Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations, Maps and Tables
- Preface to the Second Edition
- The Documents and Editorial Conventions
- List of Abbreviations
- Part One James Irving's Career
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Early Career in the Liverpool Slave Trade
- 3 Irving's Voyages in the Transatlantic Slave Trade
- 4 Shipwreck and Enslavement
- 5 Freedom and Return to England
- 6 Conclusion
- Part Two James Irving's Correspondence, 1786–1791
- Part Three Journal of James Irving's Shipwreck and Enslavement, May 1789–October 1790
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - Irving's Voyages in the Transatlantic Slave Trade
from Part One - James Irving's Career
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations, Maps and Tables
- Preface to the Second Edition
- The Documents and Editorial Conventions
- List of Abbreviations
- Part One James Irving's Career
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Early Career in the Liverpool Slave Trade
- 3 Irving's Voyages in the Transatlantic Slave Trade
- 4 Shipwreck and Enslavement
- 5 Freedom and Return to England
- 6 Conclusion
- Part Two James Irving's Correspondence, 1786–1791
- Part Three Journal of James Irving's Shipwreck and Enslavement, May 1789–October 1790
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The letters from each voyage undertaken by Irving highlight the familiar outline of the transatlantic slave trade. Common to each voyage was the purchase of slaves on the coast of West Africa, their re-sale in the Americas and the return journey to Liverpool with bills of exchange to be drawn against a British merchant house and/or a cargo from Africa and the Caribbean. Although these are well-studied characteristics of the slave trade, Irving's letters shed some light on the complexities of the trade and the variable elements within this deceptively simple pattern.
The African destinations mentioned by Irving in his letters included some of the most important trading locations for British ships in the late eighteenth century. All of the voyages in which he participated between 1783 and 1788 obtained slaves in the Bight of Biafra. This area supplied more than 326,000 slaves to the transatlantic trade between 1780 and 1800 and accounted for over one-fifth of all slave exports in the period. Over 85 per cent of the Africans exported from the Bight of Biafra between 1740 and 1807 were carried in British vessels and the region was of particular importance to Liverpool traders. Lovejoy and Richardson point out that ‘the Bight of Biafra was evidently the cornerstone of Liverpool's slaving activities from 1725 through to 1807’.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Slave CaptainThe Career of James Irving in the Liverpool Slave Trade, pp. 20 - 38Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2008