Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Jonathan M. Bryant, Dark Places of the Earth: The Voyage of the Slave Ship

2016; Oxford University Press; Volume: 56; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/ajlh/njw020

2161-797X

Kimberly Welch,

Colonialism, slavery, and trade

On August 24, 1819, a Spanish slaver, the Antelope, set sail from Cuba for the African coast. In her hold and on her decks was space for 350 African slaves, provisions to keep the crew and captives alive, and goods to trade for human property, including 15,000 pounds of gunpowder and 25,000 silver Spanish dollars. This was not the Antelope’s maiden voyage. Over the previous four years, she had transported at least 961 slaves, making her Spanish owner, Santiago de la Cuesta y Manzanal, a rich man indeed. Great profits came with great risks, however. In the years after the British and the Americans prohibited the African trade, slavers like the Antelope traversed pirate-infested seas administered by a confusing array of international laws and treaties. Nonetheless, the African trade thrived, dominated by “mongrel” ships whose flag-switching and false registrations caused significant legal problems for those trying to outlaw the slave trade. Privateers took advantage of these murky waters and plundered for enslaved captives, booty, and even the ships themselves. This was the fate of the Antelope. By the time the slaver made it back across the Atlantic to the northern coast of Florida, she carried almost 300 captives and a nefarious (and increasingly desperate) new crew and captain looking to sell their human cargo. The captives—most of them small children—would become the objects of an eight-year legal battle, one that eventually reached the United States Supreme Court and set the stage for American jurisprudence on liberty and property for decades to come.