Circa1865

As late as the 1850s, Portuguese slave dealers operated from New York harbor purchasing ships for the slave trade, bribing customs officials and sailing them to Cuba for outfitting as slavers. The ships then sailed for West Africa to purchase slaves, with a return voyage to Cuba or Brazil to be sold for sugar plantation labor.

Africa’s Traditional System

“The early West African colonies of freed blacks, such as Liberia, had to be defended by cannon and stockades from the local native rulers who rightly saw them as a threat to their profits from the slave trade. The whole of West Africa was geared to domestic slavery and the slave trade.

Slavery had always been part of black African society as it was the usual method of recruiting labor for wealthy farms, for ironworks and gold mines. Slaves were also used to transport goods in long-distance trade and as a form of negotiable currency in transactions. Skilled laborers, such as blacksmiths, were usually slaves. For chiefs, the transatlantic slave export trade was a bonus on top of these other aspects of their traditional slave system, but a valuable one and they were reluctant to give it up.

[On Africa’s west coast in the early 1800s], some of the most inveterate and cunning slave operators were detribalized blacks, mulattoes, often free freedmen or sons of former slaves, who had returned from Brazil to make their fortunes. One such black, Petro Kogio, based at Anecho, “raided for slaves and bought Manchester cottons,” operating under a respectable front of palm oil. Another palm dealer was George Lawson, a Fanti from Accra and former steward on a slaver, who “saluted all flags and provided false information for [British] naval officers,” dealt widely in slaves and founded the rich Lawson dynasty.

Another liberated slave, Francisco Felix Da Souze, acted as a slave broker for inland kings: “His riches and hospitality became the legend of the coast, and he charmed even missionary opponents with manners which were easy and graceful, and exhibited the finished gentleman. The coast abounded with such rogues.

An eyewitness described how the West Africa slave trade operated in the 1820’s:

“As soon as a vessel arrives at her place of destination, the crew discharge her light cargo, with the manacles intended for the slaves, and land the captain at the same time. The vessel avoids any nearby British man-of-war and anchors at the pre-determined spot on the day the living cargo is loaded.”

The profits for the wily were huge. A slave bought for 15 or 20pds in Lagos would fetch 50 to 80pds in Brazil, and often as much as 120pds. The vessels were often fast clippers, usually built in New England and even flying the American flag, though more usually those of France or Portugal. They could outpace most Royal Navy ships.”

(The Birth of the Modern: World Society 1815-1830. HarperCollins Publishers, 1991, pp. 331-333)