killed many of its people, and brought off a number of blacks, two of whom fell to the lot of the captain of the "Rainbow," and were by him taken to Boston. He found no profit, however, in his piratical venture, for the story coming out, he was accused in court of "murder, manstealing, and Sabbath-breaking," and his slaves were sent home. It was wholly as merchandise that the blacks were regarded. It is impossible to believe that the brutalities of the traffic could have been tolerated so long, had the idea of the essential humanity of the Africans been grasped by those who dealt in them. Instead, they were looked upon as a superior sort of cattle, but on the long voyage across the Atlantic were treated as no cattle are treated to-day in the worst "ocean tramps" in the trade. The vessels were small, many of them half the size of the lighters that ply sluggishly up and down New York harbor. Sloops, schooners, brigantines, and scows of 40 or 50 tons burden, carrying crews of nine men including the captain and mates, were the customary craft in the early days of the eighteenth century.

woe.

In his work on "The American Slave-Trade," Mr. John R. Spears gives the dimensions of some of these puny vessels which were so heavily freighted with human The first American slaver of which we have record was the "Desire," of Marblehead, 120 tons. Later vessels, however, were much smaller. The sloop, "Welcome," had a capacity of 5000 gallons of molasses. The "Fame" was 79 feet long on the keel-about a large yacht's length. In 1847, some of the captured slavers had dimensions like these: The "Felicidade" 67 tons; the "Maria" 30 tons; the "Rio Bango" 10 tons. When the trade was legal and regulated by law, the "Maria" would have been permitted to carry 45 slaves-or one and one-half to each ton register. In 1847, the trade being outlawed, no regu

lations were observed, and this wretched little craft imprisoned 237 negroes. But even this 10-ton slaver was not the limit. Mr. Spears finds that open rowboats, no more than 24 feet long by 7 wide, landed as many as 35 children in Brazil out of say 50 with which the voyage

23

"A FAVORITE TRICK OF THE FLEEING SLAVER WAS TO
THROW OVER SLAVES"

began. But the size of the vessels made little difference in the comfort of the slaves. Greed packed the great ones equally with the small. The blacks, stowed in rows between decks, the roof barely 3 feet 10 inches above the floor on which they lay side by side, sometimes in "spoon

fashion" with from 10 to 16 inches surface-room for each, endured months of imprisonment. Often they were so packed that the head of one slave would be between the thighs of another, and in this condition they would pass the long weeks which the Atlantic passage under sail consumed. This, too, when the legality of the slave trade was recognized, and nothing but the dictates of greed led to overcrowding. Time came when the trade was put under the ban of law and made akin to piracy. Then the need for fast vessels restricted hold room, and the methods of the trade attained a degree of barbarity that can not be paralleled since the days of Nero.

Shackled together "spoon-wise," as the phrase was, they suffered and sweltered through the long middle passage, dying by scores, so that often a fifth of the cargo perished during the voyage. The stories of those who took part in the effort to suppress the traffic give some idea of its frightful cruelty.

The Rev. Pascoa Grenfell Hill, a chaplain in the British navy, once made a short voyage on a slaver which his ship, the "Cleopatra," had captured. The vessel had a full cargo, and when the capture was effected, the negroes were all brought on deck for exercise and fresh air. The poor creatures quite understood the meaning of the sudden change in their masters, and kissed the hands and clothing of their deliverers. The ship was headed for the Cape of Good Hope, where the slaves were to be liberated; but a squall coming on, all were ordered below again. "The night," enters Mr. Hill in his journal, "being intensely hot, four hundred wretched beings thus crammed into a hold twelve yards in length, seven feet in breadth, and only three and one-half feet in height, speedily began to make an effort to reissue to the open air. Being thrust back and striving the more to get

out, the afterhatch was forced down upon them. Over the other hatchway, in the fore part of the vessel, a wooden grating was fastened. To this, the sole inlet for the air, the suffocating heat of the hold and, perhaps, panic from the strangeness of their situation, made them flock, and thus a great part of the space below was rendered useless. They crowded to the grating and clinging to it for air, completely barred its entrance. They strove to force their way through apertures in length fourteen inches and barely six inches in breadth, and in some instances succeeded. The cries, the heat, I may say without exaggeration, the smoke of their torment which ascended can be compared to nothing earthly. One of the Spaniards gave warning that the consequences would be 'many deaths; this prediction was fearfully verified, for the next morning 54 crushed and mangled corpses were brought to the gangway and thrown overboard. Some were emaciated from disease, many bruised and bloody. Antoine tells me that some were found strangled; their hands still grasping each others' throats."

It is of a Brazilian slaver that this awful tale is told, but the event itself was paralleled on more than one American ship. Occasionally we encounter stories of ships destroyed by an exploding magazine, and the slaves, chained to the deck, going down with the wreck. Once a slaver went ashore off Jamaica, and the officers and crew speedily got out the boats and made for the beach, leaving the human cargo to perish. When dawn broke it was seen that the slaves had rid themselves of their fetters and were busily making rafts on which the women and children were put, while the men, plunging into the sea, swam alongside, and guided the rafts toward the shore. Now mark what the white man, the supposed representative of civilization and Christianity, did. Fearing

that the negroes would exhaust the store of provisions and water that had been landed, they resolved to destroy them while still in the water. As soon as the rafts came within range, those on shore opened fire with rifles and muskets with such deadly effect that between three hundred and four hundred blacks were murdered. Only thirty-four saved themselves-and for what? A few weeks later they were sold in the slave mart at Kingston.

In the early days of the trade, the captains dealt with recognized chiefs along the coast of Guinea, who conducted marauding expeditions into the interior to kidnap slaves. Rum was the purchase price, and by skillful dilution, a competent captain was able to double the purchasing value of his cargo. The trade was not one calculated to develop the highest qualities of honor, and to swindling the captains usually added theft and murder. Any negro who came near the ship to trade, or through motives of curiosity, was promptly seized and thrust below. Dealers who came on board with kidnapped negroes were themselves kidnapped after the bargain was made. Never was there any inquiry into the title of the seller. Any slave offered was bought, though the seller had no right— even under legalized slavery-to sell.

A picturesque story was told in testimony before the English House of Commons. To a certain slaver lying off the Windward coast a girl was brought in a canoe by a well-known black trader, who took his pay and paddled off. A few moments later another canoe with two blacks came alongside and inquired for the girl. They were permitted to see her and declared she had been kidnapped; but the slaver, not at all put out by that fact, refused to give her up. Thereupon the blacks paddled swiftly off after her seller, overtook, and captured him. Presently they brought him back to the deck of the ship