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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 May 2014
In 1929 the American Antiquarian Society published an eighty-three-page manuscript that describes commercial transactions for slaves, ivory, and gold on the Gold and Slave Coasts from 1789 to 1792. George Plimpton owned this manuscript. As it includes a slave-trading ledger of the schooner Swallow, Plimpton entitled the manuscript “The Journal of an African Slaver.” The “journal” is one of the few published documents in the English language that specifies financial transactions for slaves between European and African traders on the coast of Africa during the late eighteenth century.
In his four-page introduction to the journal Plimpton stated that:
The name of the ship engaged in the traffic was the schooner ‘Swallow,’ Capt. John Johnston, 1790-1792. There is a reference to a previous voyage when ‘Captain Peacock had her,’ also some abstracts of accounts kept by Capt. David McEleheran in 1789 of trade in gold, slaves and ivory on the Gold Coast. None of these names can be identified as to locality, and there is, of course, the possibility, especially taking into consideration the English nature of the cargo bartered, that the vessel was an English slaver.
The journal was included with some mid-nineteenth century South Carolina plantation accounts when it was purchased at an auction in New York, thus suggesting to Plimpton that the journal's author was perhaps a “South Carolinian who made this trip to Africa.”
In this research note I will identify the various vessels and traders mentioned in this manuscript by referring to the data-set I have assembled from other sources concerning the slave trade during this period. We will seethat Plimpton's “journal” is a set of account books owned by the Gold Coast agents of London and Havre merchant William Collow. I then will discuss the importance of Collow as a merchant and shipowner in the late eighteenth-century British slave trade.
I am grateful to David Eltis, David Richardson, and Charlotte Wells for comments on earlier versions of this paper.
1. “The Journal of an African Slaver, 1789-1792, with an Introductory Note by George A. Plimpton,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 39 (1929), 379–465.Google Scholar The Journal's accounts of the slave trade at “Quashies Town,” Anomabu, Kormantin, “Padeora,” and Popo are reprinted in Donnan, Elizabeth, ed., Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America (4 vols.: Washington, 1931–1935), 2:612–15.Google Scholar
2. Historians have examined these Gold Coast documents to assess the commercial history of precolonial Africa. Newbury, C. W., The Western Slave Coast and its Rulers (Oxford, 1961), 28Google Scholar; Peukert, Werner, Der Atlantische Sklavenhandel von Dahomey, 1740-1797 (Wiesbaden, 1978), 121–51.Google Scholar
3. “Journal of an African Slaver,” 379-80. Plimpton's introduction then identified the names of thirteen coastal African towns and settlements mentioned in the journal, from Cape Three Points (southwest coast of Ghana) eastward to Gabon. He discussed the variety of goods mentioned in the journal that were bartered for slaves: tobacco, rum, firearms, manufactures, iron bars, cowrie shells, and a variety of eighteenth-century textiles (380-82). He ended his introduction with an analysis of the terms of trade between European and African merchants, noting that when African and European traders bartered for slaves, values were measured in “ounces” and “ackeys” of gold. From data in the journal Plimpton calculated that the price of Gold Coast slaves averaged ten ounces of gold for men, eight ounces for women, seven ounces for boys, and five ounces of gold for girls. Farther east at Whydah slave prices were about 10% higher. Plimpton also calculated that at Whydah ivory prices were two ounces of gold for tusks (32-50 pounds weight) and smaller amounts of gold for the six-pound scrivellos (382).
4. For information on this data-set of British slave voyages see Behrendt, Stephen D., “The British Slave Trade, 1785-1807: Volume, Profitability, and Mortality” (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1993), Appendix A.Google Scholar
5. It is thus more accurate to refer to Plimpton's “journal” as account books. When Donnan reprinted extracts from the “journal” in 1931, she noted that the document was in fact a series of account books which contained, “in addition to the accounts of 1792, records of earlier trading on the West Coast, perhaps copied into this book for the sake of comparison” (Donnan, , Documents, 2:612n1Google Scholar). Fage also noted that Plimpton's title is misleading: “This is not a diary (as it is described in Plimpton's Introduction) but the accounts, reproduced in facsimile, of slaves bought and sold and of the trade goods given in exchange in one or more voyages to the Gold and Slave Coasts.” Fage, J. D., A Guide to Original Sources for Precolonial Western Africa Published in European Languages (Madison, 1987), 90.Google Scholar
6. House of Lords Record Office (hereafter HLRO), Main Papers, 24 March 1794, pp. 2-5.
7. Lloyd's Registers, 1789-91; Public Record Office (hereafter PRO), BT 107/8, f. 232; PRO, T70/1562; Lloyd's Lists, 8 January 1790,16 July 1790,7 December 1790. Collow probably organized the Gold Coast cargo for the 1790 voyage of the brig Talbot. In 1791 Collow purchased the Talbot; on 17 October he re-registered it in London; and on 29 October he sent it on a slave voyage to the Gold Coast (Anomabu) and St. Vincent. Captain Peacock—mentioned by Plimpton as the former captain of the Swallow—commanded Collow's schooner Gely (79 tons) that sailed from London to Whydah in 1792 and arrived later in the British West Indies with 129 slaves. Lloyd's Register, 1793; British Parliamentary Papers (hereafter PP) 1795-96 (849), XLII, p. 5.
8. The Francis & Harriot, a ship built at Stockton in England in 1790 of 321 tons, sailed from London to Africa on 7 March 1791, arriving at Cape Coast Castle on 15 June. This ship, which was owned by seven executors of the estate of Bristol trader John Langley, sailed from Anomabu with 339 slaves and arrived at Grenada in September 1792 with 266 slaves: Lloyd's Registers of Shipping, 1791-92; Lloyd's Lists, 8 March 1791, 19 October 1792; PRO, T70/1564, pt. 1; PP 1792 (768), XXXV, p. 11; PP 1795-96 (849), XLII, p. 4. A letter from Collow's agent Thomas Eagles to John Gordon, Governor-in-Chief of Cape Coast Castle, stated that Collow had strictly forbidden Eagles from shipping any “Gaboon slaves or Bite slaves” on board the Frances & Harriot (PRO, T70/1560, letter dated ship Frances & Harriot, Anomabu, 9 December 1791).
9. HLRO, Main Papers, House of Lords, 24 March 1794, p. 3.
10. Lloyd's List, 26 March 1793. After commanding the Eagle again on London-Gold Coast slave voyages in July 1793 and March 1794, McElheran moved to the Liverpool slave trade and commanded the brig Grace (129 tons) that sailed on slave voyages to the Gold Coast in September 1797 and September 1798 (PRO, BT 98/58, No. 175, BT 98/60, No. 247, Liverpool muster rolls 1798,1800).
11. When the sloop Fly and schooner Swallow arrived at Cape Coast Castle in January 1791, they were consigned to Captain Eagles (PRO, T70/1563, T70/1564, pt. 1). Collow certainly had other agents who worked for him on the Gold Coast from 1787 to 1795. For example, in 1797 Captain John Clark is mentioned as “late Agent for William Collow Esquire of London” (PRO, T70/1574). Clark commanded the ship Frances & Harriot from London to Cape Coast Castle in 1791 and then remained on the Coast when Captain John Gordon sailed this vessel to Grenada (see note 8 above).
12. Lloyd's Registers, 1770-87; PRO, BT 98/45, No. 203, Liverpool muster roll 1785.
13. On 14 July 1789 Eagles arrived at Cape Coast Castle on board the ship Andalusia, commanded by Captain Campbell. A fort at Agah was at that time managed by Adam Bannerman, agent to the London slaving firm of Miles and Weuves, until Bannerman's death at Agah on 7 August 1789 (Lloyd's List, 7 April 1789; PRO, T70/1559). Perhaps Eagles and Collow acquired rights to the fort soon after that date.
14. British Museum, Add MS 38350, ff. 326-28, 347; PRO, T70/1563-66. Governor Miles first burned the African towns near the Anomabu fort and then pursued several groups of Africans to Agah, which he also ordered to be attacked. Miles'action led to his suspension from the African Company's service. On 18 October 1791 Collow wrote the African Committee regarding this incident: “I presume you are not unacquainted with the very considerable loss I sustained in April last by the destruction of my property under the care of my Agent Captn Thomas Eagles at Agah on the Gold Coast of Africa occasioned by the Conduct of Thomas Miles Esqr late your Govemour of Annamaboe Fort, and of the Persons acting under his orders …” (PRO, T70/1564, pt. 1). The extent of Collow's loss in unclear. A letter against Miles' actions signed by eleven captains on the Gold Coast stated that Eagles' storehouse was burned and the “goods to a very considerable amount plundered and seized by the Natives” (PRO, T70/1563, letter dated Anomabu, 16 April 1791). In testimony given in January 1792, however, Captain Ryan stated that prior to the attack Eagles had removed “the greatest part of the goods” from the Agah factory to Collow's ship Mercury (PRO, T70/1566).
15. A trading journal from Popo Factory lists transactions with “Eagles Factory” from September 1793 to January 1795 (PRO, T70/584).
16. I determined Collow's ship holdings from analysis of Lloyd's Registers, 1784-96; London ship registers (PRO, BT 107/8-10); and Mettas, Jean, Répertoire des expéditions négrières françaises au XVIIIe siècle, ed. Serge, and Daget, Michèle (2 vols.: Paris, 1978–1984).Google Scholar
17. Collow's partners for the 1789 slave voyage of the Gosport & Havre Packet were James Morrison, John McKenzie, and Robert Forbes. Collow's partners for the 1795 slave voyage of the Mercury were Daniel Bernard, Charles Jon Wheeler, and Edward Higgins (PRO, BT107/8-10).
18. From 1783 to 1786 Carmichael had sole or part ownership of five French slave vessels that sailed from Lorient, Havre, and Nantes to the Upper Guinea and Gold Coasts. The Collow brothers then formed a partnership with him in 1787. Mettas, , Répertoire, 1:678–79Google Scholar, 2:495-98, 510-46, 618. “Collow, frères & Carmichael” maintained an office in de Grace, Havre (Andrews's Foreign Directory for the Year 1789, p. 30).Google Scholar
19. On 2 January 1791 the ship Rouen arrived at Cape Coast Castle from Havre, “consigned to Mr. Eagles” (PRO, T70/1563). On 19 September 1791 the ship Trois Amis, Captain Berringer from Havre, arrived at Cape Coast Castle “consigned to Captain Thomas Eagles” (PRO, T70/1564, pt 2).
20. Lloyd's Registers, 1784-89; Lloyd's Lists, 27 February 1784, 31 May 1785, 4 November 1785, 8 November 1785, 25 November 1785. By 1787 Collow had sold the vessels Maria, Three Friends, and Jamaica. The Emperor sailed on a Havre slave voyage in February 1788. Collow also owned the ship Comte de Montmorrin which sailed from London to Havre in March 1787.
21. PRO, T70/1568, “A List of the Company of Merchants Trading to Africa, Established by an Act the 23d. Year of George II.” London directories report that William Collow, merchant, lived at Mitre Court, Milk Street, from 1768 to 1783 and then moved to No. 12 Broad Street Buildings, where he maintained his office until 1819.
22. Collow may have organized slave voyages in Havre to profit from the forty livre per ton premium offered by the French government in October 1784 to encourage the development of the French slave trade and, correspondingly, the French West India plantation economies. Regarding these bounties see Stein, Robert Louis, The French Slave Trade in the Eighteenth Century: An Old Regime Business (Madison, 1979), 41.Google Scholar
23. During this period Collow's slave vessels delivered 7,765 slaves to the British and French West Indies. I estimate that Collow's vessels embarked about 8,600 slaves on the Gold and Slave Coasts (Table 3). I calculate that British merchants organized slave voyages from 1787 to 1795 which disembarked 48,138 slaves in the Americas from the Gold Coast. The leading British firm, Camden, Calvert and King, delivered 10,428 slaves (21.7 percent of the British Gold Coast trade). Richardson's data suggest that all European carriers shipped about 60,000 slaves from the Gold Coast between 1787 and 1795: Richardson, David, “Slave Exports from West and West-Central Africa, 1700-1810: New Estimates of Volume and Distribution,” JAH 30(1989), 17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Collow thus would have controlled about 12% of this total European trade.
24. We know that the snow Friends (142 tons), owned by John Powell, sailed from Bristol in 1787 “on the French Bounty.” In 1788 the Maria (142 tons), owned perhaps by Patrick Fitzhenry, sailed from Bristol to Honfleur to British and French forts on the Gold and Slave Coasts (PRO, BT6/7, T70/1558). Evidence of other British slave vessels sailing under French colors is speculative (Behrendt, , “British Slave Trade, 1785-1807,” 22–27Google Scholar). The more extensive British trade to the Spanish Americas was dominated by the Liverpool firm Baker and Dawson, which had a monopoly on this trade from 1783 to February 1789.
25. PRO, T70/1571, letter from Brancker to Thomas Miles, 26 June 1795; PRO, T70/1574, letter from Archibald Dalzel to John Gordon, 9 August 1797.
