A DANGEROUS OCCUPATION

During the period of the slave trade, seamen of the African Diaspora faced dangers at sea beyond those of weather conditions and enemy activity. Black seafarers of any station who ventured too close to predatory slavers, in some cases by working on the ships themselves, could run the risk of joining other Africans in bondage. Even seafarers of African descent in the Royal Navy out on their own in foreign ports might share a similar fate, though the Royal Navy did provide a level of protection to black seafarers while they were in British ports. This applied to serving black seamen, of course; the press gang was ruthless in seeking able-bodied men of any race as prospective crew, particularly those who might have seafaring experience on commercial vessels. A black seafarer abroad in the employ of the Royal Navy would be at a considerable advantage compared with his fellow compatriots on board a merchant vessel.

As well as slaves and free African seafarers, another category of black travellers could be found aboard ships making the journey to England. The children of African rulers sent to be educated in Britain, both as groups and individuals, were usually under the guardianship of merchants or ships’ captains and were frequently reared alongside their patron's own children. Britain gained politically by encouraging overseas scholarship. The European powers were deeply involved in trade rivalries in the eighteenth century and it was thought that offering educational opportunities in Britain would strengthen the political bonds between countries by delivering an indoctrination favourable to the British viewpoint.

At this time, there was always the danger that would-be students travelling to Britain could be sold as slaves by unscrupulous ships’ captains who did not discriminate between one sort of black and another, and once outside their own country they faced the danger of being treated as just another African destined for the auction block. Carl Bernhard Wadström was a radical Swedenborgian and abolitionist who sought the establishment of a society where black and white might live together in harmony. In his Essay on Colonization written in 1794, he described how in 1781 he had discovered a captive black child of 10 or 11 years, who had been recognized by another enslaved countryman as a royal child by a distinguishing mark on his breast.