construction of the Panama Canal or on the banana plantations of the Department of Magdalena.”87 Today, a single statue in the central plaza of Palenque de San Basilio commemorates Biohó. He is depicted in dramatic fashion: lunging forward, head upward, he is breaking his chains with one arm in the air, crying out. At the long base of the statue is the inscription “Palenke Fundado por Benkos Bioho en 1603” [Palenque Founded by Benkos Biohó in 1603]. In 2005 the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (unesco) proclaimed Palenque a “Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.” The organization described San Basilio’s cultural contributions, religious and social practices, and linguistic heritage, as such: Of the many palenques that existed in former times, only San Basilio has survived until the present day. It developed into a unique cultural space … [with] social, medical and religious practices as well as musical and oral traditions, many of which have African roots. The social organization of the community is based on family networks and age groups called ma-kuagro. The kuagro membership comes with a set of rights and duties towards other group members and entails strong internal solidarity … The complex funeral rituals and medical practices are evidence of the distinct spiritual and cultural systems framing life and death in the Palenque community. Musical expressions such as the bullernege sentado, son palenquero or son de negro accompany collective celebrations, such as baptisms, weddings and religious festivities as well as leisure activities. Central to the cultural space of Palenque de San Basilio is the palenquero language, the only creole language

87 Escalante, El Palenque de San Basilio, 80–81.

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in the Americas comprising a lexical Spanish basis with morpho-syntactic characteristics of African (Bantu) native languages.88 Among the religious practices in San Basilio are the Lambalú funerary rites, which include songs and dances of the Cabildo de Lambalú, a funerary association/fraternity. (The name Lambalú comes from the drum of the same name.) A central and recurring palenquero funeral chant, of which there are a number with slight variations, looks to Central Africa (with the person’s name, in this case, Juan Gungú, inserted):89

Chi ma Nkongo [From the Congos Chi ma Luango From the Luango Chi ma ri Luango de Angola From the Luango of Angola Juan Gungú me ñamo yo Juan Gungú is my name Juan Gungú me a re ñama Juan Gungú I shall be called Cuando so ta kai mam’e When the sun sets on my mother] Palenqueros distinctive language, Palenquera, is a unique creole with its Spanish (and some Portuguese) lexicon and Bantu syntactic structure. (Its closest relative is Papiamento, spoken in Aruba and Curaçao in the Caribbean, which draws from a combination of Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch.)90 The historical linguist Armin Schwegler argues, “Kikongo speak- ers [from Angola and Congo in Central Africa] must … have been a dominant force in the early Palenque based on the development of the language.”91 Palenquera is the product of multiple linguistic influences, from the languages spoken from the Congo River Basin up to West Africa, combined with Portuguese and Spanish. Now spoken by less than half of Palenque’s population, keeping Palenquera a living language is viewed by those who teach it in San Basilio as a form of cultural resistance. As Bernadino Pérez, a teacher from San Basilio, notes: “The Spanish empire imposed its language on us, but we resisted. We’ll keep on resisting a while longer.”92

88 See “The Cultural Space of Palenque San Basilio,” unesco (2005) [http://www .unesco.org/culture/intangible-heritage/11lac_uk.htm accessed June 11, 2013]. 89 “Palenque: Un Canto” by Maria Raquel Bossi (Casimba Films, 1992). For a more current documentary on San Basilio, see “Los Hijos de Benkos” by Silva Lucas (Les Films du Village and Colombia Ministry of Culture, 2003). 90 Simon Romero, “A Little-Known Language Survives in Colombia,” The New York Times (October 17, 2007). 91 Armin Schwegler, “Palenquer(o), The Search for its African substrate,” in Creoles, Their Substrates, and Language Typology, ed. Claire Lefebvre (Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Publishing, 2011), 228–229. 92 Words derived from Kikongo, such as ngombe (cattle) and ngubá (peanut) continue to be used in San Basilio; Romero, op. cit.

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Although the people and culture of Palenque de San Basilio have drawn international attention, a number of scholars dispute that Biohó actually founded the maroon settlement. Armin Schwegler and Orlando Fals Borda are among them. Fals Borda argues that Biohó founded the palenque of La Matuna, south of Tolú, not San Basilio itself.93 Although this might be the case, it is also likely that San Basilio had been inspired by Biohó, who at the very least indirectly helped in its formation during the early seventeenth century. Either way, Biohó and San Basilio have become synonymous in the minds of most people, starting with palenqueros themselves.

Conclusion

The memories and traditions of the descendents of African captives brought to the shores of New Grenada are rich and diverse. Popular music, such as “Rebelión” by the Afro-Colombian salsa singer Joe Arroyo, which tells the story of a seventeenth-century African rebel in Cartagena, the days-long Carnaval de Barranquilla on the Caribbean coast, which over- flows with African images and sounds, the cuisine of African-descended communities of the majority-black Chocó region on the Atlantic coast, and the novels of Manuel Zapata Olivella, the most distinguished Afro- Colombian author, who wrote about the plight of Africans in New Grenada, including of Biohó in Changó el Gran Putas, are remnants and reconstruc- tions of an African past in present-day Colombia.94 Such music, dance, food, language, literature, and memories speak to a long history of black resistance to enslavement and creative black life. These include certain vestiges of African cultural forms and practices, combined with traditions Africans and their descendents adopted from Indians in South America and Iberians on both sides of the Atlantic—and would help shape. San Basilio, with its 3,500 inhabitants, stands as living proof of this history, with Biohó as its central historical figure. Among San Basilio’s more recent figures are the Afro-Colombian singer and drummer Paulino Salgado Valdez, also known as Batata III (the word

93 Helg, Liberty and Equality, 267, fn 19, notes Orlando Fals Borda, Historia de la Costa, Tomo I: Mompox y Loba (Bogotá: Carlos Valencia Editores, 1979), 52–56. 94 See Jaime Arocha Rodriquez, Ombligados de Ananse: Hilos Ancestrales y Modernos en el Pacífico Colombiano (Bogotá: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 1999), passim; Antonio D. Tillis, Manuel Zapata Olivella and the “Darkening of Latin American Literature” (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2005), 80–81; Changó el Gran Putas (Colombia: La Oveja Negra, 1983) translated into English as Changó, the Biggest Badass, trans. Jonathan Tiller (Lubbock: Texas Tech University, 2010).

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“batata” in the Caribbean is used to express physical strength, particularly in the upper body).95 Others include the actor Evaristo Márquez, who performed as the leader of a slave rebellion in the movie Burn! (with Marlon Brando). Meanwhile, Kid Pambelé (Antonio Cervantes), an Afro- Colombian world boxing titleholder, has inspired a new generation of amateur boxers from Palenque. However, it is San Basilio’s village elders, such as Concepción Hernández Navarro or Basilio Pérez, who pass along Palenque’s language, customs, and oral history to younger generations— starting with Biohó’s story. As Pérez recounts, “It was as difficult for the slaves to get here as it is to get from the earth to the moon … It was terrify- ing.” So begins one rendition of Biohó’s story.96 As Spanish colonial documents attest, Biohó’s story can be told from multiple perspectives. One thing most accounts share in common is that his is part of a rebel tradition in the Americas—one that lasted long past his own lifetime. In a larger sense, the life and legend of Biohó—both the person and what he came to symbolize—persists as one among many stories that gives expression to the making of the Atlantic world.97 However, for much of Colombia’s history, Biohó’s story did not make it into the history books: As the Afro-Colombian poet and lawyer Oscar Maturana wrote in protest verse, “Se le niega a Benkos Biojó/antecesor de Bolívar/la libertad del Caribe/y de una lengua nativa” [They deny Benkos Biohó/ Bolívar’s predecessor/the liberty of the Caribbean/and of a native tongue (language)].98 Like his elder Pérez’s rendition, or Maturana’s verse, a young palenquero today makes plain how he understands Biohó’s story. Singing

95 Burgos Cantor, Rutas de Libertad, 46–47. 96 Helg, Liberty and Equality, 38; Karl Penhall, “Africa in the Americas,” CNN transcript (November 19, 2005). 97 For a recent account of the ways in which Biohó’s legend persists, see Jenny Alzate, “Rutas de Libertad, 500 años de Travesia,” La Palabra (Julio 2011), 6, and Gustavo Tatis Guerra, “Benkos Biojó, un héroe olvidado,” El Universal.com (March 13, 2011). Efforts among Afro-Colombians in the wider Afro-Colombian diaspora include “Su Majestad, Rey Benkos Biohó” by the Florida-based Giunëur Bomani Barûle Môsi, editor of Barûle Gazette [www .barulegazette.com accessed August 9, 2012], a descendant of the legendary 18th-century maroon leader Barûle (of Palenque de Tadó) in the mining region Chocó. In terms of additional literary portrayals of Biohó, see Julia Cuervo Hewitt’s Voices out of Africa in Twentieth- Century Spanish Caribbean Literature (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 2009), 254; in terms of images of Palenque, Ana Mercedes Hoyos, one of Colombia’s most prominent painters, has incorporated many scenes of women fruit sellers from San Basilio into her work. 98 Oscar Maturana, “Benkos Biojó” in Hortensia Alaix de Valencia, Poética Afrocolombiana (Santiago de Cali: Universidad del Valle, 2003), 197; Ayda Orobio, et al., eds. Historia del Pueblo Afro-Colombiano: Perspectiva Pastoral (Popayán: Centro de Pastoral Afro-Colombiana, 2003), 4.

294 omar h. ali in his “lengua,” he recounts: “Against the whites [Benkos Biohó] fought with all of his followers; and after defeating the Spaniards he gave us freedom [in] the village of Palenque.”99 Biohó’s life, like those of other black leaders in the Americas, was forged in the long and bitterly contested seventeenth-century which saw the unresolved struggle between slave holders and captives, colonizers and the colonized, oppressors and the oppressed. Sometimes, roles were blurred, reversed, or simultaneously assumed in colonial and in palenque life. Biohó, a slave and slaveholder, a king and a subject, would forge his own destiny in New Grenada. He would do so in a world he had inherited and made his own. Ultimately, both history and legend, Biohó remains in the collective memories and the actions of the descendants of the men and women who stayed in Cartagena and those who followed him deep into the forest on that auspicious day in 1599 when he and his co-conspirators began the process of self-liberation.*

99 “Palenque: Un Canto” by Maria Raquel Bossi (Casimba Films, 1992). * Agradezco mis queridos suegros Jorge Muñoz y Isabel Contreras, y mis cuñados Caterine y Daniel Villamil por abrir sus casas a unas cuadras del Río Magdalena en Girardot, Colombia, y darme el espacio para escribir este capitulo a todas horas durante el verano de 2011 y 2012. Research for this chapter was made possible through a Fulbright research award, funding by the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University, and a travel grant from the African American Studies Program at The University of North Carolina, Greensboro.

CHAPTER TWELVE

‘JE ME VOIS RÉDUIT…À LA MENDICITÉ:’ MARINE VETERANS OF NEW FRANCE AND THEIR NEW ATLANTIC WORLD1

Christian Ayne Crouch

It is cold in the cell and he stalks the perimeter of the prison walls that hold him. The Bastille is one of the most recognizable representations of the monarchy’s power in ancien régime France. To be sent there is a humiliation; to be marked as an enemy of the king. For Daniel Marie Chabert de Joncaire de Clausonne, who will reside at the Bastille for three years, it is a chaffing experience in a terrible journey that he has endured since 1760. He served Louis XV in New France (Canada) for almost forty years, working on the frontier to secure France’s imperial American claims, fighting wars to defend French borders. But the colony’s capitulation in September 1760 to a British army of forty thousand men has placed the fate of his home in doubt. Joncaire Chabert (as he calls himself) is more fortunate than poorer inmates. His family is permitted and able to supply him with a few creature comforts, such as white wine, socks, and tobacco.2 Fretting over his health, his safety, and his happiness, relatives also watch over his young children and convey news of Joncaire Chabert to other family members who, after his arrest, are frantic with worry.3 Incarceration, though deeply upsetting, enables Joncaire Chabert for the first time in perhaps years to give himself freely to his own thoughts, without distraction from any other responsibilities. He reflects on his own situation and he lays plans - how to extract himself from the accusations of corruption and this return to France gone horribly wrong? Joseph Marin de la Malgue is not imprisoned in body, but his mind is filled with worries as heavy as those of Joncaire Chabert’s. Born in New France and having spent his entire life there as a soldier defending France’s

1 “I find myself reduced…to begging,” File of Joseph Marin de la Malgue, Captain, Archives Nationale de France: centre des archives d’outre-mer (anom), E 302: 13v. 2 Correspondence of the Chabert de Joncaire family, Paris 7 February 1762, 18 October 1762, 18 December 1762, Archives de la Bastille, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal (AB), Mss. 12143: 91, 159, 236, 818. 3 Joncaire d’Autrive to Joncaire Chabert, Paris 4 April 1762, AB, Mss. 12143: 485–485v.

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American claims, it is not easy for him to turn his back on Canada and migrate to France, as a result of the surrender to the British. Marin holds great respect among his peer colonial officers – twice he defeated the legendary Robert Rogers in battle and his service record shows an impressive list of negotiations and interactions with the indigenous nations of America.4 Yet all this means nothing now, for Marin’s world has been radically altered. After years at the pinnacle of colonial Canadian society, he and his family are financially ruined, having lost everything when British armies ravaged Quebec in 1759. Like most other Canadian officers and their immediate families, the Marins returned to France but in doing so, they have lost their freedom. Ordered to relocate to the province of Touraine, the Marins subsist on a small royal pension and the family patriarch must find a new way to provide for his own, as well as to try and reclaim the inheritance he lost. Wounded at the 1759 Battle of the Plains of Abraham, Gaspard Joseph Chaussegros de Léry does not embark on a ship carrying him to France until 1761. In some ways he is more fortunate than his colleagues – he is neither indicted in l’Affaire du Canada, nor has he lost the totality of his property, currency, and real estate back in the former New France. But the fortune Léry has brought back to the metropole is comprised of worthless colonial currency and now he too faces the specter of poverty. Limited in his options, Chaussegros de Léry nevertheless continues to plan and provide for his sons’ futures, enrolling them in military schools and trying to obtain further military commissions for himself and for them. Short on funds, like all marine officers, perhaps he can use his seigneural title to advantage – but this may mean having to make a tough choice between impoverished loyalty to France and working towards prosperity with the new British masters of Canada. Joncaire Chabert, Marin de la Malgue, and Chaussegros de Léry all served as officers in the compagnies franches de la marine, the colonial regular troops that defended France’s claims in North America for a century. Hailing from families of distinguished military service that held a high social rank in the heavily stratified colonial society, they were also all Canadian-born. To be an officer of la marine, in New France, was to hold a

4 Robert Rogers, an Anglo-American colonist, raised the famous unit “Roger’s Rangers” for the British Army during the Seven Years’ War to specialize in a guerrilla, woodland fighting. A flamboyant character and aggressive self-promoter, Rogers became an Amer ican folk legend for his Indian-fighting skills and frontier exploits. During the war, Rogers posed a threat to French interests in America, raiding along the border and engaging in numerous battles with French marines and Indians.

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position of prestige, responsibility, and active service to the crown.5 During the one hundred fifty years of French colonial rule, New France was constantly engaged in some form of violent struggle with British North America, always contesting the boundaries of each other’s claims. In the eighteenth century, these tensions resulted in participation in three official wars – two of them within a sixteen-year period (the War of Austrian Succession, 1744–1748, and the Seven Years’ War, 1754–1763). The final struggle – the Seven Years’ War – culminated in the devastating surrender of New France to Britain in 1760. It was this event that precipitated the return of much of the colony’s elite, including these three officers, to metropolitan France. It is often tempting to consider the movement of individuals in the Atlantic World as a simple motion of traveling east to west, from the “Old World” to the “New.” Yet much recent work has suggested changing, or broadening, this perspective in order that historians may consider a more rounded Atlantic experience.6 This chapter takes as its frame the reverse movement from west to east. It looks at the “end” of what had been (up until 1760) a permanent colony and the abrupt movement of

5 For a description of the marine service as a “prestige” field and for the racial limitations on entry into it, see Olive Patricia Dickason, “A Look at the Emergence of the Métis” in Jacqueline Peterson and Jennifer S.H. Brown, ed., The New Peoples: being and becoming métis in North America, (Minneapolis: Minnesota Historical Society Publications, 2001), 30. For a discussion of the slow and merit-based nature of marine advancement, see Evan Haefeli and Kevin Sweeney, Captors and Captives: the 1704 Raid on Deerfield (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004). 6 Among the many recent works that have looked at westward movements is Daniel K. Richter, Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001). Richter encourages reversing perspectives, in order to better comprehend the lived experience of indigenous Americans. Alden Vaughn’s “Powhatans Abroad: Virginia Indians in England” in Robert Appelbaum and John Wood Sweet, ed., Envisioning an English Empire: Jamestown and the Making of the North Atlantic World (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005) is an example of Indians moving in Europe in a “Red Atlantic” world. French movement back and forth in the seventeenth century Atlantic appears in Peter Moogk, “Reluctant Exiles: The Problem of Colonization in French North America,” in Stanley N. Katz, John M. Murrin, Douglas Greenberg, David J. Silverman and Denver Brunsman, eds., Colonial America: Essays in Politics and Social Development, 6th Edition (New York: Routledge, 2011). For the eighteenth-century, Maya Jasanoff’s Liberty’s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World (New York: Knopf, 2011) suggests that the resettlement of British loyalists after the American Revolution in the Caribbean, Canada, West Africa, and Europe was an early example of large-scale refugee relocation, thereby highlighting the importance of tracing migrants “backwards.” James Sweet’s work looking at the south Atlantic and fluid networks between Brazil and Africa demonstrates the relevance of such an approach in slavery studies. See, for instance, Domingo Álvares, African Healing, and the Intellectual History of the Atlantic World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011).

298 christian ayne crouch colonists away from America and back to the metropole. Rather than out- lining the lives of these men as a traditional biography, chronicling the breadth of their experiences, their long-term motivations, and actions from birth through death, there is a utility in aiming the lens at these American actors in the moment after their Atlantic world seems to have collapsed. Prior works have traced the significance of the role of marines in building and participating in the unique French North Atlantic empire, but these individuals then fade away when that world was absorbed into the British empire in 1763.7 By tracing the veterans who returned home and thus whose lives spanned both sides of the Atlantic, we can discern how frontiers, imperial competition, and Atlantic imaginaries shaped individuals’ possibilities, even after the empire which had formed them disappeared. This strategy yields a different perspective, and perhaps a new set of questions, that may help us think more carefully about the aftermath of war, the loss of empire, and the ways in which individuals drew on experiences in one context to inform their possibilities in another. Through three lives, we will see how multiple Atlantic realities came into existence, faded, were manipulated and recast. First, by considering how the French court reabsorbed or reacted to the returned veterans of a colony that fought, and lost, a war for empire. Next, by exploring how the veterans’ experience of return gives us clues as to what the French court might have thought about its empire. Finally, the chapter concludes by following how these three men took from their past successes and failures in their imperial French Atlantic world to seek opportunities in the new British-dominated Atlantic. In doing so, I hope also to extend the optic through which we view military lives beyond active war, to push it beyond capitulations, and beyond the confines of traditional battlefields. With the movement east in 1760, the outcome of the Seven Years’ War created a new Atlantic world for many.

7 There are two works that do trace the experience of marines post-war. Roch Legault’s Une élite en déroute: Les officiers canadiens après la Conquête (Outremont, QC: Athéna Éditions, 2002) looks at marines who remained in Canada after 1760. More limited in scope but with great detail is Ian K. Steele, “When Worlds Collide: The Fate of Canadian and French Prisoners Taken at Fort Niagara, 1759,” Journal of Canadian Studies 39, 3 (2005). There are numerous works on the experiences of marines and French Canadians during the seventeenth and early to mid-eighteenth century. Among the classic studies are W.J. Eccles, Essays on New France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), and The Canadian Frontier, 1534–1760 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1983); Louis Dechêne, Le Peuple, L’État et la Guerre au Canada sous le Régime Français (Quebec: Éditions du Boréal, 2008); Peter Moogk, La Nouvelle France: The Making of French Canada (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2000); and Allan Greer, The People of New France (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997).

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Why did Joncaire Chabert, Marin de la Malgue, and Chaussegros de Léry return to France? On 8 September 1760, New France capitulated formally to Great Britain’s representative, General Jeffery Amherst. Though the terms of the capitulation provided important provisions protecting the French colonial population (the habitants), it also denied the honors of war to France’s armies and demanded that all French soldiers refrain from further service in the conflict.8 Within a month of the British victory, the senior colonial administrators, French expeditionary army, and officers of the marines departed Canada on British ships, leaving behind a colony scarred by sixteen years of almost continuous war in order to return to France.9 The vast majority of French Canadian habitants chose to remain in America, since the treaty safeguarded their property, their right to worship as Roman Catholics, and gave them appeal under the law. It may have been more frightening to choose to sail away from New France, leaving behind family, the bones of ancestors, memories, property, and friends. The emigrants faced an uncertain future in many ways. The war still was being waged – the fate of the colony would only be decided for sure when the European belligerents finally met for peace talks. Not all the emigrants had ties to France: while most of the officers and soldiers of the French regular army, the troupes de terre, had patronage or family connections in France, only certain Canadian individuals, like New France’s final governor, Pierre de Rigaud, marquis de Vaudreuil- Cavagnal, could boast of extensive ties in Europe. Many officers of the compagnies franches were colonial-born and had never been to the realm that they had served with such dedication, and for whose empire they had bled and sparred. Having seen the destructive face of war ravage their homes and society, they had to anticipate that the France they were returning to was as changed by conflict as their own colony had been.

8 Articles of Capitulation, Montreal 8 September 1760, anom, F316: 131–140v. 9 A note regarding military terminology: compagnies franches de la marine or, colonial regulars, referred to military personnel who served under the French Ministry of Marine (Navy) in French colonies around the world (hence the connection to the navy, though the soldiers did not serve on ships.) These troops were most often recruited in France, although the Canadian elite came to dominate the officer corps in New France. Compagnies franches de la marine (also called troupes de la colonie and troupes franches de la marine) formed a service distinct from the troupes de terre from the armée de terre, the French regular army, who operated under the Ministry of War and, until the Seven Years’ War, saw only continental European service. In addition, senior officers in New France (both military and civilian) held appointment through royal commission and dominated the upper ranks of society but these offices alone did not make them French aristocrats. Only the governors of New France and the very highest level of army officers were part of the French noblesse d’epée.

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Even before the ships from New France arrived in November 1760, the French crown had been scarred by notable losses and global setbacks in its war effort. The previous year, Louis XV’s troops lost Guadeloupe, Martinique, Pondicherry, and the Battle of Minden in Germany. Gorée and Louisbourg had been captured in 1758 and now New France, and its vast American territory, had surrendered. The capitulation of New France stung the realm’s pride and this humiliation was compounded by the denial of the honors of war to Louis XV’s surrendering American army. Four years of global war expenses continued to grow exponentially. The crown faced new and continued financial responsibilities for its destitute returning American refugees (both Acadian and Canadian). Interested in staunching the hemorrhaging costs and placing France in as strong a position as possible before peace talks, Etienne François de Stainville, duc de Choiseul (the king’s leading minister), instituted a series of policies that afterwards shaped the lives of the Canadian returnees and their world of possible actions. First, in November 1761, Choiseul ordered the suppression of the compagnies franches de la marine.10 One month later, on December 18, a commission was impaneled to investigate colonial officers accused of “corrupt practices, embezzlement, and robbery in the fulfillment of their duties in Canada.”11 Focused on the fur-trading economy of the Great Lakes borderlands and the black market profiteering in metropolitan supplies, the sensational corruption trial known as l’Affaire du Canada reinforced the idea of New France as a colony where only skimming from the royal treasury guaranteed wealth. The trial honed in on corruption as an explanation for the weakening of Canada and the eventual loss of the colony. Royal prosecutors had good reason to pursue these officers and colonial adminis trators. Saddled with ever-growing war debts and now inundated with indemnity claims from Canadian colonists and veterans alike, the crown

10 The suppression of the compagnies franches should not be equated with a firing of the troops and officers. The dissolution of the service may have been a cost-saving measure, given that France had lost numerous colonial holdings by 1761 and had no need for a separate body of colonial soldiers. It is also possible that when the duc de Choiseul acceded to the posts of both Minister of War and Minister of Marine by October 1761, the integration of these soldiers’ services into the army made more sense. With the dissolution of the compagnies franches, those officers who were not barred from duty (i.e. not arriving from Canada) were placed into regular naval command units for continued service. For more see D. Neuville, État Sommaire des Archives de la Marine antérieures à la Révolution (Paris: Baudoin, 1898), 434–435; Note for 5 November 1761, Journal Historique ou Fastes du Regne de Louis XV, surnommé le Bien Aimé (Paris: Chez Prault, Chez Saillant, MDCCLXVI), 172. 11 Note for 18 December 1761, Journal Historique, 174–175.

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needed to minimize the financial burden. By repudiating the amounts owed to individuals like Joncaire Chabert, and by forcing others (such as Intendant François Bigot) to make enormous restitutions to the monarch, the crown devalued Canadian currency, exculpated itself from paying its veterans, and removed some financial losses from the colony.12 Sensa tional and lasting three years, the trial affected the community of veterans broadly. Even the men who were not indicted felt the stain and shame of the trial – these elite families were extensively intermarried, making almost every officer somehow personally, if indirectly, connected.13 The trial’s judgment “closed the book” on two hundred years of imperial aspirations in the north Atlantic. Finally, a royal edict issued in the midst of the trial ordered the relocation of all officers of the forty-two compagnies franches returned from Canada to Touraine.14 Published by order of the king’s council, the Ordonnance of 24 March 1762 showed a direct reaction of the French crown to the veterans returning to the realm. The Ordon nance successfully emptied Paris of veterans, commanding that the officers move to the province of Touraine or risk the king’s displeasure. It lessened the carnival-like atmosphere of the trial but the order also raised new questions about the future of these officers. It is amid this crowd of returnees that we find Marin de la Malgue, Joncaire Chabert, and Chaussegros de Léry. They were all roughly contemporary in age and had entered military service in their early teens. Up until 1760, the bulk of their careers had been spent in the western borderlands of New France, moving between the posts of Niagara, Detroit, and as far

12 J.F. Bosher, “The French Government’s Motives in the Affaire du Canada, 1761–1763,” The English Historical Review, Vol. 96, No. 378 (Jan. 1981): 69–71, 74, 77. 13 For an example of this kinship-by-marriage, consider that Captain Michel-Hugues Péan was the nephew of Captain Claude Pecaudy de Contrecoeur, as well as being the brother-in-law of marine officer Nicolas Desméloizes. Louis Legardeur de Répentigny (marine and future governor in Senegal) married the daughter of Quebec’s most prominent family of military engineers, Marie Madeleine Régis Chaussegros de Léry. Her sister married another marine, Jean Marie Baptiste Landriève des Bordes, suggesting the extensive nature of these families and their ties. 14 Ordonnance du Roi portant injonction aux Officiers des Troupes servant ci-devant en Canada, de se retirer dans deux mois dans la province de Touraine, pour y jouir du traitement qui leur a été reglée par Sa Majesté, du 24 Mars 1762 (Paris: de L’Imprimerie Royale, 1762); anom, F316: 159, 160 ; anom, A8: 618. Touraine was an administrative region (département) under the ancien régime. In the aftermath of the French Revolution in 1792, Touraine was divided into three new départements that today include Indre, Loir-et-Cher, and Indre-et- Loire. For the numbers of overall returning Canadians see Claude Bonnault, “Le Canada perdu et abandonné,” Revue de l’Histoire de l’Amérique Française vol. 2, no. 3 (1948): 332, and Robert Larin, L’exode de Canadiens à la Conquête, le Petit-Canada de la Touraine (Montreal: Société généalogique canadienne-française, 2008), 8.

302 christian ayne crouch inland as what is today Minnesota. Daniel Marie Joncaire Chabert engaged in the life that most American audiences imagine when they associate French Canadians and the “French and Indian War.”15 A skilled cultural broker and soldier, Joncaire Chabert came from a family of interpreters who cultivated relationships with nations of the Iroquois Confederacy over several generations. Louis-Thomas Chabert de Joncaire, Daniel’s father, developed a particular rapport with the Senecas, learning their language, living among them and even having a son, Philippe, with an Indian woman. As a young child, Daniel accompanied his father and spent a great deal of time with these Indian contacts, as well as among the Ottawas, Ojibwas, and Shawnees. His brother founded a Seneca family and maintained a residence among their indigenous relatives – perhaps Daniel did as well. At the very least, Daniel was open about having been raised among Indians and being an adopted member of the Seneca nation.16 While this intercultural lifestyle provided a key to Joncaire Chabert’s advancement in the service, with connections to vital frontier information, trade, and alliance, it in no way diminished his loyalties to France or his understanding of himself as a commissioned officer of the king.17 His choice to return to France when Canada fell rather than seeking asylum with his indigenous relatives (a decision also made by his elder sibling Philippe) suggests

15 It is important to understand that the hardy Canadian coureur de bois (a soldier fighting alongside Indians) terrorizing the Anglo-American frontier is more telling about American colonial imagination than reality. Léry, Marin, and Joncaire were all professional soldiers, with royal commissions in the compagnies franches, rather than being freelance merchants or mercenaries. For an excellent discussion about the creation of the Canadian soldier myth see Catherine Desbarats and Allan Greer, “The Seven Years’ War in Canadian History and Memory” in Warren Hofstra, ed., Cultures in Conflict; The Seven Years’ War in North America (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007). The coureurs de bois, more accurately known at the time as a voyageurs, were not soldiers and for the most part did not return to France after the 1760 capitulation. 16 Walter S. Dunn, Jr., “Chabert de Joncaire de Clausonne,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online (DCBO) http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=1798 &&PHPSESSID=ychzfqkvzape (accessed 15 September 2010); Sieur Louis de Courville, Mémoires sur Le Canada depuis 1749 jusqu’à 1760 : en trois parties ; avec cartes et plans lith- ographiés (Québec : Imprimerie de T. Cary & Cie., 1838), 18; Marquis de Montcalm to Voyer d’Argenson (Minister of War), Montreal 18 April 1758, regarding Joncaire Chabert being brought up among Indians, adopted by them, and thus hopefully having influence, Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, edited E.B. O’Callaghan (Albany: Weed, Parsons, and Co., 1858), X: 698. 17 James Merrell makes an important point that the most trusted (and, thus perhaps, most successful) cultural brokers on the mid-eighteenth century frontier always kept their self-presentation firmly grounded in their “home” world, whether Indian or European. See “‘The Cast of His Countenance’: Reading Andrew Montour” in Ronald Hoffman, et al., eds., Through a Glass Darkly: Reflections on Personal Identity in Early America, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 34–35, 37–38.

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that the Chabert de Joncaire brothers believed they could petition or request some type of assistance from the crown – or could secure further employment. L’Affaire du Canada engulfed fifty military and civilian individuals, of which fifteen were marines and nine were of elite rank, including former Governor General Vaudreuil. Almost all of the accused marines had commanded or were the final commanders of western frontier outposts – Joncaire Chabert presided over the small Fort du Portage, a supporting installation to the geographically critical, and much larger, Fort Niagara. It is clear that some (if not most) of the men charged with graft were deserv- edly so, having amassed fortunes in the tens of thousands of livres over the decade.18 When Joncaire Chabert embarked on a mission to the Iroquois Confederacy and Delawares in April 1758, for instance, he was in charge of distributing necessary trade items valued at 80,000 livres and 30,000 livres worth of gifts. These comestibles were charged to the king’s account, to show his magnanimity to his Indian “children” but with numbers of that size, Joncaire Chabert doubtless would have reaped personal benefit from being the individual in charge.19 Desirous to regain the king’s “lost treasury,” the prosecutorial zeal was no doubt inflamed by the incredible indemnities being claimed by the Canadians upon their return to France. Joncaire Chabert alone stated that the king owed him more than 1.6 million livres for the supplies and trade goods he had covered out of pocket (noting the records for this had perished in the fires set around Fort du Portage before the retreat to Niagara). Royal prosecutors and finance agents at the Ministry of Marine remained skeptical that this wealth came exclusively from Joncaire Chabert’s stated interests in the ginseng trade.20 Tracing the three years of Joncaire Chabert in France, then, we discover certain things. It is evident that so long as New France existed and was a possession important to France’s Atlantic empire, Joncaire Chabert’s prestige and ability with particular frontier skills and connections promoted

18 On the widespread knowledge of corrupt administrators see Bosher, “The French Government’s Motives in the Affaire du Canada,” 63. 19 Journal Entry of 25 April 1758, Journal of the Marquis de Montcalm, Collection des Manuscrits du Chevalier de Lévis (Montreal: Beauchemin et Fils, 1889), VII: 344. 20 Dunn Jr., “Chabert de Joncaire de Clausonne,” DCBO; William Johnson, Britain’s pre- miere contact among the Iroquois Confederacy, based his wealth on the ginseng trade as well – perhaps a euphemism for the fur trade that he shared with Joncaire Chabert? Courville’s account notes that in 1752, the ginseng trade brought a high of 24 francs per pound – and also wrote later that frontier fort commanders profited by creating false bills of inventory for fort expenses that their wives reimbursed at the royal treasury in Montreal. See Mémoires sur le Canada depuis 1749 jusqu’à 1760, 11, 104–105.

304 christian ayne crouch the goals that his family had built over several generations. When the Atlantic context disappeared in 1760, the very tools that gave the man his edge became instead liabilities. During l’Affaire du Canada, Joncaire Chabert issued a mémoire (loosely, a deposition) that said nothing about his Iroquoian linguistic skills nor mentioned the considerable access he gained to information or trade through his blood-ties to the Senecas.21 Instead, the former broker chose to present working with Indians as an irritating task – one he only undertook in order to prevent Iroquois alliances with the British. In a moment of extreme obfuscation of his career, Joncaire Chabert even drew parallels between being allied to Indians with being a “hostage.”22 With no Indians to contradict his testimony, and with little prosecutorial expertise on Indian affairs, Joncaire Chabert hoped that his attitudes would fall in line with French expectations of dealing with les sauvages. It was important to emphasize his service to the king’s goals (frustrating British-Indian alliances) without suggesting that he himself had fallen away from French civility – or preferred another culture to that of France while he remained suspect in the eyes of the crown. Distancing himself from the reality of his service perhaps helped Joncaire Chabert avoid a more severe punishment than he received. The personal experience of Joncaire Chabert was somewhat mixed during this period. Arrested in September 1761, the veteran negotiator was not released until December 1763, when the trial formally concluded.23 Yet unlike some of the accused, Joncaire Chabert fared relatively well when the rulings were handed out and published widely throughout Paris and other cities. The court found him guilty of negligence in regulating the stores at Fort du Portage and warned him not to repeat his actions.24 Considering that the fort was gone and Joncaire Chabert was in France, such a ruling could only be seen as an acquittal. But his reputation was sullied by the trial as he himself noted, “I lost my liberty and found myself interred alive in a prison, endured calumnious words and was ruined and

21 Daniel Marie Chabert de Joncaire de Clausonne, Mémoire pour Daniel de Joncaire- Chabert, ci-divant commandant au petit fort de Niagara (Paris: Grange, 1760); Courville, Mémoires sur Le Canada depuis 1749 jusqu’à 1760, 19. 22 Chabert de Joncaire, Mémoire pour Daniel de Joncaire-Chabert, 2–5; Arnaud Balvay, L’epée et la plume: Amérindiens et soldats des troupes de la marine en Louisiane et au Pays d’en Haut (1683–1763) (Québec: Presses Universitaires Laval, 2006), 175. 23 AB, Mss. 12142: 74. 24 Jugement Rendu Souverainement et en Dernier Ressort dans L’Affaire du Canada Par Messieurs Les Lieutenants Général de Police (Paris: de l’Imprimerie d’Antoine Boudet, Imprimeur du Roi & Du Châtelet, MDCCLXIII), 204.

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pillaged by men who continue to implicate me in their malfeasance.”25 Embittered by three years in the Bastille, Joncaire Chabert had little to gain by remaining in France. *** Hailing from a family of military engineers, Chaussegros de Léry grew up with access to education and wealth – he was a seigneur, an elite colonial landholder who in New France formed the ‘nobility.’ While he too served on the frontier, he did so as an officer with a greater traditional social standing – on campaign in the early 1750s, Léry jotted in his journal that he had arrived at an encampment a day before his own body servant.26 Given the nature of conducting war in eighteenth-century Europe, replete with china services for officers’ dinners and dancing lessons, Léry clearly aspired to the lifestyle of a royal officer, even if on the American frontier. During the Seven Years’ War, he earned acclaim for leading a successful attack in 1756 on English Fort Bull and served with distinction at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, in defense of Quebec. Wounded at that battle and earning for himself a croix de Saint Louis for this devoted service, Léry spent time recovering in an English hospital and left for France after most of his compatriots and colleagues had departed. More importantly, though, when Léry arrived in France in 1761, he was not among those implicated in the growing storm of l’Affaire du Canada. And he retained seigneural property that was recognized by both France and Britain. Landholding opened options for him unavailable to others. By 1762, Chaussegros de Léry was settled enough in France that he could focus on restoring his financial situation. He wrote to the Duc de Choiseul (who served as minister for both War and Marine), detailing his own honorable service record. Claiming that he had left Canada because he could not bear to live anywhere but under French royal rule, the letter then turned to its key point. As a marine captain on half-pay (due to the Montreal capitulation), Léry received 600 livres annually which, he wrote, “cannot suffice to support my family.” Perhaps it would be possible to be granted the financial aid given to Acadian refugees, who benefitted from Choiseul’s particular concern? Would the Minister consider giving Léry a new position, from which he could show his devotion, zeal, and loyalty for the king’s service (and, of course, receive payment)?27 It is interesting that

25 Chabert de Joncaire, Mémoire pour Daniel de Joncaire-Chabert, 22–23. 26 “Journal de Chaussegros de Léry, 1754–1755” in Rapport de L’Archiviste de la Province de Quebec pour 1927–1928 (Montréal: L-Amable Proulx, 1928), 364. 27 Chaussegros de Léry, (Ch.er) Joseph Gaspard, anom, E 77: 13–13v.

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Léry referred to the Acadians, who at this time received about 6 sols per day to sustain them.28 Perhaps he gestured more towards their position in the schemes of the minister, who wished to use the Acadians as a settler population in a new colony in Guyana.29 Was Léry interested in serving the king in France or did he seek reassignment elsewhere in the French Atlantic world? His letter remains silent on this point, although a note from his youth, where he requested posting to Cayenne or Saint Domingue rather than Detroit, provides some insight into places Léry was willing to make a career.30 As for his military trajectory, he clearly wished to continue in the service, since he solicited a promotion to colonel.31 Léry borrowed 11,000 livres in order to pay for the maintenance of his family – well above the 600 livres pension he was earning. Like other marine officers, Léry sought compensation – and acknowledgement – of the severe financial losses he had endured during the last years of the war, noting he had lost over 150,000 livres worth of bills of exchange by their devaluation.32 Beyond keeping his family in the comforts to which they were accustomed (although one must wonder what this was after six very

28 Christopher J. Hodson, “A Bondage So Harsh: Acadian Labor in the French Caribbean, 1763–1766” Early American Studies 5.1 (2007), 111. The daily wage of a laborer in France around this period was roughly five sols a day, and twenty sols made up a livre. For more see, Gilles Pacquet and Jean Pierre Wallot, “Some Price Indexes for Quebec and Montreal 1760–1913” Histoire Sociale/Social History Volume XXI, no. 61 and 62 (1998): 314. 29 The Kourou Colony was conceived of as a enlightened colonial scheme that would improve upon France’s earlier imperial projects in the Atlantic. Slavery was to be outlawed, interactions with indigenous peoples would be discouraged, and the colony would be religiously tolerant. The very large initial settlement population (mostly of Acadians and Palatinate Germans) ideally would enforce these ideals and set about creating a harmonious, productive society. The colony, as Emma Rothschild points out, was a disaster with most of its population perishing of tropical disease within a few years. See Emma Rothschild, “A Horrible Tragedy in the French Atlantic” Past and Present 192 (2006). For further investigation on Kourou and Choiseul’s Atlantic plans, see Marion Godfroy-Tayart de Borms, “La guerre de Sept ans et ses conséquences atlantiques: Kourou ou l’apparition d’un nouveau système colonial” French Historical Studies 32 (2): 167–191. Robert Larin’s Canadiens en Guyane, 1754–1805 (Québec: Éditions du Septentrion, 2006) looks at the Canadian habitants (not marine officers) who participated in the Kourou and Caribbean schemes of France. 30 Léry to the Minister of Marine, Quebec 15 October 1749, ANOM, E 77: 4–4v. Like the British Caribbean, French holdings like Saint Domingue, Cayenne, and even Louisiana carried both the lure of great riches to be made and the fear of a tropical death. Léry’s commitment to the Atlantic is evident in his request for assignment to more prosperous colonies, rather than a position in France. Perhaps he thought he had the skills necessary for this assignment (and ready connections to remaining Canadian family), or he may have understood a limit to choice because his commission was in the troupes de la marine, a colonial service. 31 Léry note given to M. Rodier, 7 July 1763, anom, E 77: 14. 32 anom, E 77: 14.

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hard years of war and privation), Léry also arranged to have his elder sons take military education in France – an endeavor that could not have been cheap. Clearly, his financial security and that of his family dominated his thoughts. With an unblemished military past and no connection to the disgraceful trial, Léry seemed to be in a much stronger position than scan- dal-scarred individuals (like Joncaire Chabert) to achieve his aims. *** Of the marines who returned to France, perhaps the most difficult homecoming was that of Joseph Marin de la Malgue. Over the course of his American career, he mastered what was necessary to achieve promotions and success – Marin was an officer who commanded great respect for his skills in guerrilla and woodland warfare, for his ability to work with Indians, and who could also trace his lineage back to distinguished military men. As he himself noted, he was the son and grandson of officers who were prestigious chevaliers de Saint Louis.33 Upon his return to France, Marin discovered a very different world – one in which all his connections to patronage, to advancement, and to future opportunities were drastically limited. He could not afford to ignore the Ordonnance of 1762 – having suffered major property losses in Canada, the pension was critical to his family’s well-being. So he moved to Touraine, a landlocked province, away from the vigorous career he had held and with no certainty for future employment. Throughout his time in France, the marine captain sought a restoration of both financial and social capital. In the early 1760s, Marin produced résumés of his long career in New France that showcased the many successes he had achieved in the name of his king. Even if he was prone to hyperbole, as those seeking advancement can be, Marin had indeed wrought some remarkable feats. He had defeated the famed English “par- tisan” Robert Rogers not once but twice (in 1756 and in 1758). As an envoy, negotiator, and fighter of Indians, Marin was among the best that New France had fielded, until his capture near Fort Niagara in 1759. In fact, when Marin explained the property losses he suffered during the British attack on Quebec (and in the war in general), he stated that the destruction visited on him by the British stemmed from his successes in the

33 de Marin, Joseph La Malgue File, anom, E 302: 12. Marin’s son noted his father’s excellent record, including the croix de Saint Louis, and his family’s century of history in Canada, when making his own appeal for promotion in the 1780s. See Marin to Minister of Marine Castries, Paris 15 September 1783, and Marin, Lieutenant-colonel au corps des volo- ntaires de Benowsky File, anom, E 302: 24.

308 christian ayne crouch name of the king. He had been “very useful to the [colonial] government for acting against norms and attracting Indians, and these skills aroused the hatred of the English and in turn brought about the loss of all his titles and goods.”34 His service record on file, including a detailed description of all his campaigns from 1731 to 1760 was not the only proof of his claims of Anglo-American hatred. Writing about his capture by the British during the 1759 Niagara campaign, Marin added that this event was “published in English newspapers,” suggesting his infamy among the British colonies and, thus, his great loyalty and prior success in defending France’s interests in America.35 Marin made an interesting choice by focusing on uncontrollable English fury and vengeance as the cause of his misfortune. He already had secured an affidavit for his file from the highest-ranking French army officer, François-Gaston, chevalier de Lévis, who wrote that Marin “served with distinction leading the light troops and Indians numerous times.” Taken along with his own recounting of his service and losses, Marin hoped to project the image of a veteran who had served well according to a French commander and whose loyalty was thus above reproach. Lévis’ attribution of Marin’s good service reinforced the devoted duty of the Canadian veteran, in addition to the anger and dishonorable pillaging of the English adversaries. All Marin’s sufferings could be summed up by his belief that he was “reduced to begging.”36 Beyond the thousands of livres in damages that Marin described was something far more important. Among the ashen remains of his home, Marin wrote, was the proof of his gracious lineage – his family’s patents of nobility. Descended from a Marseille family, Marin claimed that the first ancestral migrant to Canada had brought the titles, but these had been lost and that the sole proof remaining had been a 1745 wedding certificate naming his father as an écuyer, a gentleman.37 In his quest to have his patents of nobility recognized and to obtain any payments for lost property, Marin sought aid from New France’s last governor as well as from the Chevalier de Lévis. The Marquis de Vaudreuil-Cavagnal and the Chevalier de Lévis verified that Marin’s home had suffered heavy damages during the English invasion, adding weight to Marin’s explanation that his proofs had been lost during the siege of Quebec. Vaudreuil also certified that

34 Vaudreuil Mémoire, 10 March 1765, anom, E 302: 3. 35 Marin File, anom, E 302: 13. 36 Lévis Affidavit, Paris 3 December 1764, and Marin Personnel File, anom, E 302: 2, 13. 37 Mémoire, 10 March 1765, anom, E 302: 5.

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Marin’s father and grandfather had been chevaliers de Saint Louis and had provided distinguished service to New France.38 But to no avail – the crown flatly refused Marin’s request for new proofs of nobility two months after his letter was sent.39

L’Affaire du Canada

L’Affaire du Canada and the indemnity correspondence paint a picture of the tribulations and homecoming experienced by most of the veteran marine officers leaving New France and settling in the metropole. For the veterans, reclaiming some degree of financial independence was a key concern – as witnessed by the applications of Joncaire Chabert, Chaussegros de Léry, and Marin de la Malgue. The terms of the Montreal capitulation reduced the officers to half-pay, by virtue of the fact that they could not resume active duty for the duration of the conflict. For the French crown, the guiding policy of this period was minimizing costs brought on directly or indirectly by the war. Paper money was a security that marine veterans could have brought out of New France in large amounts as they left, but the crown appeared disinclined to honor its full value. In addition, l’Affaire du Canada destabilized the worth and credibility of Canadian paper currency. It is notable that an individual who claimed among the greatest sums, Joncaire Chabert, figured among the men indicted for abusing the king’s treasury. Running from 1761 to 1763, the trial provided the crown with a strategy to avoid higher indemnities and a means through which to reclaim monies from the convicted.40 Beyond fiscal concerns, the French crown also faced the problem of what to do physically with this emigrant population. The lack of a signed peace treaty meant that the future of New France remained unsettled and that, for the moment, the Canadians could not return across the Atlantic. If the crown initiated the trial l’Affaire du Canada primarily for financial reasons, what might have been at stake in moving the marine officers to Touraine? On the surface, the Ordonnance of 24 March 1762 was intended to indicate the munificence a monarch could display towards his subjects. Many of the returned marine officers had suffered major financial losses in the final year of the war, when British troops razed the countryside

38 Lévis Affidavit; Mémoire, anom, E 302: 2–3, 5v. 39 Minister of Marine to Marin de la Malgue, 28 June 1765 (copy in file), anom, E 302: 8. 40 Bosher, “The French Government’s Motives in the Affaire du Canada,” 70.

310 christian ayne crouch around Quebec in 1759 and then began a march down the Saint Lawrence Valley in 1760. By the mid-to-late eighteenth century, the cost of living in French urban centers far exceeded that of the provinces. In light of the precarious financial situation of most veterans, land was the bare minimum these men required to sustain themselves and their families upon their return to France. Noting the specific needs of this community, particularly the search for homes in a market of modest prices, this order suggests that the crown was providing these veterans and their families with opportunities for both resettlement and the means for a successful future. The Duc de Choiseul had strong connections to Touraine: he was Touraine’s governor and was constructing a magnificent family seat (Chanteloup) in Amboise, close to the city of Tours. Appeals from the powerful Voyer d’Argenson clan, comprising former Ministers of War with an interest in French North America, could additionally have facilitated the choice of this region by Choiseul.41 With Choiseul’s patronage and connection, and Touraine’s more reasonable prices, the removal to the provincial capital of Tours potentially enabled a higher standard of living for the cash-strapped veterans – even if it would never approximate what these families had enjoyed in colonial New France from their seigneural properties or the close links of the colonial elite to Atlantic trade networks. The crown may even have conceived of Touraine’s selection as marking the veterans with a particular favor. The province provided easy travel to Versailles and a number of royal and elite noble residences added to the region’s prestige. Known for its mild weather and calm, flat landscape, the choice of Touraine may have been designed to soothe the trau- matized families coming back to France. Veteran officers could place roots anywhere in the province of Touraine and the Ordonnance prescribed stipends at fifty-five percent pay to sustain the men, according to their rank. Captains (of all services) would receive annually 600 livres, lieutenants 400 livres, ensigns 300 livres and the sums would be disbursed quarterly.42 But the Ordonnance was silent

41 Jean-François Mouhot, “Les ‘pieds blancs’ venus du froid? Les refugiés canadiens à Loches et en Touraine à la fin du 18e siècle” Les Amis du Pays Lochois/Société des Amis du Pays Lochois, n.19 (2003): 132. 42 This pay was at 55% of the normal pay scale for these military ranks, with the regular sums being 1080 livres, 720 livres, and 360/340 livres respectively. The cost of living in Touraine, according to François José de la Corne in a letter to his brother-in-law in 1785, was not excessive – at least by comparison to an urban center like Paris. He noted that in Loches, life was, “Affordable, even for those with little income” (as quoted in Larin, L’exode, 9). While this was true in the 1780s, it would not have been so between 1763 and 1770 when the cost of living rose throughout France.

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regarding further guarantees of income with which to supplement the stipend. The amounts stated in the Ordonnance were the quantities that the officers already should have been receiving as their regular pensions while on deferred duty. The letters from these officers complaining about the minute size of pay indicate that these men greatly feared increased impoverishment. Even with the removal to a more moderately priced region, perhaps a concern these men faced was of having to turn to their wives and children for additional labor. Given France’s consistent ability to regain territory at treaty tables, it is not inconceivable that some in the royal council expected this to be a possibility for Canada when the Ordonnance was issued in 1762, a year before the Seven Years’ War ended. If Canada reverted to French hands, as Louisbourg had in 1748 at the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, then the New France emigrants would be in a single area, easy to round up and return to their borderlands posts and homes. And the Canadians themselves may have wanted to be together, similar to the cohesion demonstrated by Acadian refugees.43 For all the practical benefits, there were also curious provisions found in the Ordonnance. The marine officers settling in Touraine were placed under the orders of the sieur de Longueuil, a Canadian who had been the last governor of New France’s third largest city, Trois-Rivières. Paul Joseph Le Moyne de Longueuil was a veteran of the war with a long record of service focused on diplomacy and administration.44 Longueuil’s history, military and civilian, was distinguished enough to garner the respect of his fellow marines – an important component needed to wield influence among his peers. His selection as a sufficiently senior and well-connected spokesperson was practical. Esteem from his colleagues and experience in bureaucracy suggested that Longueuil could navigate the French system in order to argue effectively on the veterans’ behalf. And he also had the right pedigree as the scion of an aristocratic family of hereditary barons whose nobility had been granted in the late seventeenth century.45 He was referred to as the chevalier de Longueuil, a mark of distinction that set him apart from many of his fellow Canadian officers. Although his official title was “major de place du Canada,” the manner in which the Ordonnance described Longueuil’s command rings strangely

43 Mouhot, “Les ‘pieds-blancs’ venus du Froid,” 131–132. 44 Le Moyne de Longueuil File, anom, E 290: 6, 6v. 45 Andrew Rodger, “Le Moyne de Longueuil,” DCBO http://www.biographi.ca/009004 -119.01-e.php?BioId=36146 (accessed 15 September 2010).

312 christian ayne crouch for a peacetime community of veterans – it specifically noted that the veterans would be living “sous les ordres du sieur de Longueuil.”46 Touraine already had its own administrative apparatus with intendants, justices, and parlémentaires so why complicate the provincial government further? Apparently the veteran officers could not be trusted to behave appropriately without an extra someone watching over their reintegra- tion into French society. If these men carried problematic behaviors from North America, such as corruption, penchants for violence, or racial intermarriage, they could not be seen as being familiar with French civilian life. Longueuil did not remain long in his post. Charles de Sabrevois replaced him as major in 1763 when Longueuil went to Canada to settle his affairs and although he returned three years later, Sabrevois retained the office through 1774. Another Canadian migrant, Céloron de Bienville, assumed the commission that year and held it until the crown abolished the position in 1775.47 The date of suppression of the post of major de place seems to coincide with demographic patterns of a much-diminished Canadian community in Touraine. It is likely as well that the death of Louis XV played a role in the reshuffling of assignments and positions.48 Of the three men to hold the position of major de place, all were Canadian but they also all came from families unindicted during l’Affaire du Canada. More surprising, and punitive, in the Ordonnance was the directive that if the officers did not accede to these terms of royal resettlement, they would forfeit the king’s financial support. The king’s generosity, it appeared, relied on separating these colonial subjects from the population of France at large, and keeping them in a single, manageable area. The veterans were in no position to withdraw from the offer of royal financial munificence – these men had lost their livelihoods, and their position in society, with the loss of the colony. Life in New France, though hard, had provided certain constant rewards. The lucrative fur trade, and trading royal stores with Indians, had long bolstered the service income of marines serving in the posts of the pays d’en haut. Entry into military service

46 Ordonnance du Roi…du 24 Mars 1762, anom, F316: 160. 47 Larin, L’exode, 9. 48 The Quebec archivist Claude Bonnault argued that Canadians experienced a warm homecoming to France, welcomed by a grateful monarch and nation. In his view, the abandonment of New France was cemented under the reign of Louis XVI who was blinded, along with his advisors, to Canada’s true value by the canny envoy of the rebelling British colonies, Benjamin Franklin, as well as by Voltaire’s negative views of Canada being “a few meters of snow.” While Bonnault’s portrait of life in Touraine is overly rosy, he raises an interesting point in comparing the experiences of Canadians in France over the course of different reigns. For more see “Le Canada perdu et abandonné,” 339, 346.

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derived from a colonial social hierarchy that valued martial elites – and that prided itself on advancement by merit, rather than connection. For marines who were landowners, revenue from rents (or from the sale of agricultural products) was equally important. What were these men to do now in Touraine, living on the royal dole, with no holdings of their own, none awarded by crown, and no position to reclaim? Did the king assume that in time, the Touraine refuge would prosper? Did the king even care?

Creating New Trans-Atlantic Networks

Perhaps part of the segregation of the officers lay in the question of what they brought back with them from America. For instance, Daniel Chabert de Joncaire, the Indian agent, had family in France. His older brother, Philippe, the individual noted by several British sources as having been métis (half French, half Seneca) had returned as well. Had any of Daniel or Philippe’s Seneca kin taken the vessels to France? If they did, perhaps other officers had similarly heterogeneous families and this may help explain a royal need to contain a community of intermarried colonists.49 We can ascertain, thanks to scrupulous French recordkeeping of the whereabouts of individuals of African descent, that in the 1760s two or three-dozen enslaved people of color lived in Tours and Angers.50 There seems to be little question that some, if not all of these men, women, and children were connected to the former elites of New France – at least a few had been brought from Saint Domingue by a member of the Vaudreuil family.51 While the numbers for this community are very small, they

49 Despite inclusive laws drafted in the seventeenth century that granted Native spouses of French men full rights as subjects of the king, many French elites did not readily accept the offspring of such marriages into their homes. Élisabeth Bégon, wife of a prominent Canadian administrator, jotted in a letter that while living in Blois with her metropolitan in-laws, they derisively referred to her as an “iroquoise.” (January 20, 1750, “Il paraît que je ne sais point la façon dont on doit vivre et que je ne suis qu’une Iroquoise.”) Bégon, Lettres au cher fils: Correspondance d’Elisabeth Bégon aven son gendre (1748–1753) (Montréal: Editions Hurtubise HMH, Ltée, 1972), 154. The legitimate métis heirs of the Baron de Saint- Castin faced lawsuits disputing their inheritance from metropolitan French relatives, on the basis of their Indian blood. For more see Dickason, “A Look at the Emergence of the Métis,” 28. On the topic of inclusivity in seventeenth century colonial laws, see Gilles Havard and Cécile Vidal, Histoire de l’Amérique Française (Paris: Flammarion, 2003), 190. An excellent study describing the limited nature of métissage is Guillaume Aubert, “The Blood of France: Race and Purity of Blood in the French Atlantic World,” The William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Series 61, 3 (2004), 439–478. 50 Archives départementales Indre-et-Loire, Archives Civiles, C 360. 51 The Vaudreuil family was a marvel of Atlantic connections. Pierre de Rigaud, marquis de Vaudreuil Cavagnal served as governor of Louisiana before becoming the final Governor General of New France in 1755 (a post his father had held for many years). Other Vaudreuil

314 christian ayne crouch provide us the opportunity to see how French officials meticulously recorded foreign populations in their midst. The Lieutenant General of the Paris police, Antoine de Sartine, concerned himself greatly with knowing the whereabouts of all individuals of color, for the good of the realm.52 Thus the archival appearance of these diasporic individuals suggests a deeper narrative accompanying the Canadian refugees. They lived in the same province and, perhaps not coincidentally, ended up lumped together in the same archival sources. If there were indigenous Americans in the metropole, and even if there were not, the structure of the Touraine settlement meant that the Canadians were being watched. The crown’s reaction to its “devoted” colonists was simultaneously one of assimilation and one of unease, worry, and watchfulness. The officers in Touraine (and elsewhere) all highlighted their extensive service records in an attempt to claim indemnities and higher pensions during their years in France. Those actions in the name of the king consisted of lives spent in near-constant guerrilla warfare, directly engaging in or overseeing violence with or against American Indians and Protestant British colonists. To serve in the borderlands for a lifetime was to experience extreme duress and constant paranoia about the possibility of attack, to fear the slightest rumor on the frontier. Even if we consider that many of these veterans were nearing or in middle age, they could still talk and reminisce about their actions. In their words and in their physical presence, the veterans recalled things that perhaps the French crown was disinclined to remember about its empire: it was France that had given up its subjects’ homelands at the treaty table. It was in the French empire that racial intermarriage, cultural flexibility, and financial self-interest in the name of colonial growth flourished.53 It was these veterans – now demanding all sorts of monies, compensations, honors, and recognitions – who siblings entered military and bureaucratic service, with one brother becoming governor of Saint-Domingue. For the Vaudreuil family, see DCBO, (accessed 15 September 2010). 52 I thank Dr. Jennifer Palmer for providing me insight into Sartine’s behavior and pointing out the careful recording of African individuals. In March 1762, as an example of Sartine’s bureaucratic vigilance, the Lieutenant General of Police permitted Governor Vaudreuil to be attended in the Bastille by his enslaved servant, but only after Sartine was provided with the man’s name (Canon). Sartine to Jumilhac, Paris 30 March 1762, AB, Mss. 12501: 110. 53 Sue Peabody’s work on the importance of associating the French realm as a place of liberty, with a “freedom principle” despite clear engagement with the Atlantic slave trade and chattel slavery is a useful guide in thinking about why the veterans’ presence may have been problematic and why, indeed, the French North American empire was soon excised from French popular memory. See There Are No Slaves in France”: The Political Culture of Race and Slavery in the Ancien Régime (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).

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had cost the crown so much and lost the war. For French bureaucrats looking at this community, it was perhaps not such a terrible idea to seg- regate these individuals into a single area, far away from both the person of the monarch and the majority of French society. Lifelong officers who had lost everything and were driven to desperation disrupted the peace of the settled elite. The establishment and renewal of the major de place post into the 1770s pointedly demonstrates that this Touraine settlement was meant to permanent. Similarly, the paper trail that followed the Canadians to Touraine reinforced that this was not to be a temporary stop for Canadian officers – when the crown turned to the thorny issue of Canadian paper money and debts over the course of the 1760s, all acts of the royal council were dutifully forwarded to Tours, for public proclamation.54 At the Treaty of Paris in 1763, the French crown formally ceded New France to Britain, in exchange for Guadeloupe and Martinique. It was the French crown, not the French and French Canadian army, which “lost” New France. The permanent settlement of New France’s existence (to the negative) triggered a new set of actions by the veterans – a sort of “sauve qui peut” which provides insight into how these men understood their lives in the former French Atlantic world, and how they could use those experiences to open new possibilities for themselves from this point forward. The marine veterans may have been tired of life on the frontier but the letters suggests that many of these warriors felt underappreciated – and undercompensated – for their military service performed before and during the Seven Years’ War.55 They wanted access to new opportunities and reacted with a series of letters and actions that may have caused the court to pause. Marin de la Malgue, Chaussegros de Léry, and Joncaire Chabert all engaged in some similar strategies as concerned their problems with finances. As captains, the three men could expect the same pension sum of 600 livres – clearly a figure each considered too low in light of his services. From his correspondence in the Bastille, we know Joncaire Chabert had a small network within France – a relative who was a local figure in the church and thus able to advocate on his behalf. This man, Joncaire

54 Mouhot, “Les Pieds Blancs venus du Froid,” 134. There are dozens of arrêts, ordon- nances, and edits in the Archives départementales Indre-et-Loire – these were copies disseminated from Paris to the Intendant of Touraine with orders for these to be made public and posted around the province. Their volume suggests a widespread community, and a stable population that stayed at least a decade. 55 Larin, L’exode, 16.

316 christian ayne crouch d’Autrive, went to Versailles at least once, ostensibly to speak if not about Joncaire Chabert’s situation, then about the rest of the family. While awaiting the court’s ruling, the crown decided to award an extra three hundred livres to the Chabert children, who were “in a bad way.” This was not a vast sum and, given directly to the family, simultaneously proved the king’s magnanimity while in no way rewarding Joncaire Chabert for his previous indiscretions. Joncaire Chabert’s incarceration ironically spared him the expense of having to move to Touraine. (He was aware of the directive towards the marines, having been apprised of it by his correspondents.)56 Upon gaining his freedom, the fact of having laid no roots in Tours, Loches, or Angers unlike other officers may have reinforced Joncaire Chabert’s decision to seek his fortune by returning to Canada. The prison sojourn of Joncaire Chabert, and his precarious standing with the French crown, made it impossible for him to supplicate for new assignments. It would be far easier to create a new world for himself between that of France and Canada – a survival strategy that was eventually adopted by many of these men. Denied the French Atlantic world in which they had formerly lived and prospered, veterans of Joncaire Chabert’s type created their own new web of oceanic networks between the private families ties they held on both sides of the basin. All these men spent their careers in borderlands service, and in this particular case, with the most intimate of connections to indigenous peoples. The Chabert de Joncaire family encompassed metropolitan French, Franco-Canadians, as well as Senecas, its kinship reinforced by Seneca adoptions, wives, mothers, and children. In 1764, Joncaire Chabert reappeared in North America – a place where his skills and Indian connections could perhaps return to him some of the luster of his position and his former life. The need to gain some measure of independence is evidenced in Joncaire Chabert’s attempts to secure a land grant near the Niagara River – according to the old soldier given to his father by the Iroquois.57 It is unclear how much of his Indian family had migrated with him to France, if any. Yet if the Seneca relatives remained in the vicinity of the old Fort du Portage, could not the desire to

56 Joncaire d’Autrive to Joncaire Chabert, 10 May 1762, AB, Mss. 12502: 816–816v; Stipend Approval, 2 September 1763, anom, E 67: 1–2. 57 “Requête présentée à Sa Majesté le Roy d’Angleterre par le Sr Daniel Joncaire Chabert, cy-devant Officier Commandant pour le Roy de France au petit Fort de Niagara,” written in London 18 October 1764, attached to letters between Earl of Halifax to Major Thomas Gage, St. James, 27 October 1764, Gage Papers, English Series, The William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Vol. 2, 1v-3.

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be in contact with them again have served as an incentive to return to America? Having learned to be flexible and creative while on the American borderland, Marin came to understand that his best chance for professional advancement lay on the margins of French empire. He watched as the confirmation of his nobility and his damage claims went unfulfilled by the French crown. After the 1766–1768 global circumnavigation of Louis Antoine de Bougainville (also a veteran of the American war, although one critical of all things Canadian), the interest of the French crown appeared oriented towards a new Indian Ocean-Pacific frontier – and Marin offered his Atlantic expertise as a means to make inroads in this new space, no doubt using his old service record to make his case. Marin’s personnel file confirmed that he truly was a professional and successful soldier, laying out in minute detail every action in which he had participated. Unlike some of his fellow marines, who obscured the language of their service records when it came to Indian or woodland war, this record celebrated these elements as part of his successes. Recounting a 1756 raid on Oswego, Marin recorded that he had captured over one hundred twenty prisoners and two hundred scalps.58 Yet such frank terms may have troubled French administrators dealing with Marin’s appeals for new postings. Where to place someone who admitted (without a trace of irony) that he had traded in human scalps but was also clearly a talented, professional soldier? A new borderland. Ultimately, Marin found success in continuing his military career, perhaps aided in his quest by the old statement of support from the chevalier de Lévis, whose reputation and influence continued to grow in France after 1760. But the commission and post that Marin secured was not for service in Europe. Early in 1773, Marin left Tours as a lieutenant colonel in Baron Maurice de Benyovsky’s expedition to Madagascar.59 Given what Marin had written in his own file at the Ministry of Marine, it appeared he could be very useful in a location understood by bureaucrats to be barba- rous or savage. Benyovsky, though talented and connected, was not the pride of France’s army, and his expedition would receive less scrutiny in the actions used to accomplish strategic goals on this island than a royally- sponsored event. The active duty assignment, and the promotion to lieutenant colonel, guaranteed Marin both income and a stable post against which he could

58 Marin File, anom, E 302: 12v. 59 Marin Commission, Versailles 30 December 1772, anom, E 302: 1.

318 christian ayne crouch borrow but whatever expertise Marin could have brought to Madagascar went unrealized – shortly after arriving, he succumbed to tropical fever. At Marin’s death, the Baron de Benoyvsky claimed to have settled almost 2,000 livres worth of debt in Madagascar, and suggested that Marin had diverted a further 20,000 livres for the upkeep of his young mistress or wife named Rouillé at Ile de France.60 The struggle between Marin’s heirs (from his Canadian family) and Mademoiselle Rouillé suggests the very real need for this inheritance on both sides. Writing from Cap François in Saint Domingue in 1782, Marin’s son complained to the Minister of Marine almost a decade after his father’s death that Rouillé’s claims were attempts to divest the Marin children of their legal inheritance.61 Denied the social status that the Marins had enjoyed in New France, the old veteran’s demise left his heirs embroiled in a bitter battle for his few remaining resources.62 Initially, Chaussegros de Léry tried to continue his French service, due to tight financial straits like the other veterans. In pursuit of his goals, and unlike Marin, he chose to describe and recast his colonial service in much more vague terms. While asking for greater indemnities in 1761, Léry emphasized only two events that were the testaments of his zèle (zeal) for his service and loyalty to the king: his attack on Fort Bull in 1756 and his defense of Québec, where he was wounded, in 1759.63 His approach hinged on emphasizing love of country, loyal and devoted service, and ignoring any engagement with Indians – no mention was made of his diplomatic mission to the Iroquois with Longueuil in 1758. Léry distanced himself from the practices of war since they could serve no purpose anywhere but New France and focused instead on the plight of his family – notably of his two sons who attended military academies in France. His letters walked the fine line of preserving his noble martial masculinity, as a warrior in the service of king, but not a bloodthirsty savage, and a man with social obligations, but not one driven by venal interests like a roturier, or commoner.

60 Baron de Benyovsky to Minister of Marine, 9 March 1777, anom, E302: 12–13. 61 Marin to the Minister of Marine, Cap François 28 September 1782, anom, E 302: 18–20v. 62 Marin (son) to the Minister, Versailles 6 July 1775 and Blois, 10 August 1775; Benyovsky to Marin (son), Cap 20 September 1782, anom, E 302: 7, 10v, 18–18v. One of the Marin sons accompanied his father to Madagascar and expired from the same fever. 63 Vaudreuil Affidavit on Léry’s Behalf, Quebec 16 September 1760, anom, E 77: 12–12v; Léry File, anom, E 77: 13–13v; Léry Campaign File, anom, E 77: 17v–18.

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Unwilling to serve on the margins, Chaussegros de Léry’s reinvention of self was calculated for much more than a French audience. There was nothing to be gained by emphasizing any service that would be distasteful to the new British regime in Canada – in his personnel file regarding campaigning, Léry outlined again and again his service at Fort Bull and Oswego but steered well clear of any unpleasant topics (such as the controversial 1757 Fort William Henry campaign). Through the obscuring of his French record, we gain insight and imagination into what Chaussegros de Léry was saying to English contacts as he pursued new leads for income. Two years after his arrival in France, Chaussegros de Léry had begun exploring possibilities that were open to him under a new British Canada – garnering enough attention from French authorities that records of his English interactions and contacts were added to his file at the Ministry of Marine. By 1764, Léry was on his way back to Canada and, while pass ing through England, had the distinction (or disgrace, depending on national viewpoint) of being the first Canadian seigneur presented to King George III.64 The ultimate decision Léry had made was to hedge his bets – a strategy enabled by his presentation of his record. Though the French suspected Léry of being an English agent, with uncertain loyalty and perhaps even treasonous tendencies, the sins of the father somehow seem to have kept from attaching to his sons.65 After the closure of the Seven Years’ War, with Canada firmly in the British Atlantic empire, the new English regime withdrew its opposition to the Léry boys remaining in France for their military education. Chaussegros de Léry made a great success of his return to British Canada. By 1775, he was appointed to the Legislative Council by British Governor Sir Guy Carleton. Amazingly enough (and giving credence to his smooth, self-promotional skills), Léry was still drawing a small French pension for his old service in 1782, an income that was used to support his sons’ military advancement.

64 F.J. Thorpe, “Chaussegros de Léry,” DCBO http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e .php?BioId=35376 (accessed 15 September 2010); ANOM, E 77: 14v. 65 Léry skirted the boundaries of treasonous actions by his fraternization with the English, his presentation at court, and his business dealings with the “enemy.” The Ordre Royal et Militaire de Saint Louis (Léry had received the croix de Saint Louis in 1759) forbade its members from becoming British subjects without the approval of the king of France. Those who did, one assumes, could expect to face damaging charges of treason and shame their family. This rule may explain why other Canadian marines proved more reluctant to offer their services to the new British government in Canada so soon after the war. For more on the Order’s restriction, see W.J. Eccles, “The French Forces in America during the Seven Years’ War” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1974), III: xxii.

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And, just before his death, Léry added a two hundred pound British pension as well, for “loyalty” during the era of the American Revolution!66 Just as their father adapted to a new British Atlantic reality, Chaussegros de Léry’s sons learned the lesson of forging one’s opportunity during regime change and ultimately made their careers and fortunes in Canada as well.

Conclusion

Tracing these three veterans of New France gives us access to the “afterlife” of the French American empire and has enabled us to think about the diversity of experience within a French Atlantic context. On the surface, Marin de la Malgue, Joncaire Chabert, and Chaussegros de Léry are similar men with similar stories. They were close in age, all born and raised in French Canada, and long-term soldiers. By 1760 all three had risen to become decorated captains in the compagnies franches de la marine in New France. They all returned to metropolitan France following the unsuccessful conclusion of the war, where all three were offered the same (and, according to them, negligible) pension amount. Perhaps most importantly, the equivalence is perpetuated by the comparable manner in which the French crown treated all of its veterans. The prior advancement and fortunes of these three officers had depended on France being actively engaged in a world of imperial expansion. During their many years as officers of the compagnies franches, they had become accustomed to slow, meritorious increases in rank and responsibility and never once considered that they had done anything that wronged the reputation or goals of their monarch. Yet the treatment that they received upon their return to France (incarceration, removal from command, forced migration) indicated some sort of displeasure and distancing on the part of the French court. None of these individuals could lay personal claim to the vast fortunes lost during the war, nor could any man argue successfully for a position equivalent to what he had held in New France. Their experience stood in relief against the possibilities offered to the officers of the French army (troupes de terre) after 1761. All the senior army command received paroles from the terms of the Montreal Capitulation and found reassignment, either on the still-active German

66 Pension Disbursal Record, anom, E 77: 23–23v; Thorpe, “Chaussegros de Léry,” DCBO; anom, E 77: 24.

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front or elsewhere, after the war concluded.67 Despite the frustration of the marines’ ambitions, it is important to remember that none of these men cut their family ties to France, even after they recognized that there was no room for them in a European-facing, rather than Atlantic-facing realm. Instead, they used the skills they had learned in the Atlantic context to forge new connections. In their reaction to the replacement of a French North Atlantic world with a British one, we see the emergence of the significant differences between these marine officers. As one world of Atlantic opportunity closed for these men, it forced the marine veterans either to drown in regret or to work hard to make a new set of possibilities open. Of the three soldiers, Marin de la Malgue suffered greatly from the loss of New France but it could also be argue that, in the end, he needed the Atlantic World the least. Marin was a consummate professional soldier and unfailingly loyal to France – he performed his duty to the best of his ability, regardless of location. As such, he was the perfect agent of empire but, ironically, he never reaped the rewards for his fine service. For Chaussegros de Léry and Joncaire Chabert, the expansive and heterogeneous (rather than exclu- sive) nature of the eighteenth-century British Atlantic world proved to be a siren’s call by comparison with France. These men had not had conflicted loyalties during the years that they defended New France in the name of Louis XV. But when the monarchy failed to live up to the obligations that they understood it to have to them, they styled themselves free to seek new avenues for success. In the case of Joncaire Chabert, in particular, one has to wonder if a lifetime spent negotiating within a culture of reciprocal duties, such as that which characterized Iroquoian interactions, made his betrayal by the French regime seem unreasonably harsh. Chaussegros de Léry beneficially traded on his name, his accomplishments, and his genteel poverty. By the late eighteenth-century, Léry was drawing pensions from both the French and British, suggesting that he clearly offered information of value to both sides.68 Why? Because he fit broad, European cultural norms accepted by France and Britain. His military competence, his refined ambition, and his desire to be among “civilized” societies proved this. With no further need to form alliances with

67 Parole for Lévis from Whitehall, March 24, 1761, Service Historique de l’Armée de Terre (SHA), Vincennes: A13624: 13; Letter from M. Egremont to Bourlamaque confirming his parole, 26 August 1762, SHA, A13624: 207; Bourlamaque assignment to Ostende, SHA, A13624: 206; SHA, Y2D: 1153 (Montreuil); SHA, Y3D: 2393 (Boulamaque); 2759 (Bougainville); Desandrouins (3251). 68 Thorpe, “Chaussegros de Léry,” DCBO.

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Native Americans after 1760, a man like Léry no longer had to emphasize any special talent for life in the borderlands. And in fact, there appeared much more to be gained by denying those skills altogether. Instead, he relied on his traditional record of service (bravery, blind duty to his ruler) and his rank as a seigneur to ingratiate himself. After the departure of Governor Murray (who had met Léry during his hospitalization in Québec in 1759 and mistrusted him), Léry was able to prosper in Canada, using all his old colonial and Atlantic connections to the benefit of his new English masters. The continuation of his sons’ military careers in France assured the French crown of its due as well. In the end, then, it was Joncaire Chabert, the most adaptable and diverse of the veterans, who could not survive without the Atlantic and, more precisely, without the American frontier. A “paper millionaire,” all Joncaire’s connections, experience, knowledge, and skills had value in a single place – on the borderland of the Great Lakes. It was for this reason that in 1764, he began seeking permission from the British crown to be allowed to return to the place he knew best, despite the demise of the French empire there. But if his wealth had made him suspect in the French context, the fact of his family’s Indian blood and his influence among Native peoples did him no favors in the British world.69 It did not matter whether Joncaire Chabert was métis or not – the mere suggestion of it placed him outside the ranks of the urban British colonial elite. The only place he could thrive was on the now-British frontier with Native America. The end of Joncaire Chabert’s career evidences his exercise of his sole option for success. To regain physical access to the borderlands, Joncaire Chabert had to lean heavily on the influence of Sir William Johnson, British Superintendant of Indian Affairs for the Northern Colonies. One of the few men who had a professional appreciation for Joncaire’s life and skills, Johnson attested to the Frenchman’s “good conduct” if allowed to return to the trading post at Detroit. It was there that in 1771, Joncaire Chabert closed his life and career in his new Atlantic world.70

69 Ian Steele points out in a footnote that Joncaire Chabert’s return to British Canada in 1764 caused a great deal of consternation among imperial administrators. He carried trade goods with him, an indication of his intention to resume trade and reclaim influence on the frontier. See “When Worlds Collide,” 32 n. 32. See also Halifax to Gage, 27 Oct 1764 Gage Papers, English Series, 2. 70 Dunn Jr., “Chabert de Joncaire de Clausonne,” DCBO.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

PAUL CUFFE’S JOURNEY FROM ‘MUSTA’ TO ATLANTIC-AFRICAN, 1778–18111

Jeffrey A. Fortin

“Musta,” wrote the 19-year old Paul Cuffe, “is my Nature.”2 These words soaked the rough-hewn paper he used for a tax relief petition to the town of Westport, Massachusetts in 1778. Although tax documents are not often regarded as a harbinger of information about one’s inner thoughts or personal identity, Cuffe’s petition served as the perfect platform from which to exclaim his multiracial heritage to the world. Surrounded by the American revolutionaries’ furor against Great Britain’s unfair taxation, young Paul Cuffe found an opportunity in the commonwealth’s laws that provided tax-exempt status for Indian lands, but not for acreage owned by persons of African descent. His mother, Ruth Moses, a Wampanoag Indian from Dartmouth on the south coast of Massachusetts, and “My honored good old father,” Cuffe Slocum, a former slave captured and brought in chains from Africa to New England in the mid 1720s, married in 1746. Ruth birthed seven children.3 Such interracial unions were common in Massachusetts throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The last born son, Paul Cuffe would emerge as an uncommon man from this fairly ordinary familial background.4

1 Thank you to Paul Cyr of the New Bedford Free Public Library for his help with Paul Cuffe Family Papers, Roland Pollard for an enlightening discussion about his family (the Cuffes) and to my colleagues Adam Silver, Lisa Boehm, Lisa Stepanski, Josh MacCabe and Cathy Bueker for their support at our Emmanuel College research group meetings. 2 Exercise Book, Paul Cuffe Family Papers, 1759–1817. New Bedford Free Public Library Special Collections, New Bedford, Massachusetts. 3 As reprinted Henry Noble Sherwood, “Paul Cuffe” Journal of Negro History, Vol. 8 (April 1923), 155. Cuffe Slocum often refers to himself as “Coffe” instead of “Cuffe” on several pages of his Exercise Book when reprinting his name while practicing penmanship. Most legal documents refer to “Coffe” as “Cuffe,” including legal documents pertaining to his death and estate. It appears that Cuffe Slocum often substituted an “O” for a “U” when practicing his writing. For example, he writes “boshel of corn” instead of “bushel.” See Exercise Book and Accounts of Cuffe Slocum, 79–102, Cuffe Family Papers. 4 Some examples of biographies written about Paul Cuffe include: Lamont D. Thomas. Rise To Be A People: A Biography of Paul Cuffe. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986);

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The rhetoric of liberty and natural rights bandied about coastal New England during the era of the American Revolution. In this context, Paul Cuffe, his brother John, and others sought the same liberties white American colonists claimed that the British had stolen from them. In a nation where freedom for a black man was tenuous at best, Paul Cuffe courageously tested his legal status. In a 1780 petition to Bristol County Massachusetts’ General Court, the brothers identified themselves as “Indian men” who “by law [are] not the subjects of taxation for any estate.”5 The state responded by taking the two young men to prison. The Massachusetts courts later released the two “Indian” men, as the state referred to them, from jail due to a writ of habeas corpus in 1781 after William Rotch, a prominent south coast citizen, intervened on their behalf. The brothers navigated the intricate web of multiracial identity in colonial America and the English-speaking Atlantic world, convincing authorities to change their legal status from “Negro” to “Indian,” at least for the sake of taxation.6 Some thirty years after being arrested for tax evasion, Paul Cuffe reported in his ship’s log, “The dust of Africa” is “lodged on our rigging,” while sailing from Westport, MA en route to Sierra Leone via Philadelphia in January 1811.7 His brig’s intricate web of rope, sails and masts had become coated in the soil of his native land – a land that he had never been to – symbolizing the aspirations and idealism of the Atlantic world’s most famous black sea captain and his largely black crew. The Traveller had narrowly escaped tragedy a few weeks earlier when crewman John

Sheldon H. Harris. Paul Cuffe: Black America and the African Return. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972); and George Salvador. Paul Cuffe, The Black Yankee, 1759–1817. (New York: Reynolds-DeWalt Printing, 1969). An excellent biographical sketch and collection of Cuffe’s writings from later in his life can be found in Rosalind Cobb Wiggins, Captain Paul Cuffe’s Logs and Letters, 1808–1817: A Black Quaker’s “Voice from within the Veil.” (Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1996). For Cuffe within the context of the emergent Black Atlantic, see James Sidbury, Becoming African in America: Race and Nation in the Early Black Atlantic. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007) and James T. Campbell, Middle Passages: African American Journeys to Africa, 1787–2005. (New York: Penguin Press, 2006). 5 Sherwood, 163–164. 6 For more on the racialization of Indians and Africans in New England, see: Nancy Shoemaker, “How Indians Got to Be Red,” The American Historical Review, Vol. 102, No. 3 (June 1997), 625–644; Peter Silver, Our Savage Neighbors: How Indian War Transformed Early America. New York: W.W. Norton, and Company, 2008; Daniel R. Mandell, Tribe, Race, History: Native Americans in Southern New England, 1780–1880. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 2011; John Sweet Wood, Bodies Politic: Negotiating Race in the American North, 1730–1830. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 2003; and Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double-Consciousness. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993. 7 21 February 1811, Traveller Log. Cuffe Family Papers.

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Masters washed overboard during a storm, grasping loose rigging at the last instant, pulling himself back shipboard from the tempest. Now, in calmer equatorial waters, Cuffe and his crew “judged the land [Africa] to be about twenty-five leagues,” or 75 miles, away – a distance that would take almost two weeks to close.8 On this his first trip to Africa the venerable African-American sea captain hoped to lay the foundation for future mass migration of free African Americans to Britain’s West African colony. There they could set up trading outposts, organize a representative government and practice Christianity. Cuffe imagined a black republic in West Africa that guaranteed the liberties and freedoms Great Britain and the United States failed to deliver to the former slaves. He arrived in Africa, one contemporary observed, a “strange and animating spectacle,” a “free and enlightened African entering as an independent trader, with his black crew into that port which was so lately the Nidus of the slave trade.”9 Now in his 50s, Cuffe triumphantly arrived in Sierra Leone an Atlantic African, not an American Indian. In a few short decades Paul Cuffe transformed from a Mustee son of a farmer, to a wealthy coastal trader and whaling captain with a small fleet of vessels, to an Atlantic African seeking redemption on the continent from which millions of his brethren had been kidnapped and sold into oblivion.10 His ability to self-identify as Mustee in certain situations, and as African in others, illustrated the complex process of social and racial change taking place in the age of revolutions in the Atlantic world. Massachusetts officials gradually re-defined multiracial peoples as “mustee,” then “Negro,” and finally “Black” during the early national period, as was often the case throughout the English speaking North Atlantic.11 Such racial redefinitions transformed the legal status of men like Paul Cuffe

8 2–24 February 1811, Traveller Log. Cuffe Family Papers. Two weeks to travel 75 nautical miles was an unusually long time. 9 Sherwood, 172. 10 Paul Cuffe died in 1817 with an estate worth and estimated $322,000 in 2009 currency. He purchased numerous properties over his lifetime, including: 75 acres on the Westport River between 1789–1799, a 100 acre homestead farm, a windmill on Westport Point, a cedar swamp, two salt marshes, and two farms. Cuffe also loaned money to neighbors, although it seems the lending rates were reasonable. Paul Cuffe Family Papers; Marion Kilson, “Cuffe’s Social Networks and Entrepreneurial Success,” paper delivered at the Exploring Paul Cuffe: The Man and his Legacy: A Public Symposium, October 3, 2009 at the Westport, MA Public Library. 11 Carter G. Woodson “The Relations of Negroes and Indians in Massachusetts,” Journal of Negro History, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Jan. 1920), 46.

326 jeffrey a. fortin from Indian to the subordinate black identity.12 Although Indians seemed to have been “written off the record” in New England, many multiracial peoples existed in a cultural duality that was of Indian and African background, compelling authorities to ascribe an arbitrary racial identity.13 Paul Cuffe emerged from his “Musta” heritage as a black man regardless of how local authorities chose to categorize him. His brother John took a different route. He married an Indian woman, like Paul did, but chose not to live in an Indian community in the commonwealth.14 Two brothers from the same biological parents fashioned different – yet connected – racial identities in an age when America became increasingly bifurcated.15 Cuffe’s life story is exceptional, yet in many ways it fits within the norms of his day. Skilled Native Americans along the New England coast had introduced English colonists to fishing and whaling, teaching them the basic skills necessary to harvest the sea.16 New England Indian communities intermixed with free and runaway blacks as early as the seventeenth century, when safety for these contraband often meant holding up in relative anonymity on Massachusetts’ Indian Plantations. Farmers and the sea were intricately connected, with Cuffe joining throngs of other teenaged men who for generations fought boredom and satiated economics needs on their father’s farms by enlisting on whale ships leaving from Nantucket and other seaports.17 African-Americans represented at least 18% of all

12 Ruth Wallis Herndon and Ella Wilcox Sekatau “The Right to a Name: The Narragansett People and Rhode Island Officials in the Revolutionary Era,” American Encounters: Natives and Newcomers from European Contact to Indian Removal, 1500–1850. (New York: Routledge, 2000), 426–428. For more on erasing indigenious peoples from New England’s history, see Jean M. O’Brien, Firsting and Lasting: Writing Indians Out of Existence in New England. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010). 13 Ibid. 14 For more Massachusetts’ Indians racial and cultural identity, see Jean M. O’Brien, Dispossession by Degrees: Indian Land and Identity in Natick, Massachusetts, 1650–1790. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997; and Daniel Mandell, Behind the Frontier: Indians in Eighteenth-Century Eastern Massachusetts. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996). 15 Gary B. Nash, Race and Revolution. (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 1990). Blacks in the Atlantic world often refashioned their identity, fitting into what historians have described as the “Atlantic Creole.” See, Vincetta Carretta, Equiano, the African: Biography of a Self-Made Man. (New York: Penguin Books, 2006); and Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America. (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2000). 16 See, Alexander Starbuck. History of America’s Whale Fishery, from its Earliest Inception to the Year 1876. (New Jersey: Castle, 1989); and Eric Jay Dolin, Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America. (New York: W.W. Norton, 2008). 17 See, Daniel Vickers. Farmers and Fishermen: Two Centuries of Work in Essex County Massachusetts, 1630–1850. (Chapel Hill: University o North Carolina Press, 1994); and Daniel Vickers. Young Men and the Sea: Yankee Seafarers in the Age of Sail. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007).

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crewmembers aboard British and American ships by 1803.18 Briefly, as a young man, Cuffe worked with multiracial crews aboard these whalers scouring the ocean for their quarry. Anonymity was short lived for Paul Cuffe. He reinvented himself beside these hard-scrabbled masses aboard the floating slaughterhouses. From oil soaked decks he became the celebrated, venerated and res pected Captain Paul Cuffe, the oft-claimed founder of America’s first back-to-Africa movement and example of the heights a free black man could attain. Celebrity followed Paul Cuffe throughout the Atlantic as he built a shipping empire that specialized in fishing and trading goods in coastal waters as well as across the Atlantic. Seemingly fearless, Cuffe and his largely black crews became increasingly famous, sailing into Charleston and other ports where slavery was legal. Newspapers in England, America and the Caribbean reported his whereabouts and adventures. Writers hailed him as a man to be admired by whites and blacks. Cuffe’s celebrity protected him, making it less likely he or his crew would be impressed into slavery or service under the British or American navies.19 A man of enterprise, hard work and discipline, Paul Cuffe was mixed-race, often publicly embracing his Wampanoag heritage. Yet, he redefined what it meant to be African in the wider Atlantic world. By 1812, Paul Cuffe had experienced a spiritual transformation that refo- cused his life’s work toward aiding his “brethren” in Africa through African colonization. Paul Cuffe’s story captures the ambiguity and complexity of being multiracial in a bifurcated society where identity was fluid and where the idea of a black America and the black Atlantic were simultaneously emerging from the chaos of slavery and emancipation on the heels of the American and Haitian Revolutions. Whites occupied a heavily stratified society shipboard where they were “among the most marginalized men in white

18 Bolster, Roland, and Keyssar, The Way of the Ship: America’s Maritime History Reenvisioned 1600–2000. (New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2008), 87. 19 Cuffe and his crew did occasionally run into trouble but the Seamen’s Protection Certificates issued by the United States often bailed them out of impressment. The law issuing these documents was first passed 28 May 1796, with renewals prior to Cuffe’s voyage as recent as 1809. “Extract from an act, for the relief and protection of American seamen,” in Early American Imprints, Evans #47979, American Antiquarian Society. As W. Jeffrey Bolster notes, Seamen’s Protection Certificates issued to blacks conferred citizenship – a temporary status meant only to protect the sailors from British press gangs. See, “‘To Feel Like A Man:’ Black Seamen in the Northern States, 1800–1860,” Journal of American History, Vol. 76, No. 4 (March 1990), 1175. For more on the political ramifications of impressments, see Bradford Perkins, Prologue to War: England and the United States, 1805–1812. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963.

328 jeffrey a. fortin society.”20 Blacks, on the other hand, found relief aboard whalers, transports and other merchant vessels. Black seamen could achieve levels of freedom and economic reward shipboard that was unavailable to them elsewhere in the Atlantic world. Paul Cuffe used this freedom vehicle – mostly brigs, a medium-sized vessel with two square-rigged masts – to hunt whales, transport grains and slave-grown cotton, and begin ferrying the first African Americans determined to resettle Africa with the sons and daughters of those who were long ago lost to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.

Imbibing in the Drink of Liberty, 1759–1780

Cuttyhunk Island, a spit of land belonging to the Elizabeth Islands nestled in the warm waters of Buzzard’s Bay along Massachusetts’ south coast, had just one house in 1759.21 The windswept rock jutting out into the bay commanded an astonishing view of the waters buzzing with fishing, trade and whale ships heaving their loads to and from New Bedford and other nearby ports. On 17 January 1759, the salty air of the bay was cracked by the scream of Ruth Moses’ and Paul Slocum’s seventh child as he entered into the maritime world of eighteenth century Massachusetts. Born nine miles out to sea on this enormous rock, Paul Slocum was ushered into the multiracial community of Dartmouth, Massachusetts, where his parents had recently purchased a 120-acre farm – a not entirely unusual occurrence in this corner of the Atlantic world.22 In 1746, “a Negro man,” Cuffe Slocum, and an “Indian woman,” Ruth Moses, were married in Dartmouth where they both had roots.23 Cuffe – derived from Kofi, which referred to his African birthplace – and Ruth represented a typical wedding along Massachusetts’ south coast at a time where Africans and Indians often married. As one biographer poeti cally explains, “with two suits of clothes, and freedom, the manumitted slave went happily away” after purchasing his freedom from master John

20 W. Jeffrey Bolster. Black Jacks: African American Seamen in the Age of Sail. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), 36. 21 Cuffe’s own memory suggest no other house existed on the island, although this seems unlikely. Rolland Pollard, a descendent of Paul Cuffe confirmed the family’s oral tradition of there being only one house on the island when Paul Cuffe was born. Discussion 8/2/11 at New Bedford Free Public Library. 22 Exercise Book, Paul Cuffe Family Papers, 1759–1817. 23 Memorandum of Family Marriages, Paul Cuffe MSS, NBFPL.

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Slocum.24 Although Cuffe Slocum faced hardships post-emancipation, he prospered for a newly freed slave, able to feed and clothe nine children through “great industry and economy” until he died in 1773.25 Upon Cuffe’s death, his son Paul along with his wife Ruth and other family members turned away from the slave name of Slocum, instead adopting their father’s African derived name of Cuffe. Re-christened Paul Cuffe, he clearly took ownership of his African ancestry – a decision that would have pleased his father. Just fourteen years old, Paul Cuffe embraced his African heritage, fitting within the cacophony of voices beginning to claim a place for Africans in revolutionary Massachusetts. Beginning in 1773, a series of petitions were passed to Massachusetts’ General Court asking for freedom from enslavement and, in some cases, passage back to Africa for the newly freed men.26 Over the course of the next decade, slaves in Massachusetts grew increasingly vocal about their rights of liberty and freedom within the rhetoric of America’s movement towards independence.27 By the mid 1770s, Cuffe, along with numerous other persons of African descent, joined the ranks of the Continental Army for a six month tour, having “passed muster” in Springfield, MA.28 In doing so they laid claim to a place in the new, postwar America. The American Revolution brought untold suffering and hardships to the people of New England. For their rhetoric and ideals that spawned a new nation, firebrands in Boston and other port cities housing sects of the Sons of Liberty hold a special place within the popular imagination of Americans. The peoples of south coastal New England experienced a very different sort of struggle during the war years. Some held high ideals about

24 Henry Noble Sherwood, “Early Life,” The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 8, No. 2 (April 1923), 154. 25 Ebenezer Slocum, Manumission Bill of Sale, 1742, in Paul Cuffe Family Papers, 1759– 1817. For quote, see: William Allen, Life of William Allen, with selections from his correspondence. (Philadelphia: H. Longstreth, 1847), 110. 26 For example, see: “Petition of Peter Bestes, Sambo Freeman, Felix Holbrook, and Chester Joie, Boston, April 20, 1773,” in Herbert Aptheker, A Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States, (New Jersey: Carol Publishing Group, 1990) 7–8. 27 The Appendix: or some Observations on the expediency of the Petition of Africans, living in Boston, &c, lately presented to the General Assembly of this Province. To which is annexed, the Petition referred to. Likewise, Thoughts on Slavery with a useful extract from the Massachusetts Spy, of January 28 1773, by way of an Address to the Members of the Assembly. By a Lover of Constitutional Liberty. in Aptheker, A Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States, 6. 28 Massachusetts Sailors and Soldiers of the Revolutionary War: A Compilation from the Archives, Vol. IV. (Boston: Wright & Potter Printing Co., STATE PRINTERS, 1898).

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American independence, yet blockaded by the most powerful navy in the world most were forced to tend to the basic needs of communities under martial law. Under such conditions peat moss and scrub brush provided fuel to burn for heat and food preparation. Islanders were forced to engage in illicit trade under the cover of night to circumvent the blockade and resupply Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard and surrounding communities with necessities such as salt, wood and oil.29 With Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard isolated from much needed supply chains, a young Paul Cuffe saw opportunity for economic gain and, perhaps as important, adventure. His father Kofi was known as a self- starter, “small, independent merchant” in the Buzzards Bay waterways.30 A young Paul followed his father’s lead during the war years when he built an open boat in which to deliver goods to the islanders. Hunkered within his small dory, sheltered from the waves by the high sides of the vessel, Cuffe smelled opportunity as he traversed the dangerous waters of revolutionary America. Bandits trolling Buzzard’s Bay caught Paul and his brother, David, one evening and soon David left his younger brother’s side, choosing the security of the family farm. Paul resumed his nighttime treks across the bay, eluding the British patrols long enough to profit from his coastal escapades.31 Young Cuffe’s boldness surfaced during the American Revolution, protesting vigorously when taxed without enfranchisement. Both Paul and his older brother John emphasized their Native American and African ancestry with varying degrees of importance.32 As Paul Cuffe became more involved in the colonization movement, his African heritage took on more significance in public. However, in their youth Paul and John claimed both Native American and African ancestry in numerous petitions they wrote to Massachusetts, arguing that both attributes garnered them tax- exempt status. Without representation, they argued, there should be no taxation. In a 1780 petition to Bristol County Massachusetts’ court, brothers Paul and John identified themselves as “Indian men” who “by law not the subjects of taxation for any estate.”33

29 Obed Macy, The History of Nantucket, Together with the Rise and Progress of the Whale Fishery. (Boston: Hilliard, Ray, and Co., 1835), 84. 30 Exercise Book, Paul Cuffe Family Papers, 1759–1817. 31 For more, see, Rosalind Cobb Wiggins, Captain Paul Cuffe’s Logs and Letters, 1808–1817, 48–49. 32 John Cuffe, like his brother Paul, referred to himself as a “mustee man” on a notice he wrote circa 1780. Paul Cuffe Family Papers, 1759–1817 (microfilm, roll 1). 33 Sherwood, 163–164.

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In early March 1780, in the midst of fighting for tax exemption as an Indian, a petition he signed asking the Massachusetts General Courts for relief also clearly identifies his African heritage. The signed petitioners, all identified as Africans, felt slighted by the state, having “Cheerfully Entered the field of Battle,” yet being “Reduced to a state of Beggary…and a Burden to others” with no reward of liberty to show.34 Self-described in the petition as one of the “Black people” addressing officials, Cuffe listed his service to the state – when, as he pointed out, “we may be Clear from Being Called Tories tho some few of our Colour hath rebelled & some wickedly” – as reason enough to have access to freedom.35 The least the state owed for their performance, they argued, was a guarantee of liberty. Despite the Massachusetts Constitution and Quok Walker case outlawing slavery in the commonwealth circa 1783, Cuffe and his fellow petitioners felt abandoned by the revolution. The Cuffe led petitioners turned to a public forum to plead their case. Writing in Dartmouth towards the end of a long, cold winter, they appealed to the General Court’s sense of patriotism while remaining deferential to the white authorities. “Contrary to the invenerable [sic] custom and Practices of the Country we have been & are taxed both in our Poles and that small Pittance of Estate…we are not allowed in voting in the town meetings in – nor to Choose an officer of neither.” As the language of the petition became more assertive, the deference increased, “we pray that these [words] may give no offence at al [sic] by no means but the most honourable Court will take into Consideration as if it were their own Case.”36 Despite the possibility of liberty being with reach, these were still legally a dependent people.37 Their ability to self-identify as Indian in certain situations, and as African in others, illustrated the complex process of social and racial change taking place in revolutionary era Massachusetts. State officials gradually re-defined Indians as “mustee,” then “Negro,” and finally “Black”

34 Petition To The Honourable Council and House of Representatives in the General Court Assembly for the State of the Massachusetts Bay in New England. 14 March 1780. MA 186. 134, MA Misc. Collection, Massachusetts State Archives. 35 Ibid. In 1775, Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation guaranteed freedom to any enslaved peoples who fought alongside the British in the war against the colonies. Cuffe’s petition referenced the thousands of blacks to took up arms in answer to Dunmore’s plea. See: Charles W. Carey, Jr. “These Black Rascals: The Origins of Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment,” Virginia Social Science Journal, 31 (1996), 65–77. 36 Ibid. 37 For more, see: Elaine Forman Crane, A Dependent People: Newport in the Revolutionary Era. (New York: Fordham University Press, 1992).

332 jeffrey a. fortin during the early national period in southern New England.38 In the 1790 census for Westport, Massachusetts, Cuffe’s town of residence, listed 1138 “Free White Males,” 1159 “Free White Females,” and 56 “All Other Free Persons Except Indians Not Taxed.”39 Outside of these simple, bifurcated racial constructions, multiracial peoples had no choice in their racial identity or what local authorities ascribed to them. Men like Paul Cuffe were transformed from Indian to black in the records of the commonwealth.40 Yet, Paul Cuffe would emerge from his “mustee” heritage as a black man based on his own terms and not simply the opinion of a local court. Eventually, the Massachusetts’ court ruled that enfranchisement resi ded with the individual town and a hefty bill for three years of back taxes awaited the Cuffe family, although an out-of-court settlement reduced the debt.41 Nevertheless, the war-torn teenage years of Paul Cuffe shaped his adult life in two ways: he realized the potential of undertaking trade routes few others desired and he learned that a black man could challenge the status quo within the American legal system. Seeking – like many of persons of African descent – “good fortune” by going to sea, Cuffe quickly grew his own personal wealth by taking advantage of the limited freedom a black man could gain from a maritime life.42 Cuffe’s assertion of black identity in 1780 illustrates his continued evolution along the path of refashioning himself from a Musta man to an African. Other well-known Africans in the diaspora, such as Olaudah

38 Carter G. Woodson “The Relations of Negroes and Indians in Massachusetts,” Journal of Negro History, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Jan. 1920), 46. 39 Westport Census, 1790 in “Captain Paul Cuffe, 1759–1817: A One Man Civil Rights Movement,” Vol. 1: Primary Sources. Ed. by Michael Westgate, 1989, Unpublished Mss., New Bedford Free Public Library. 40 Ruth Wallis Herndon and Ella Wilcox Sekatau “The Right to a Name: The Narragansett People and Rhode Island Officials in the Revolutionary Era,” American Encounters: Natives and Newcomers from European Contact to Indian Removal, 1500–1850. (New York: Routledge, 2000), 426–428. As early as 1719, South Carolina’s governor made it law that “all those ‘not entirely Indian’” would be counted as black. For more, see Peter Wood, Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion. (New York: W.W. Norton, 1974), 152; and Horton and Horton, Hard Road to Freedom, 47. 41 Wiggins, Captain Paul Cuffe’s Logs and Letters, 49. 42 According to W. Jeffrey Bolster, “ships were a pipeline to freedom and refuge for slaves on the lam,” Black Jacks, p. 4. In general, life at sea offered all sailors a level of liberty not often found for working men on land, see: Paul A. Gilje, Liberty on the Waterfront: American Culture in the Age of Revolution. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004). For more on Cuffe’s confrontation with the white world of water-based trade, see Sherwood, “Paul Cuffe,” Journal of Negro History, 156–161; Petition To The Honourable Council and House of Representatives in the General Court Assembly for the State of the Massachusetts Bay in New England. 14 March 1780. MA 186. 135, MA Misc. Collection, Massachusetts State Archives.

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Equiano, clearly portray themselves as men of the Atlantic, narrating memoirs that name Africa as their home, as opposed to any American port.43 Cuffe, in contrast, anchored himself in Massachusetts and the United States, even though he would become a man of the Atlantic world. These early examples of Cuffe’s nebulous identity show his connection with the region of his birth that was not yet reshaped by his later travels in the wider Atlantic. As his business acumen sparked more travel from one Atlantic port to another, Paul Cuffe became African in ways the young “musta” boy could not have imagined.

Becoming an African in the Atlantic

By the time Cuffe reached his early twenties, he had experience as a deck- hand and encountered formidable – yet ordinary – hazards of a man at sea. Captured by the British shipboard during the war and imprisoned in New York for three months, Cuffe also had run-ins with pirates and other sea bandits while sailing the east coast of North America and making for- ays into the Caribbean. Although such difficulties might compel some people, such as Paul’s brother David, to forego a life at sea, it seemed to harden Cuffe, motivating him to build stronger, larger and more defensi- ble vessels.44 In the 1780s, Cuffe relaunched his merchant operations with a larger 18-ton decked vessel as much aimed at fishing or whaling as trawling along the coast for trade. Cod offered the promise of cash, with Cuffe’s inaugural fishing voyage providing his first substantial profit. The potential of the business drew the interest of his seafaring Indian brother-in-law, Michael Wainer.45 The two men operated the Sunfish, a new twenty-ton bark, making several trips back and forth to Newfoundland and other fertile fishing grounds. Cuffe’s profits enabled him to purchase in partnership another vessel, the Mary, absorbing it into his burgeoning maritime business.46 Soon after acquiring the Mary, Cuffe entered the whaling industry in 1793.

43 London could be considered Equiano’s home-away-from home if one considers how many times he returned there and that he spent the final years of his life in or around the city fighting for abolition. See, Robert J. Allison, ed. The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano. (Boston: Bedford/St Martins, 2006); and Vincent Carretta, Equiano, the African; for Cuffe, see Lamont D. Thomas, Rise To Be A People: A Biography of Paul Cuffe. 44 Sherwood, 156. 45 Armistead, Memoir of Paul Cuffe, 27. 46 Sherwood, 157.

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Nantucket’s rise to prominence in the cutthroat whaling industry provided the ideal backdrop for Paul Cuffe’s rise from obscurity to celebrity.47 His exploits and profitable ventures at sea earned him celebrity status throughout the Atlantic. A difficult industry, whaling demanded that captain and crew be at sea for months in search of the valuable mammals.48 For Cuffe and his crew, whaling would prove to be an even more challenging enterprise. As they arrived in the waters off Newfoundland in late summer 1793, Cuffe’s brig was amongst four other whaling vessels. The usual convention in early nineteenth-century whaling called for cooperation amongst ships, but the Mary’s black captain was not well-received by the other white skippers because he was ill-equipped and undermanned. Being the first whaling expedition he captained, Cuffe did not carry with him all the necessary tools or manpower, frustrating the other ships’ captains and forcing his ship to navigate the deep North Atlantic waters alone.49 On that day seven whales were harpooned with six of them belonging the Mary; Cuffe killed two himself.50 By the end of this expedition in 1793, Cuffe had made a name for himself in the still intimate world of whaling. Sailing on from the dangerous waters of the Strait of Belle Isle separating Newfoundland from the mainland to Philadelphia, Cuffe used the profits from this outing to build a larger vessel. The christening of the Ranger marked a shift in Cuffe’s seafaring, moving from whaling and fishing to the trade of cargo goods. In 1795, the Ranger left Westport for Norfolk, Virginia where Cuffe could sell his vessel’s $2,000 cargo for goods from the Chesapeake.51 Despite being a rather standard cargo vessel, the Ranger served as an unusual platform of sorts for Cuffe. Blacks and whites in seaports like Norfolk “were filled with astonishment and alarm. A vessel

47 For more on whaling, see: Eric Jay Dolin, Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America. (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2008); and Lisa Norling, Captain Ahab Had a Wife: New England Women and the Whalefishery, 1720–1870. (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2000). 48 For descriptions of New England’s whaling industry, see Thomas Jefferson, Observations on the Whale-Fishery, France: Jacques-Gabriel Clousier, 1788, Early American Imprints, 1st Series, Evans# 21345; Alexander Starbuck, History of America’s Whale Fishery, from its Earliest Inception to the Year 1876. (New Jersey: Castle, 1989); and Edouard A. Stackpole, The Sea-Hunters: The New England Whalemen during Two Centuries, 1635–1835. (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1953). 49 Wilson Armistead, Memoir of Paul Cuffe: A Man of Colour. London: Edmund Fry, Bishopsgate Street, 1840. Cornell University Digital Collections reprint. 50 Sherwood, 157. 51 Wilson Armistead, Memoir of Paul Cuffe: A Man of Colour. London: Edmund Fry, Bishopsgate Street, 1840. Cornell University Digital Collections reprint. 30–31.

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owned and commanded by [a] black man…was unprecedented and surprising.”52 Customs officers, among others, increased scrutiny of the black captain, but Cuffe’s legitimate papers gave them little recourse against his trading activities.53 Within weeks, Cuffe returned to Westport twice with 3,000 bushels of corn and other dry goods, finding $1,000 profit on each trip.54 His trading activities garnered Cuffe enough money to become ¾ owner of a 268-ton ship, the Alpha, and by 1806, his fleet of vessels included the 109-ton brig Traveler.55 As the nineteenth century bloomed, this farmer’s son had built himself a small shipping empire worthy of comparison to most other operations out of bustling New England seaports like Providence or Newport. Amid this fleet of ships, and a small set of white skilled laborers he employed to maintain his vessels, Cuffe sustained familial connections in his business pursuits, making kinship ties key to the success of his ventures. Most of his ships masters were related to him by either blood or marriage and he baptized his sons in the ways of the sea at early ages. Paul Cuffe, Jr., in his 1839 memoirs, described his “launch out upon the broad Atlantic’s briny bosom” and the “the novelty [of] attending a sea voyage” alongside his father.56 “Nothing uncommon attended this voyage” as they began to criss-cross the Atlantic in pursuit of the next item to trade in 1806. They left for “to Pasamaquaddy [Maine], for Plaster of Paris. We made this voyage down in about 10 days. After loading our vessel, which took two weeks, we again set sail for Wilmington.” From Deleware, they “discharged our freight, took in ballast and 300 bushels of apples, and sailed for Savannah,” where “we again discharged our freight and reloaded our vessel with Cotton, Rice, and Logwood.” Roughly two months after

52 Ibid. 158. 53 Allen, Life of William Allen, 111. 54 Wilson Armistead, Memoir of Paul Cuffe: A Man of Colour. London: Edmund Fry, Bishopsgate Street, 1840. Cornell University Digital Collections reprint. 31. 55 Cuffe owned several ships, including four built in Westport. In addition to those named in the main text, he built the 162 ton brig Hero. On some of the vessels, Cuffe shared ownership with white merchants and selects relatives. According to scholar Marion Kilson, “Cuffe always maintained a controlling interest of at least 50% in his vessels. The one exception to this policy occurred in 1806 when three white merchant mariners from the neighboring town of Dartmouth invited Cuffe to invest in their schooner, Hope, which traded on the New Bedford to Philadelphia run.” See Kilson, “Social Networks.” Symposium Proceedings. Exploring Paul Cuffe: The Man and His Legacy. 3 October 2009, New Bedford Whaling Museum. Wilson Armistead, Memoir of Paul Cuffe: A Man of Colour. London: Edmund Fry, Bishopsgate Street, 1840. Cornell University Digital Collections reprint. 32–33. 56 Paul Cuffe Jr. Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Paul Cuffe, A Pequot Indian: During Thirty years Spent At Sea And In Travelling In Foreign Lands. (Vernon, CT: Horace N. Bill, 1839), 4.

336 jeffrey a. fortin leaving Westport, they were delayed for “three months in making preparation for sea again. From this place [Savannah] we made out into the broad Atlantic,” which turned into “a long, tedious voyage,” sailing a “great number of days in a northward direction, until we made the Grand Banks; then we steered away for the northern coast of Scotland, which we reached in about fifty days.” The voyage was far from complete for the two Cuffes as they “continued our course” to the North Sea “and made the entrance to the Baltic…along the coast of Copenhagen to Gottenburgh.”57 Once in Sweden, Cuffe sold their cargo, taking onboard iron, steel and hemp for the return voyage, with one stop left in Denmark “where we took in a number of passengers for Philadelphia, at which place we arrived after a long passage.” Junior’s account does not seem to notice the globetrotting nature of their voyage, discounting the miles they racked up as part of the business. Yet, all of this travel did not pass without loss. “During this voyage we had much rough weather and “were compelled to throw overboard fifty tons of iron while on the Grand Banks” during a “gale” in which “we lost our fore-top-mast, jib-boom and long boat.”58 Despite Paul Cuffe’s travels, regardless of the respect and commercial success he had in building his shipping business, and despite his celebrity status, of which he was fully aware, the black sea captain could not escape being African in the Atlantic. Two advertisements in an 1806 edition of the Savannah Advertiser portray the discord and paradox of Paul Cuffe’s world. “The new Ship ALPHA,” announced one add, “Paul Cuffe, master, burthen about 260 tons, part of her cargo being already engaged, and for the remainder, apply to JACOB IDLER & CO. Who have received by the above SHIP Superfine FLOUR Apples & Windsor Chairs.”59 No mention of Cuffe’s race or unusual status as a captain of the large vessel accompanied the advertisement. Yet, the captain would have known been continuously reminded of his status on land as port officials eyed his paperwork skepti- cally and with a more critical gaze than other ships masters. Cuffe faced the uncomfortable reality that he traded in a market infused with slave-produced materials, an economy built on the backs of unfree Africans. On the same page of the Savannah Advertiser as the announce- ment of Cuffe’s arrival appeared another add, illustrating the paradox of the Alpha’s captain’s freedom: “On Wednesday, 20 New NEGROES of the

57 Ibid. 3–4. 58 Ibid. 4. 59 Savannah Advertiser, December 24, 1806.

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Angola Country, All sums under $300.”60 Although celebrated as an industrious, educated, religious and respected free African American, Paul Cuffe lived in a world built on bondage. As seen from the younger Cuffe’s account, Paul Cuffe’s ships, like the Ranger and the Alpha, brought him around the Atlantic world in trade runs that lasted six months to a year. These same ships provided him with a vehicle on which to rise out of the ambiguous legal status of blacks in Massachusetts, embracing a new level of freedom that could be attai ned by taking to the sea. As captain of the Ranger, his growing celebrity afforded him a level of protection not possible on land. Yet, the very celebrity that afforded Cuffe limited protections against impressment or arbitrary enslavement common amongst seamen of color during the Age of Sail also limited his ability to self-identify as Indian. Often emphasizing his Indian ancestry as young man, Cuffe’s Atlantic exploits transformed his public persona from this dual identity. He emerged as the prime example of a successful African in the Atlantic world. Key to the development of his African identity was Paul Cuffe’s involvement in the Society of Friends, where Quakers viewed him with respect and praise. With emigration – America’s first back-to-Africa movement – increasingly popular in Newport, Rhode Island during the 1780s, the idea quickly spread to other parts of southern New England.61 Many of Newport’s black residents moved to nearby Providence, Rhode Island and New Bedford, Massachusetts, fleeing an “acutely depressed” period for the city, bringing with them ideas about returning to the continent of ancestors.62 Moving in and out of these port cities, Cuffe was undoubtedly influenced by new emigration ideas. Banister’s Wharf and the Free African Union Society were in the same neighborhood, along with the role of the Friends in the Union Society and the black emigration movement of the 1780s and 1790s assured Paul Cuffe would be deeply involved in the African colonization movement. Although Cuffe does not seem to have been a member of any particular Friends meeting house for any lengthy duration, his Quaker affiliation harkened back to his teens and twenties when the Rotch family mentored his early business endeavors.63 Cuffe learned the core missionary

60 Ibid. 61 For more on this movement in Newport, Rhode Island, see Edward Andrews, “The Crossings of Occramar Marycoo, or Newport Gardner” in this volume; and Jeffrey A. Fortin, “Little Short of National Murder: Forced Migrations and the Making of Diasporas in the Atlantic World, 1745–1865.” University of New Hampshire, PhD Thesis, 2006. 62 Wiggins, Captain Paul Cuffe’s Logs and Letters, 1807–1817, 56. 63 Ibid. 57.

338 jeffrey a. fortin values of the Quakers and their efforts to fight slavery during these years.64 Eventually, business would call Paul Cuffe along the same routes as the ideas for colonization and emigration where he crossed paths with key supporters of African colonization. In his contact with emigrationists, Cuffe found his African identity take on new prominence. In a letter to Quaker friends, Cuffe expressed his desire to help liberate “my Brethren the afferican Race,” but he considered himself too “febel” at the time.65 Perhaps ill at the time, Cuffe had been working continuously to build his shipping business since his youth. Still, he looked to the heavens for guidance, “Blessed be to god I am what I am,” a successful businessman and, more recently, consumed more and more by Quaker ideals. “God,” he believed, “Lay upon me to make an Insterment [sic] of me for that Service.”66 By 1808, Cuffe was willing to take on the role as given by “providential hand” to fulfill his mission to see that “Africa’s inhabitants may be favo red with reformation.”67 Reformation meant several things to Paul Cuffe. Certainly, missionizing and converting Africans to Christianity held a high priority. Once this was accomplished, Cuffe suggested, Africans either participating in or enabling the continuation of the now illegal Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade would understand the moral depravity such conduct cau sed, reducing the trade then ultimately ending it.68 Finally, he believed Christianized Africans would be studious Africans. Through free labor virtue could be attained and freedom ensured. Cuffe’s views on how to better the position of persons of African descent in the Atlantic seem ide- alistic, but they arise from his Quaker leanings and numerous exchange of letters with colonization supporters.

64 For a deeper analysis of this period, see: Thomas, Rise to be a People, 14–18. Henry Smeathman’s Substance of Black Settlement to be Made Near Sierra Leone and other similar tracts passed through the hands of many Union Society members and Friends. It is likely Cuffe read or at least was aware of Smeathman’s and other colonization tracts.. See the correspondence of the Free African Union Society of Newport, in William H. Robinson, ed. The Proceedings of the Free African Union Society and The African Benevolent Society. (Providence: The Urban League of Rhode Island, 1976), 21–50. 65 Cuffe to James Pemberton, 14 September 1808, Paul Cuffe Family Papers, 1759–1817 New Bedford Free Library, Special Collections, New Bedford, Massachusetts. It is not clear what feebleness Cuffe refers to in this letter. Perhaps he was ill at the time, but it could also be that his business ventures had been tiresome and stressful, striking at his enthusiasm for abolitionist activities. 66 Ibid. 67 Paul Cuffe to James Pemberton, 14 September 1808, Paul Cuffe Family Papers, 1759–1817. 68 The Trans Atlantic Slave Trade had been outlawed, almost simultaneously, in England and the United States in 1807 with both laws taking effect in 1808.

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John James, a merchant from Philadelphia and well respected in Quaker circles, received a letter from Cuffe in June 1809, summarizing his strong belief in duty to help Africans. Reflecting on his own past, Cuffe wrote, “I am of the African race,” and “I feel myself interested for them.” “If I am favored with a talent” then “I am willing that they should be benefitted thereby.”69 Not since his petitions in 1780 had Cuffe so strongly claimed his African ancestry. Yet, it would be his actions in the next few years through which he boldly claimed himself as African, leaving behind a mustee identity in the draught of his Atlantic fleet.

Arriving in Africa an Atlantic African

Quaker leaders had long been searching for someone to represent their plan of African colonization. William Allen – a Londoner, social improve- ment advocate and perhaps the most widely known Quaker abolitionist in the Atlantic world – believed Cuffe to be the person most fit for the job. After meeting in 1811, Allen expressed his hope that, “The present opportunity for promoting the civilization of Africa through the means of Paul Cuffee, should not be lost.” Searching for the type of man Quakers, abolitionists and, perhaps most importantly, free blacks could rally behind, Cuffe “seems like a man made on purpose for the business.”70 Like Cuffe had answered the prayers of south coast islanders during the British blockade three decades earlier by resupplying them with food and other essen- tials, he now emerged as the beacon for a transatlantic movement to bring Africans home. In front of a large group of men gathered for a meeting at Arch Street in Philadelphia, Paul Cuffe recounted the moment his heart and mind decided to fight for his brethren. A Quaker, Cuffe took seriously William Allen and William Thornton’s calls for redemption for the African continent and its peoples, publicly lecturing about a vision he had circa 1810, shortly before his first voyage to Sierra Leone.71 “He said he was afraid to dignify what he had to say, by calling it a vision,” according to one observer,

69 Paul Cuffe to John James, 10 June 1809. Wiggins, Captain Paul Cuffe’s Logs and Letters, 80. 70 July 30, 1811. Life of William Allen, With Selections from his correspondence, Volume I, (London: Charles Gilpin, 1846), 139. 71 The “Religious Testimony” contained in the Paul Cuffe Papers has no date and is anonymous, but it took place in Philadelphia likely at the time Cuffe visited Philadelphia to drum up support for his emigration plans in 1810.

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“but it appeared to him something more than a dream.” This dream “occurred to him at a time when he was very low in his mind & much cast down & being very disconsolate, there appeared before him the form of a Man, enquiring what ail’d [sic] him.” Being unable to answer, “The Form told him, the disease was in his heart” and it “took a sharp instrument, separated his heart from his body & laid it before him.” Cuffe “was greatly terrified in viewing it” because it was “very unclean & contained all kinds of abomidable things.” With the gathering watching the Captain intently, Cuffe continued his oration. “The Form said he could never [be] heal’d till he submitted to have his heart cleansed.” Consenting to have it cleansed, the Form took “a sharp instrument & separated all that was vile. Then closed up the heart, replaced it & healed the wound.” With this gruesome story near conclusion, the observer noted, “Thus he said he felt himself a changed man & new creature & then recommended the young Men to that Physician who could heal them all their state was ever so deplorable.”72 Key to his emergence as a leader in the African colonization movement was Paul Cuffe embracing of his perceived duty to persons of African descent. On that stage in Philadelphia Paul Cuffe presented a conversion story of sorts, but not fully religious in origins. Already a Quaker, Cuffe was not in search of spiritual uplift, nor redemption: the Form’s healing of his heart was the final stage of Cuffe’s journey from Indian to African. Following his well developed Quaker beliefs, the venerated black sea captain was led by a yearning to return to the continent of his father’s birth to live with and enlighten his “brethren.” Cuffe wanted to show other Africans the light of Christianity. In late December 1810, Paul Cuffe sailed for Sierra Leone with a crew of eight blacks and one white apprentice seaman aboard the brig, Traveller. After a reasonably uneventful 58-day crossing in April 1811, Cuffe scanned Sierra Leone, unsure of what and who awaited him in Africa. He brought with him a mending heart. Cuffe’s stay lasted a few months, during which time he gained important insights about the colony and its inhabitants.73 In 1811, Paul Cuffe left Sierra Leone for London to trade the remaining goods he had aboard his brig. As he prepared to leave, Cuffe assured the men and women he met in

72 Testimony at a Religious Meeting in Philadelphia, circa 1810, Paul Cuffe Papers, 1759–1817. 73 For more details on his first and subsequent visits to Sierra Leone, see: Jeffrey A. Fortin, “Cuffe’s Black Atlantic World, 1808–1817,” Atlantic Studies, Vol. 4 Iss. 2 (December 2007), 245–266.

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Africa that he would return in an Address “To my scattered brethren and fellow countrymen at Sierra Leone.” This deeply religious testimony encapsulated his philosophy toward building a free black nation in Sierra Leone. “Come…let us walk together in the light of the Lord,” he wrote, because “in so doing you will find a living hope which will be as an anchor to the soul and a support under afflictions.”74 Cuffe’s goal to “civilize” Africa rested on making native Africans, Nova Scotians, and the Maroons into baptized, humble practicing Christians. Cuffe’s “brethren” consisted of a diverse black Atlantic community, with nearly 40% of Sierra Leone’s population decades removed from America.75 They were all “brethren,” linked as members of the “African race,” but not yet unified under Cuffe’s vision. The Traveller’s entrance into Liverpool’s harbor reinforced the paradox of freedom in the Atlantic world during the summer of 1811. Cuffe planned to meet with members of the African Institution – a prestigious group of abolitionists – in order to plan the most effective method of colonizing Sierra Leone with free African-Americans. At the moment Traveller docked, the pressgang arrived, hauling off two of Cuffe’s men. In addition, an African apprentice Cuffe had taken on board in Sierra Leone was also impressed. Cuffe seemed little surprised by the press-gang’s arrival, being able to immediately “get the two men first mentioned” out of their grasp because they possessed Seaman’s Protection Certificates.76 The Richards case bothered him. Lacking a certificate, Richards held little legal recourse and even Cuffe’s celebrity did little to prevent the press gangs’ advances on him. Yet, the crafty Cuffe played rough with the system, enlisting the aid of William Wilberforce and William Allen to tap their legal connections to have Richards returned to Cuffe.77

74 Paul Cuffe, A Brief Account of the Settlement and Present Situation of the Colony of Sierra Leone, in Africa. (New York: Samuel Wood, 1812), 8. 75 See Fortin, “Cuffe’s Black Atlantic World, 1808–1817,” 256–266. 76 It is likely the two unnamed crewmen immediately freed by the British held Seamen’s Protection Certificates issued by the United States. The law issuing these documents was first passed 28 May 1796, with renewals prior to Cuffe’s voyage as recent as 1809. “Extract from an act, for the relief and protection of American seamen,” in Early American Imprints, Evans #47979, American Antiquarian Society. As W. Jeffrey Bolster notes, Seamen’s Protection Certificates issued to blacks conferred citizenship – a temporary status meant only to protect the sailors from British press gangs. See, “‘To Feel Like A Man:’ Black Seamen in the Northern States, 1800–1860,” Journal of American History, Vol. 76, No. 4 (March 1990), 1175. For more on the political ramifications of impressments, see Bradford Perkins, Prologue to War: England and the United States, 1805–1812. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963). 77 “Remarks onboard the Brig Traveller,” 12–13 July 1811, in Wiggins, Captain Paul Cuffe’s Logs and Letters, 133.

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Perhaps most telling of Paul Cuffe’s continuous struggle in the complex web of freedom and slavery in the Atlantic world is the cargo he brought aboard not his brig Traveller, but another large vessel docked nearby. The Alpha, one of Cuffe’s own ships, began to off-load its cargo of 532 bales of cotton into the warehouses of Quaker merchant agents William and Richard Rathbone. Loaded in New Orleans, the cotton would not have been produced by free persons. The celebrated Cuffe, a symbol of success and freedom in America, complete with his new-found commitment to heal Africa through religion, free trade and free labor, built his shipping business on, at least in part, the transportation of slave-grown cotton.78 *** As he lay slowly dying from the miserable side effects of some form of poorly treated colitis, Paul Cuffe wrote his Last Will and Testament, referring to himself with one simple, yet perfectly chosen adjective: “Yeoman.”79 Succumbing to his illness in September 1817, Cuffe’s life was remembered by men and women in all corners of the Atlantic world, with obituaries and memorials filling the pages of newspapers in countless port cities around the littoral. He built a shipping business from scratch, becoming a celebrity for his hard work and courage, emerging as the most successful African American entrepreneur of his day. Later in life, Cuffe continued his yeomanry, spending his amassed wealth on philanthropy. Oft-credited with founding the back-to-Africa movement, Cuffe dedicated his final years, beginning in 1810, to resettling African Americans in Sierra Leone – a land he believed offered blacks the chance to build a free nation based on trade and farming. Cuffe traveled the east coast of the United States seeking support for his colonization plans, receiving vocal encouragement from prominent white men but failing to muster funds. In a memorial heard on the floor of Congress on 7 January 1814, Cuffe asked for financial support from the United States government for his colonization scheme.80 Because Cuffe’s finances had suffered tremendously from a previous voyage to Sierra Leone his fleet was down to a single ship, the Traveller. Cuffe sought aid from the United States government and the African Institution – a London-based collective also convinced that resettling African Americans in Sierra Leone would ensure

78 “Notes,” Wiggins, Captain Paul Cuffe’s Logs and Letters, 153. 79 Last Will and Testament of Paul Cuffe, reprinted in Wiggins, Captain Paul Cuffe’s Logs and Letters, 512. 80 “Memorial of Paul Cuffe,” Annals of Congress, 13th Cong., 2nd Sess., 861–862.

paul cuffe’s journey from ‘musta’ to atlantic-african 343

the colony’s survival – to fund further trips but neither gave him any financial backing. The memorial in congress built on Thomas Jefferson’s argument in favor of colonization schemes, appealing for “aid in the execution of a plan, which may…ultimately prove beneficial to his brethren of the African race within their native climate.”81 Calling for the civilizing of Africa and stopping the slave trade, Cuffe viewed the trip as a way “to keep up an intercourse with the free people of colour in the United States” who may “be sufficiently interested to visit Africa, and endeavor to promote habits of industry, sobriety, and frugality of the natives of that country.”82 He envisioned a Sierra Leone founded on the exchange of goods and ideas open to free persons of color in the Atlantic world that would also spread what he saw as fundamental American values of Christianity and yeomanry. Paul Cuffe failed in this his last and most important – in his mind – undertaking. By 1815, he had only mustered 38 souls to travel with him to Sierra Leone and with no financial support from governments or non- governmental organizations, he set sail, spending what remained of his fortune and nearly going broke while ferrying the few African Americans who would take the chance and resettle in the Sierra Leone. A number of factors played into Cuffe’s failure, including a lack of support from prominent African American leaders such as James Forten – whom he exchanged numerous letters with on this topic – and poor timing. At war with Great Britain, Americans understandably decided against using government funds to resettle blacks in a British colony. Within a year after his final voyage to Sierra Leone, Cuffe lay dying in his Westport, Massachusetts home. He never revealed a sense of failure in the numerous letters he penned during that miserable summer in hospice because his efforts were not in vain. In the year of his death, the American Colonization Society was founded in Washington, DC, staffed by prominent men such as Henry Clay and James Madison, to carry on the mission of resettling free blacks in West Africa, eventually resulting – after many missteps and vitriolic public discourse – in the founding of Liberia. In some ways, it may seem ironic that this mustee man, the son of a former African slave and Wampanoag Indian mother became the celebrated, if not actual, founder of America’s African colonization movement

81 Ibid. 861. 82 Ibid.

344 jeffrey a. fortin but it should not be seen that way. He was, like thousands of persons of color, a man of mixed racial heritage who found themselves defined by a public discourse and government policies that preached a racially bifurcated worldview. Yet, he – like thousands of other blacks in the Atlantic world – took hold of his identity, self-fashioning in a way that reflected their experiences in the littoral. Cuffe, after years of profiting in part from slave grown cotton, experienced a rebirth and dedicated his life and money to helping persons of African descent build a nation absent of slavery but satiated with opportunity. He died an Atlantic African, a man dedicated to freeing his brethren in all corners of the Atlantic from the shackles of slavery and the slave trade, providing them with an opportunity to build and govern a nation of their own.

CONCLUSION: ATLANTIC LIVES AND ATLANTIC HISTORY

Mark Meuwese

In his preface to this collection, Jeffrey Fortin argues that historians need to move away from a theoretical preoccupation of what Atlantic history is or is not and instead concentrate on how individuals actually defined “the parameters of this transnational littoral.”1 While I agree with Fortin, in this conclusion I would like to briefly examine in what ways the experiences of the individuals and groups described in the thirteen chapters are connected to the theoretical studies that have been recently written about Atlantic history. As Fortin indicates in the preface a surprisingly large amount of literature has been written about the strengths and weaknesses of Atlantic history. In what ways do the biographical approaches presented here illuminate and complicate the critical issues and themes that have been identified by the recently published anthologies advocating Atlantic history?2 Arguably one of the most frequently discussed themes in the theoretical literature on the Atlantic world is that of the circulation and con sumption of commodities. According to Nicholas Canny, the increasingly large-scale movement of manufactured goods and raw materials among Europe, Africa, and the Americas was a unique characteristic of the Atlantic world. While there was also considerable shipping between Europe and Asia, most of this long-distance trade was comparatively small in volume and also primarily benefited European elites. In contrast, Atlantic trade from the sixteenth century onwards was concerned with the mass-consumption of commodities, including sugar, tobacco, furs, wine, and chocolate.3 Many of the biographies presented here reveal the complex ways in which people were actively involved in or impacted by

1 Jeffrey Fortin, “Preface,” p. ix. 2 In my conclusion I draw on the following anthologies and theoretical studies: Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra and Erik R. Seeman, eds. The Atlantic in Global History, 1500–2000 (Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson – Prentice Hall, 2007); Jack P. Greene and Philip D. Morgan, eds. Atlantic History: A Critical Appraisal (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), and Nicholas Canny and Philip Morgan, eds. The Oxford Handbook of the Atlantic World, 1450–1850 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). 3 Nicholas Canny, “Atlantic History and Global History,” in Atlantic History, 325.

346 mark meuwese the rise of merchant capitalism that entrenched itself across the Atlantic after 1500. Before he ran into conflict with the Puritan settlers, the English merchant Thomas Morton tried to establish a fur trade enterprise in New England with the region’s indigenous peoples. Even the French Jesuit Pierre Biard in Laura Chmielewski’s contribution became involved as a labor organizer in the arduous task of building an economically viable colony in early seventeenth-century North America. For the European working poor, involvement in the Atlantic economies was fraught with dangers. This is clear in Emma Christopher’s biography of Patrick Madan, a poor Irishman who was sent as a convict laborer to a West African slave station as punishment for his criminal activities in eighteenth-century Britain. Although Madan would have preferred to be sent as a convict laborer to British North America, this became impossible after the outbreak of the American Revolution. Because of the deadly disease environment in Atlantic Africa, Madan’s exile to Gorée Island was his virtual death sentence. In a very different way the lives of indigenous Americans were also impacted by the mass-production of commodities and foodstuffs for the European market. As the tragic careers of Pieter Poty and Antonio Camarão reveal, Brazil’s indigenous peoples became caught up in the Portuguese-Dutch struggle for control of the sugar-producing areas of northeastern Brazil. Although Poty and Camarão were able to secure privileges for their people by aligning with a European power, their involvement in inter-European warfare ultimately cost them their lives.4 Equally significant, the lives of millions of Africans were dramati cally changed by the development of an Atlantic economy that heavily depended on forced labor. It is therefore fitting that this collection, in particular part II, recognizes the disproportionally large role played by peoples of African descent in the shaping of Atlantic trade and consumption. Africans worked in all sectors of the Atlantic economy, including in the maritime sector, and, as all the essays in this part demonstrate, the Atlantic economy would not have developed as it did without a constant supply of enslaved West African workers. At the same time, the lives of Benkos Biohó, Newport Gardiner, Venture Smith, Paul Cuffe, and the often name- less African pilots and Benguela slaves remind us of the great diversity of experiences among Africans and their New World descendents in the Atlantic economy. In this way the biographies of peoples of African

4 For a similar disastrous involvement of indigenous involvement in European rivalries, see Claudio Saunt, “‘Our Indians’: European Empires and the History of the Native American South,” in Atlantic in Global History, 61–75.

conclusion 347

descent greatly contribute to the study of the African diaspora in the Atlantic, another critical issue in Atlantic history. Like a recent collection of biographical studies on Atlantic Africans, the essays presented here put a human face on the African diaspora in the Atlantic. Particularly fascinating are the lives of Newport Gardiner and Paul Cuffe, two individuals of African descent from British North America who unsuccessfully attempted to establish a paternalistic colony of free blacks in West Africa.5 Like the well-known African diaspora in the Atlantic, this collection also makes connections to studies of other diasporas in the Atlantic world.6 In her contribution Christian Crouch examines the difficult adjust- ments experienced by a small group of French veterans in the wake of the French loss of Canada to Great Britain. While most scholarship has focused on the French settlers who remained in Canada after the surrender of New France in 1763, Crouch highlights the small but significant diaspora of French officers in the Atlantic and beyond in the Indian Ocean world. Following a difficult exile in France, two of the officers eventually returned to British-controlled North America. A third veteran was redeployed on a French expedition to Madagascar, with catastrophic results as the tropical East African island, like the West African coast for Patrick Madan, was a death-trap for Europeans. Other diasporas discussed in this collection include the often ignored Basque diaspora in Spanish Mexico personified by Francisco Xavier Gamboa. Associated with diasporas is the issue of identity-making. As Tamar Herzog recently reminded us, identities in the Atlantic world were not just based on fixed categories such as ‘European’, ‘Indians’, and ‘Africans’. On the contrary, people often identified themselves on the basis of family networks, diasporas, religious affiliation, social status, and their relationship to metropolitan authorities.7 One shared identity network revealed is that of ‘Atlantic intellectuals’ such as Alexander von Humboldt and Thomas Jefferson. As Sandra Rebok demonstrates, late eighteenth-century scientists and collectors living on both sides of the Atlantic built a communication network to circulate knowledge about their recent findings. Differ- ent ways of identity formation are suggested in part III. Although Poty and Camarão belonged to the same ethnic-tribal group of Potiguars, they

5 Beatriz G. Mamigonian and Karen Racine, eds., The Human Tradition in the Black Atlantic, 1500–2000 (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2010). 6 Thomas Bender, “Foreword,” in Atlantic in Global History, xx. 7 Tamar Herzog, “Identities and Processes of Identification in the Atlantic World,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Atlantic World, 480–495.

348 mark meuwese simultaneously strongly identified as respectively Protestant and Catholic. In an equally complex way, Paul Cuffe’s multiple identities included being a Wampanoag, an African-American, a Quaker, a whaling captain, and a colonizing agent. Yet another theme in Atlantic history in need of more attention concerns maritime aspects. While Atlantic history by its very name suggests an association with the large body of water located between the New World and the Old World, most studies ironically pass over the Atlantic Ocean, preferring to concentrate on historical developments on land. This is regrettable as oceanic travel was essential for the creation of the Atlantic world. Jack Greene and Philip Morgan recently also called on Atlantic historians to study not only maritime travel but also the interdependence between the land and the sea, “an amphibious history, as it were.”8 The need to study maritime aspects of the Atlantic is taken seriously in this collection. This is most apparent in Kevin Dawson’s discussion of maritime pilots of African descent in the green (coastal) waters of North America. Dawson demonstrates that the African seamen were indispensable for the piloting of vessels through the many challenging waterways found along the Atlantic shores of North America. Meanwhile, Chmielews ki’s contribution demonstrates that the maritime world also played a dramatic role in the life of the Jesuit father Pierre Biard. Chmielewski vividly illustrates the challenges associated with oceanic crossings in the early seventeenth century, which varied from the financing of voyages to the difficult living conditions aboard vessels. Likewise, in Albi’s study of the Mexican jurist Gamboa, oceanic crossings are revealed to have been expensive enterprises even for members of the colonial elites. Through the biographical studies of the African pilots, the Jesuit Biard and the lawyer Gamboa it is evident that maritime travel profoundly shaped the lives of many people in the Atlantic world. This collection also corresponds with recent observations in Atlantic literature to pay closer attention to chronological stages in the development of the Atlantic world.9 The contributions by Chmielewski, Car rington, Meuwese, and Ali strongly suggest that during the late sixteenth

8 Greene and Morgan, “The Present State of Atlantic History,” in Atlantic History, 12 (quotation); see also W. Jeffrey Bolster, “Putting the Ocean in Atlantic History: Maritime Communities and Marine Ecology in the Northwest Atlantic, 1500–1800,” American Historical Review 113 (February 2008), 19–47. 9 Greene and Morgan, “Present State of Atlantic History,” 18–20. See also the chronological division of the Atlantic world used in The Oxford Handbook of the Atlantic World, vii-x (‘consolidation’ and ‘integration’).

conclusion 349

and early seventeenth century many parts of the Atlantic were a ‘march- land’, a bitterly contested frontier zone in which the outcome of European colonial projects was not at all apparent. In the essays on the Anglican Thomas Morton in Puritan New England and the Jesuit Pierre Biard in Atlantic Canada it becomes also evident that religious conflicts often played an influential role in the shaping of European colonies in the Atlantic. A second stage in the development of the Atlantic world is sometimes referred to as the stage of ‘consolidation’ and ‘integration.’ During this period, from the late seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth century, communication, travel, and trade in the Atlantic world became more regular and intense. This process of economic and social maturation is personified well through the creole Basque Mexican jurist Francisco Gamboa who climbed socially to the prestigious post of chief justice of the Audiencia of Mexico. The third and final stage in Atlantic history, from the 1770s to the mid-nineteenth century, saw the reconfiguration of European empires, the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade, the emancipation of peoples of African descent, and the independence of European settler societies in the Americas. This dramatic period is strongly represented here through the lives of the French Marine veterans, Francisco Gamboa, Alexander von Humboldt, Newport Gardiner, Venture Smith, Paul Cuffe, Patrick Madan, the green water pilots, and the many anonymous Benguela captives. The biographical studies of Von Humboldt by Rebok and of Gamboa by Albi suggest how ideas on geology, mining, and law circulated among the colonial elites throughout the Atlantic. Interestingly, Von Humboldt and Gamboa, despite their different social backgrounds, both admired and defended the creole settler societies and institutions in the Americas against heavy-handed reforms initiated in European capitals. In a parallel way, ideas on freedom and emancipation circulated widely among the peoples of African descent in the Atlantic. As mentioned earlier, Gardiner and Cuffe both worked, albeit unsuccessfully, towards the ideal of returning black people from the Americas to West Africa. Venture Smith, meanwhile, a West African slave who was able to purchase his freedom in British North America, was influenced by the rise of an Atlantic print economy to publish his autobiography, which presented him as a self-made man not unlike Smith’s contemporary Benjamin Franklin. Finally, largely absent from this collection are women. While women do make an appearance in many of the contributions, there are no biographies of women. Female slaves are discussed in the essay by Mariana Candido but the nature of her primary sources makes it difficult to provide

350 mark meuwese many personal details. At the same time, some of the biographical essays do make it possible to shed light on the position of women and on the power relations between men and women in the Atlantic world. Interestingly, Antoinette Ponse, the marquise de Guecherville, a powerful woman, played an influential role as the financial backer for Pierre Biard’s plan to establish a Jesuit mission in coastal Maine. As Chmielewski shows, investing in male-dominated colonial ventures was one of the few ways for elite women in early modern Europe to participate in overseas expansion. In a very different context, some of the essays reveal the frequent struggles within families and households in the Atlantic world. In Omar Ali’s biography of Benkos Biohó, the early seventeenth-century African maroon leader in New Granada, the teenage daughter of Biohó was punished for maintaining a romantic relationship with the son of a local Spanish slave-holder because it threatened the security of the maroon community. Similarly, tensions often surfaced in the households of European families participating in the Atlantic world. According to Charlotte Carrington, Thomas Morton decided to leave for New England in the wake of an acrimonious legal dispute with one of his stepsons in England. Both Carrington and Omar Ali remind us that household issues and domestic disputes played an influential role in the lives of many people living in the Atlantic world.10 As this brief conclusion suggests, the biographical studies of this collection clearly intersect with many of the critical issues recently identified within the field of Atlantic history. The many individual lives presented here put human faces on what are often characterized as impersonal processes such as slavery, cultural intermingling, diasporas, identity-formation, and trade networks. While this compilation of Atlantic lives is by no means intended to be comprehensive, all the biographies indicate that the Atlantic was a transnational space which bound peoples of various social and cultural backgrounds together. Whether they liked it or not, people living in the Atlantic world were forced or willing to travel widely and adapt to different ecological and cultural environments. Seen from our perspective as twenty-first century citizens shaped by the forces of global- ization, the Atlantic lives of an earlier era are surprisingly close to our own. Understanding the challenges faced by individuals several centuries ago in the Atlantic world may help us better comprehend those of our own time.

10 Carole Shammas, “Household Formation, Lineage, and Gender Relations in the Early Modern Atlantic World,” in The Oxford Handbook of Atlantic History, 362–381.

INDEX

Africa (See Specific Regions) Class 88, 173, 185, 266 African American (See Negroes) xiii, 123, Middle-Class 191, 250n 127, 129, 188, 325–326, 328, 337, 341–343, Coramantee 272n 348 Crime xii, 25, 66, 95, 134, 170, 174–175, African Colonization xiii, 114, 116, 119, 122, 177–178, 181, 183, 189, 198, 203, 228, 244, 327, 337–340, 343 247–249 American Colonization Society 119, 122, Cuba 75–77, 83–85, 163, 202 343 Havanna 75 African Benevolent Society 111, 112n, 114 Book, The Island of Cuba by Alexander African Union Society 112, 115–116, 337, von Humboldt 94 338n Cuffe, John 330n, Akan 102, 160, 272n, Cuffe, Paul xiii, 116, 116n, 119, 123, 323–344, America (See Specific Regions) 349 American Indian (See Natives, Indigenous Peoples) 12, 31, 39, 44–46, 52–56, 60–61, Darrell, James “Jemmy” 161–162, 164 66–67, 314, 325 Deep Nine (ship) 166 American Revolution 135, 137, 159, 161, 167, Diaspora ix, 293n, 337n, 347 297n, 320, 323–324, 329–330, 346 African 209, 332, 347 Andes 75, 76, 96 Basque 347 Angola 194, 196, 276, 280, 291, 332 Atlantic (See Specific Regions) Ecuador 76, 275, 288n Ocean 3, 17, 27, 29, 148, 178, 348 England 10, 24, 47–49, 59–64, 140n, 166, 319, 327 Barcelona 69, 251, 258 Equiano, Olaudah xi, 103, 123, 130, 193, Nueva 75 270n, 333 Basque xiii, 5, 235–241, 243, 249, 251, 253, Europe (See Specific Regions) 260–261, 347, 349 Biard, Pierre x, 3–29, 348–350 Franklin, Benjamin xi, 127, 134, 139–140, Biohó, Benkos xiii, 263–294, 346–350 141n, 179, 312n, 349 Bogotá 75, 265 Freedom xi–xiv, 27–28, 41–42, 88–89, 94, Bolster, W. Jeffrey vii, 146, 171–172, 327n, 99, 101–102, 109–110, 114–115, 122–124, 129, 332n, 341n, 136–137, 151–155, 160, 162, 168, 168n, 170n, Boston 52, 101, 119, 120–123, 329 314n, 328–329, 331–332, 342, 347 Brazil xii–xiii, 195, 198–202, 206–207, 213n, French 3, 6–29, 71–72, 79–80, 84–86, 89, 91, 213–219, 222–228, 230–233, 346 159, 161, 164, 169, 246, 258, 295, 296–299n, 298–300, 304–322, 347 Calvinism 9, 12, 106n French Revolution 84, 88–89, 140n, 161, Camarão, Dom Antônio Filipe 213–219, 301n, 221–225, 227–233, 346–347 Fulani 283–284 Canada xiv, 9–10, 14, 29–30, 161, 295–296, 298n, 299–305, 307, 308–309, 311–312, Gamboa, Francisco Xavier xiii, 235–262, 316, 319–320, 322, 347, 349 347–349 Cartagena 75, 263–265, 274–278, 280–289, Gardner, Newport xi, 101–124 290, 294 (see also) Marycoo, Occramar xi, Catholic x, 4–10, 12, 16–19, 21–22, 101–123, 337n 24–26, 28–29, 203, 213, 218–219, 237, Gender vii, 10, 21, 157 251, 299 Geography 74, 80–82, 84, 146 Charleston 155, 157–158, 167–170, 327 Ocean 143

352 index

Guadalupe 166–267 Liverpool 341 School for Girls 253 London xii, 34, 38, 46, 52n, 58, 153, 160, Virgin of 239 175–178, 180, 183–188, 190–191, 333, Guinea (Upper) 129, 263, 265–269, 339–340, 342 271–272, 276–280 Long Island 134–135, 148 Money 181–182 Louisiana 77, 147

Haiti 166–167, 287–288 Madan, Patrick xii, 173–191, 346–347, 349 Revolution 87, 159, 163, 327 Madrid 60, 72–73, 235, 238–244, 246, Harry 166, 168 249–250, 252, 256, 258–261 Hell Gate 148, 149n, 165n, 170, 170n Maine x, 14–15, 13, 23–24, 45, 56, 64, 66 Hopkins, Samuel 106–107, 109, 114, 116, Marine 296–309, 317–321 117n–118n, 119, 123 Maroon xiii, 263–264, 276–289, 291, 341, von Humboldt, Alexander xi, 69–97, 347, 350 349 Martinique 152, 170, 190, 300, 315 Maryland 6, 53, 178–181 Indigenous Peoples (also, American Merchant xii–xiii, 4, 9, 14, 39, 43, 51n, 64n, Indians) xii, 18–21, 24, 29, 44–46, 102–103, 134, 144, 152, 154–155, 158–159, 52–60, 66–67, 214–216, 221–222, 226, 235, 238–240, 243–244, 251, 153–256, 316, 346 259–260, 266274, 302n, 328, 330, 330, Ireland 174, 179, 185–186, 190 335n, 339, 342, 346, Iroquois 302–304, 313n, 316, 318 Mercury 76, 168, 243, 259 Islam 284, 330 Mexico xiii–xiv, 76, 96, 235–241, 244–262, Islands 7, 86, 154, 179 347, 349 Antigua 154, 170, 178 Mexico City 76–77, 238–242, 244–249, 255, Azores 15, 27 258–259 Bermuda 143, 157, 161–163, 165, 170 Middle Passage 130, 194, 270, 272 Bijago 267, 269, 273 Missionaries x, 8, 12, 17, 23, 50 Canary 46, 74 Africa 114, 114n, 118, 337 Elizabeth 328 Jesuit 217, 221, 269 Gorée xii, 188–190, 300, 346 “system” 85 Maine x Mixed-Race 234, 327 Martha’s Vineyard 330, Mulatto(es) 222, 227 Nantucket 326, 330, 334 Mustee 325, 330n, 331–332, 339 St. Kitts 178 Montreal 309, 313n, 320 Morton, Thomas x, 31–67, 346, 349–350 Jamaica 102n, 143, 153, 156, 166–167, 172, Music 48, 102, 104–105, 107–109, 111, 120, 177178–179, 288n 123–124, 184, 290, 292 Slaves 165 Muslim 197, 238, 264n, 273, 284n, 284 Jefferson, Thomas xi, 77, 78n, 83, 88, 92, 334n, 347 Nadal, Jeronimo 6 Jeremiah, Thomas 155, 157–160, 168n, 170n Nantes, Edict of 9 Jesuit 3–10, 12–20, 22–29, 64, 217–219, Nantucket 326, 330, 334 221–222, 237, 249–250, 261, 269, 348 Narragansett Bay 103 Jewish (peoples) 71, 103, 120, 238, 251 Native Americans 7, 14, 40, 43, 45, 47, 48, 50, 52–58, 60, 66, 128, 322, 326 (see also Liberia 101, 121, 343 Indigenous Peoples, American Indians, Liberty 39, 41, 58, 66, 89, 92, 94, 105, Native Peoples) 109–110, 144–145, 159–160, 163, 168, 183, Native peoples (see also Indigenous 199, 207n, 245, 262, 279, 293, 304, 314n, Peoples, Indians, American Indians, 324, 328–331 Native Americans) 3, 14, 18, 19, 322 Lima (Peru) 76, 79, 238, 275n, 275 Natives 44, 56, 343 Littoral (Atlantic) xii–xi, 7, 11, 211, 342, Natural sciences 4 344–345 Natural history 42, 71

index 353

Nbena (Angolan slave) 205–207 Paraíba 217, 218, 219, 220, 226, 227, 232 Negro River (Brazil) 75 Paraupaba, Antonio 220, 226, 230–232 Negro (negroes, negros) (see also Paris 5, 11, 13, 69, 72, 73, 79, 89, 301, 304, 314, African-Americans) 86, 95, 105, 133, 149, 315, 335 154, 155, 160, 168, 179, 199, 272, 278, 287, Patronage xiii, 77, 242 (footnote 27), 257, 290, 324, 325, 328 299, 307, 310 New England x, 8, 23, 24, 31–68, 122, 152, Peale, Charles Willson 79 156, 323, 324, 326, 332, 337, 346, 349, 350 Penobscots (Indian nation) 24 New France xiii, 11, 12, 16, 18, 22, 295–322, Pereira, Manoel Cerveira 195 347 Pernambuco 194, 217–223, 227, 228, 232 New Granada 85, 288, 355 Peru 75, 85, 242, 254, 259, 275, 276 New London (Conn.) 125, 134, 140 Pétion, Alexander 166, 287, New Orleans 342 Philadelphia 76, 79, 116, 119, 123, 153, 324, New Spain 76–78, 85, 238, 242, 244–254, 334, 336, 339, 340 260 Philip IV, King of Spain 221, 222 New York 95 (newspapers) 131, 148, 163 Philosophy 4, 5, 88, 237 Newfoundland 333, 334 Piety (Pious) 4, 10, 12, 16, 25, 43, 67, 113, 122 Newgate (UK) 175, 177, 180, 182, 183 Pilgrims (New England) 31, 36, 43, 45, 51, Newport (Rhode Island) xi, 101–124, 335, 56–59, 66, 67 337 Pilots xi, xii, 143–172, 346, 348, 349 Newport Mercury (newspaper) 113, 121 white views of black pilots 149–151 Newspapers 101, 128, 143, 261, 308, 327 minstrel acts 164 Niles, Elisha 125, 126, 127, 136, 137, 139 rights of 162 Norfolk (Virginia) 160 white pilots 149, 153 North Carolina 154, 159, 161 compared to land slaves 154 Nova Scotia 6, 114, 161, 161, 341 at ports 156–157 Pirates 3, 8, 15, 25, 27, 147, 219, 333 Ocean (oceanic crossings) viii, x, xii–xiv, 3, Plantation (Colony) 31, 32, 40, 44, 58, 62 5, 9, 11, 13, 17, 22, 27, 29, 31, 68, 76, 92 129, Plantation (Enslaved Labor) 143, 144, 145, 143, 145–147, 170, 173, 231, 316, 317, 327, 158, 160, 161, 170, 178, 258, 275, 281, 284, 347, 348 290 Oidores (Spanish) 252, 253 Plymouth Colony 39, 44, 45, 48, 51, 57, 58, Ojibwas (Indian nation) 302 63, 65, 67 Old Bailey 176, 183, 191 Pondicherry 300 Oldham, John 58 Popham, Sir John 24 Olinda 220, 221 Ports (Port Towns) 104, 144, 154, 155, 156, Olivella, Manuel Zapata 292 161, 167, 193, 194, 195, 208, 254, 326, 327, Olsen, Margaret 283 328, 334, 335 Order of Christ (Port.) 222 Port Royal (Nova Scotia) 14, 15, 18, 27, 28 Orinoco River 74, 75 Port Royal (Jamaica) 153, 166 Osborn, Sarah 105, 106, 117, 123 Portugal 194, 197, 214, 231, 273, 275 Ottawas (Indian nation) 302 Potiguars (Indian nation) xii, 213–234, 347 Outlaw 15, 25, 174, 331 name 217 Poty, Pieter xii, xiii, 213–234, 346 Palenque (maroon settlement) 263–294 early life 217–219 Building of 280 letter exchange 213–214, 228–230 Defined 268 tensions with Dutch 225–226 Gender relations 281 appointed regidor 227 Popular memory of 264–265, 287–293 death of 231 Palenque de San Basilio xiii, 285–293 Powhatans (Indian nation) 20, 39 palenquero (language) 290–291, 293 Priest (Priesthood) x, 3, 10–29, 93, 198, 199, Pambelé, Kid 293 203, 222, 258, 261, 289, 290 Panama Canal 78, 290 Print Culture 129 Paper Currency 137, 138, 142, 309 Privateers 116, 161, 275

354 index

Prostitutes 156, 176 Sandoval, Alonso de 283, 284 Protestantism 7–10, 16, 19, 21, 28 Santo Domingo 236, 252, 257, 258, 259, 261 Providence (Rhode Island) 110, 114, 116, 121 Saunt, Claudio 215, 216 Prussia xi, 69, 70, 71, 73, 77, 80, 81, 84, 90, Schoppe, Sigismund von 224 95, 96 Scott, Julius 145, 156 Puebla (Mexico) 247, 248 Selden, Henry M. 142 Puritans 28, 31, 36, 40, 44, 46, 48, 51, 54 Senecas (Indian nation) 302, 304, 316 (footnote 95), 61–67 Senegambia 146, 188, 272, 276, 280, 284 Seven Years War xiii, 236, 297, 298, 305, 311, Quakers 67, 103, 110, 337–339 315, 319 Quamine, Charles 107, 114 Sex (Sexuality) 50, 56, 184 Quebec City 301(footnote 13), 305, 307, 310, Shakespeare, William 35 318, 322 Shawnees (Indian nation) 302 Quincy (Mass.) 31 Shipmasters 148, 149, 150, 152, 153, 158, 159, Quitéria (Angolan free black) 207, 209 163, 164, 165, 167, 172 Quito 75, 76, 97 Shipwrecks 143, 148, 150, 157, 190 Sierra Leone xiv, 114, 160, 324, 325, 339, 340, Raleigh, Sir Walter 34 341, 342, 343 Rastall, Humphrey 39, 40 Sillery 29 Ratcliffe, Philip 61, 62 Silver mines/mining 75, 235, 236, 239, 240, Raynal, Abbé Guillaume-Thomas 95 242, 246, 276 Real del Monte 76, 245, 247, 251, 261 Simón, Pedro Fray 265, 278, 279, 280, 285, Recife 220, 221, 222, 223, 225, 226, 227, 230, 286, 287 231 Slave Names 104 Rediker, Marcus vii, viii, 25, 147, 271 Slave Narratives 193, 194 (footnote 26), 272 Slave Rebellions 105, 144, 163, 167, 168, 259, Reformation 6, 16, 28 263, 293 Rensselaer, Kiliaen van 220 Slave Ships xii, 147, 184, 188, 203, 208, 266, Ribeiro, Joaquim Pires 203 271, 272, 276 Rio de Janeiro 193, 194 Slave Suicide 274 Rio de la Plata 254 Slave Trade vii, xii, 102, 103, 123, 173, 184, Rio Grande do Norte (Brazil) 217, 218, 219, 188, 265–267, 273, 325, 328, 338, 343, 344, 221, 222 349 Robertson, William 95 Portuguese Angola 193–210 Rochelle, La 9 Wars and 196, 197, 208, 284 Rogers, Robert 296, 307 Slavery x, xii, xiv, 350 Roman Law 237 Colombia abolition of 288 Royal Navy 161, 162, 267 Massachusetts abolition of 331 Royalists, English 31, 47, 49, 64, 67 Black Muslim Slavery 284 Rush, Benjamin 79 Portuguese Angola 193–209 Russia 80, 81, 83, 95 Thomas Morton and 40–41 Alexander von Humboldt on 93–95 Saco River 18 Maritime slavery 143–172 Sailors x, 22, 24, 110, 130, 144, 147, 148, 149, Slaves moving to Nova Scotia 114 150–154, 156, 165, 166, 171, 172, 184, 190, Occramar Marycoo as slave 102–110 203, 269, 341 (footnote 76) Quakers in Rhode Island and 110 Saint Domingue 202, 258, 259, 287, 306, Slavery in Upper Guinea 272, 274 313, 318 Venture Smith as slave 129–142 Saint Petersburg 80 Virginia 40 Sala de Crimen 244, 247, 248 Smallpox 226 Salt 16, 21, 80, 115, 132, 330 Smith, Adam 138, 243 Sampson 168–170, 168n, 170n Smith, John 23, 53 (footnote 91) San Basilio xiii, 281n, 285, 288–293 Smith, Venture xi, 125–142, 349

index 355

capture of 130 Tupac Amaru 254 sons of 133 Tupi Language 213, 218, 219, 228, 229 adoption of last name 132 Tyburn (UK) 176 Sobas 196, 200, 201 Typhus 175 Society of Jesus (see Jesuits) 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 Soldiers 5, 61, Umbundu (language) 203 British 162, 186, 187, 190, United Nations 290 Angola colony 196, 203, 204, 206 United States 69, 88, 89, 93, 94, 97, 108, Dutch Brazil 221, 227, 228, 229, 230. 231 129, 135, 137, 157, 202, 325, 333, 342, 343 New Spain 245 Upper Guinea 265, 267, 269, 272, 280 New Granada 278, 279, 285, 287, 295 New France 299, 302 (footnote 15), 316, Valladolid 251 317, 320, 321 Vassals 197, 199, 208, 219, 249 Sons of Liberty 329 Venezuela 74, 264, 275 Souriquois (Mi’kmaq) (Indian nation) 29 Veracruz 76, 247, 254, 264 South Carolina 8, 155, 169, 178, 179 Vickers, Daniel 146 Spain xiv, 5, 72, 74, 87, 235, 236, 238 Violence xii, 104, 131, 152, 158, 170, 171, 175, Sparks, Randy 194 186, 193, 194, 202, 204, 205, 208, 209, 245, Spitalfield Weavers Riot xii, 174 274, 312, 314 Standish, Myles 57 Virginia 15, 24–27, 39–41, 137, 154, 160, States-General 219, 231, 232 177–179, 181, 134 Stiles, Ezra 106, 116 Virgin Mary 21 Sugar 179, 215, 218, 219, 220, 223, 225, 227, Virgin of Guadalupe 239 232, 233, 258, 284, 290, 345, 346 Van Zandt, Cynthia 58 Sweden 336 Vaughan, Alden T. 44 Sweet, James 194 Wabanakis (Indian nation) 18, 23 Tapuyas (Indian nation) 222 Wales 15 Teles da Silva, Antonio 227 Wall, Joseph 189, 190 Tegel (Germany) 70 Wampanoags (Indian nation) 323, 327, Tenerife 74, 87, 281 343, 348 Terreros, Pedro Romero 245 Warner, Michael 128, 140 Thet, Gabriel du 14, 15 War of Austrian Succession 297 Thornton, John 282 Warships 148, 161, 169, 240 (footnote 19) Thornton, William 77, 79, 116, Washington, George 139 117n, 339 Werner, Abraham Gottlob 71 Tobajaras (Indian nation) 221 West Africa 101, 102, 108, 114, 129, 130, 173, Tolerance 3, 28 184, 185, 186, 188, 191, 194, 215, 263, 265, Tolú (New Granada) 279, 281, 292 266, 270, 272, 284, 291, 325, 343, 346–349 Treaty of Paris (1763) 315 West Country (UK) 42, 46, 52 Trois Rivieres 311 West India Company (WIC) xii, xiii, 213, Touraine (France) 296, 301, 307, 309–316 219–232 Travel (Traveling) viii, xi, xii, xiv, 178, 195, West Indies 156, 191 205, 274, 279, 297, 310, 348, 349, 350 Westport (Mass.) 323, 324, 332, 334, 335, Pierre Biard and 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 336, 343 15, 18, 22, 23, 26, Weymouth, George 24 Alexander von Humboldt and 69, 71, 72, Whales (Whaling) xii, 5, 133, 325, 326, 328, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 79, 80, 81, 83, 85, 87, 333, 334, 348 88, 91, 95, 97 Wheatley, Phillis 123 Slave pilots and 165 Whitechapel 177 Pieter Poty and 220, 232, Wilberforce, William 341 Francisco Gamboa and 251, 257 Williams, Roger 55 Paul Cuffe and 325, 333, 336 Winslow, Edward 59, 62, 64

356 index

Winthrop, John 36, 46, 47, 59, 62 (footnote 266, 272, 276, 279, 280, 289, 294, 313, 340, 139), 64, 65 342, 349, 350 Wolof 283, 284, 285 Wollaston, Captain 34, 38–41 Yale College (University) 106, 143, Women ix, xiv, 3, 8, 10, 11, 16, 17, 21, Yellow Fever 101 39, 56, 104, 107, 142, 146, 152, 156, 164, 189, 202, 224, 228, 263, 265, Zuma, Ganga (of Palmares) 264