Dark Voyage: An American Privateer's War on Britain's African Slave Trade

At the start of the American War of Independence, Great Britain dominated overseas commerce and was the leading slave-trading nation in the world. In 1776, American privateers--privately owned ships granted commissions by the Continental Congress to attack and disrupt enemy trade--began to prey on British merchantmen. Some privateers captured British slave ships with African captives on board just before they arrived at their Caribbean Island destinations.
One privateer was given an extraordinary task: to sail across the Atlantic to attack British slave trading posts and ships on the coast of West Africa. Based on a little-known contemporary primary source, The Journal of the Good Ship Marlborough, the story of this remarkable voyage is told here for the first time and will have a major impact on our understanding of the Atlantic slave trade and the American Revolution. The voyage of the Marlborough was the brainchild of John Brown, a prominent Rhode Island merchant--and an investor in two slave trading voyages himself. The motivation was not altruistic. The officers and crew of the Marlborough wanted to advance the cause of independence from Britain through harming Britain's economy, but they also desired to enrich themselves by selling the plunder they captured--including enslaved Africans.
The work of the Marlborough and other American privateers was so disruptive that it led to an unintended consequence: virtually halting the British slave trade. British slave merchants, alarmed at losing money from their ships being captured, invested in many fewer slave voyages. As a result tens of thousands of Africans were not forced onto slave ships, transported to the New World, and consigned to a lifetime of slavery or an early death.
In Dark Voyage: An American Privateer's War on Britain's African Slave Trade, veteran researcher and writer Christian McBurney recreates the harrowing voyage of the Marlborough, while placing it in the context of Atlantic World slavery. In Africa, Marlborough's officers come across an array of African and European slave traders willing to assist them in attacking the British. This book is also the first study to detail the many captures American privateers made of British slave ships during the Revolutionary War.

ISBN-13: 9781594163821

Media Type: Hardcover

Publisher: Westholme Publishing

Publication Date: 07-05-2022

Pages: 384

Product Dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.50(d)

Christian McBurney is author of six books on the American Revolutionary war, including Kidnapping the Enemy: The Special Operations to Capture Generals Charles Lee and Richard Prescott and The Rhode Island Campaign: The First French and American Operation in the Revolutionary War. He is also the author of many articles on American Revolution history, including “The American Revolution Sees the First Efforts to Limit the African Slave Trade,” in Journal of the American Revolution, Annual Volume 2021. He is president of the George Washington American Revolution Round Table of the District of Columbia and manages the online journal, Small State, Big History, devoted to the history of Rhode Island. He practices law in Washington, DC.

Table of Contents

List of Maps ix

Preface xi

1 John Brown, Great Britain, and the African Slave Trade 1

2 John Brown Invests in Privateers 24

3 John Brown Decides to Send a Privateer to Africa 39

4 George Waite Babcock is Selected as Commander 60

5 The Marlborough Breaks Out 73

6 The Marlborough Arrives in Africa 86

7 The Attack on the Isles de Los 106

8 The Capture of the Fancy "All Slaved" 128

9 The Fates of the Fancy, Pearl, Kitty, and Betsey, and Their Captive Africans 148

10 The Fates of the Marlborough, Its African Captives, and George Waite Babcock 167

11 American Privateers Reduce Britain's African Slave Trade 193

Appendix A Officers and Crew of the Marlborough 221

Appendix B British Slave Ships Captured by American Privateers with No Enslaved Africans On Board, August 1776 to August 1778 224

Appendix C British Slave Ships Captured by American Privateers with Enslaved Africans On Board, August 1776 to August 1778 239

Appendix D African Captives Carried by British and US Slave Ships to the British Caribbean, 1752-1792 265

Appendix E Liverpool Slave Trading Merchants Bankrupted, 1772-1783, and Their Slave Ships Captured by American Privateers, 1776-1778 267

Notes 269

Bibliography 325

Acknowledgments 341

Index 345

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