Primary Sources – Arrival in America

Broadside announcing the sale of slaves (1769)

With good reason, plantation masters feared the spread of smallpox. The introduction of the disease to their slaves could lead to an epidemic. They were therefore cautious when buying people recently imported from Africa. They avoided persons suffering from this contagious disease, but often paid higher prices for individuals with pock marks on their faces, showing that they had survived the sickness and would not become infected again.

Some broadsides announcing the sale of slaves made such statements as, "The utmost care has already been taken, and shall be continued, to keep them free from the least danger of being infected with the SMALL-POX." Other broadsides, such as the one displayed here from Charleston, South Carolina, revealed that slaves to be sold had been exposed to smallpox during their voyage but had been quarantined until the disease subsided. In an effort to prevent the spread of contagious diseases, or "pestilences," among South Carolina's population, colonial authorities required incoming slave ships to unload their unfree passengers at the "pest house" on Sullivan's Island near the entrance to Charleston Harbor.

CHARLESTOWN, April 27, 1769TO BE SOLD,

On Wednesday the Tenth Day of May next,

A CHOICE CARGO OF Two Hundred & Fifty

NEGROES:ARRIVED in the Ship

Countess of Sussex, Thomas Davies,Master, directly from Gambia, by

JOHN CHAPMAN, & Co.

THIS is the Vessel that had the Small-Pox on Board at the Time of her Arrival the

31st of March last: Every necessary Precaution hath since been taken to

cleanse both Ship and Cargo thoroughly, so that those who may be inclined to purchase need not be under the least

Apprehension of Danger from Infliction.

The NEGROES are allowed to be the likeliest Image Credit: Courtesy, American Antiquarian Society

Parcel that have been imported this Season. 3A

Primary Sources – Arrival in America

Reverend Peter Fontaine’s Defense of Slavery in Virginia (1757)

Soon after the start of the French and Indian War, a Reverend Peter Fontaine, replying to a query from his brother Moses as to the Christian ethics of "enslaving our fellow creatures," wrote that "to live in Virginia without slaves is morally impossible."

Fontaine further explained that "unless robust enough to cut wood, to go to mill, to work at the hoe, etc., you must starve or board in some family where they both fleece and half starve you," thus forcing would-be "merchants, traders, or artificers" to "purchase some slaves and land" and become planters. He reasoned that for the cost of hiring "a lazy fellow," one could "add to this £ 7 or £ 8 more and you have a slave for life." (£ is the symbol for an English Pound, which is similar to an American Dollar)

As to your second query, if enslaving our fellow creatures be a practice agreeable to Christianity, it is answered in a great measure in many treatises at home, to which I refer you. I shall only mention something of our present state here.

Like Adam, we are all apt to shift off the blame from ourselves and lay it upon others, how justly in our case you may judge. The Negroes are enslaved by the Negroes themselves before they are purchased by the masters of the ships who bring them here. It is, to be sure, at our choice whether we buy them or not, so this then is our crime, folly, or whatever you will please to call it.

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Primary Sources – Arrival in America

The First Slave Auction at New Amsterdam in 1655

American illustrator Howard Pyle, illustrator of many historical and adventure stories for periodicals, created this depiction of a slave auction in New Amsterdam (later to be renamed New York).

New Amsterdam, a town on the tip of Manhattan Island within the Dutch colony of New Netherland, saw a sudden influx of African slave labor in 1655. The Dutch had been involved with the African slave trade for some time, having seized Portugal's Elmina Castle along the West African coast about two decades earlier. Soon after gaining control of the slave factory they were shipping 2,500 slaves across the Atlantic each year. Many of these slaves were sent to Brazil, another territory the Dutch had seized from Portugal. But this control of Brazil was short-lived.

The Dutch were still active participants in the slave trade when they lost control of Brazil in 1654. Now they directed their attention to the colony of New Netherland. The colony already had black slaves; these had generally come by way of the Caribbean Islands. In 1655, the first large shipment of slaves directly from Africa arrived at New Amsterdam.

In 1664 the English seized New Netherland, including the town of New Amsterdam. They renamed the colony New York. At the time there were roughly 500 Dutch-speaking blacks in the colony.

Image Credit: The Granger Collection, New York 3C

Primary Sources – Arrival in America

Slave Market, Atlanta, Georgia – 1864

In 1852–53, the popular British writer William Makepeace Thackeray toured the United States. While he lectured to enthralled American audiences, his secretary Eyre Crowe meticulously recorded the trip in words and pictures. Crowe included in his account a visit to the Richmond, Virginia, slave market where he witnessed and sketched a slave auction.

I went thither, inquiring my way to the auction rooms… The buyers clustered first in one dealer’s premises, then moved on in a body to the next store… The sale was announced by hanging out a small red flag on a pole from the doorway…

The ordeal gone through by the several negroes began by making a stalwart hand pace up and down the compartment, as would be done with a horse, to note his action. This proving satisfactory, some doubt was expressed as to his ocular soundness [how good his eye-sight was]. This was met by one gentleman unceremoniously fixing one of his thumbs into the socket of the supposed valid eye, holding up a hair by his other hand, and asking the negro to state what was the object held up before him. He was evidently nonplussed, and in pain at the operation, and he went down in the bidding at once. More hands were put up; but by this time feeling a wish for fresh air, I walked out, passing intervening stores and the grouped expectant negroes there.

After these sales we saw the usual exodus of negro slaves, marched under escort of their new owners across the town to the railway station, where they took places, and “went South.” They held scanty bundles of clothing, their only possession.

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Primary Sources – Arrival in America

Register of Africans from the Schooner “Panchita” (1829)

The Schooner "Panchita" was captured at sea by British cruisers and adjudicated at a court established at Sierra Leone under international anti-slave trade treaties. The image is of a picture of the first page of the court’s register of "Liberated Africans" taken from the "Panchita". The register was kept as a formal record of emancipation that helped protect the individual from subsequent re-enslavement. The image is reproduced courtesy of the British National Archives.

Note: These slaves were intended to reach the Caribbean to be re-sold and distributed throughout the America’s. The register shows the name of the slave, gender, age, height and descriptive marks.

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Primary Sources – Arrival in America

A Barracoon at Key West (Florida) – 1860

Barracoons were a common feature in the transatlantic slave trade, but particularly in the mid-nineteenth century when slaves could be held on the coast for long periods while slave ships looked for opportunities to evade patrolling naval cruisers. The word probably derived from the Portuguese "Barracão", which merely means warehouse, but when adopted by other languages the meaning became slave hold. The image is of an illustration of a barracoon at Key West, Florida, in 1860. This particular barracoon, however, did not store slaves. Rather, it served as a place to shelter liberated Africans from slave vessels captured at sea by American cruisers during the suppression of the transatlantic slave trade. The image is reproduced courtesy of Tracy W. McGregor Library of American History, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library. Permission required to reproduce.

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Primary Sources – Arrival in America

Slave Auction, Richmond, Virginia (1861)

The image shows a man and woman (with child in arms) on auction block, surrounded by white men. Article in the ILN accompanying this "sketch by our special correspondent" (G.H. Andrews) provides a lengthy eyewitness description of slave sales in Richmond, part of which is excerpted here: "The auction rooms for the sale of Negroes are situated in the main streets, and are generally the ground floors of the building; the entrance-door opens straight into the street, and the sale room is similar to any other auction room . . . . placards, advertisements, and notices as to the business carried on are dispensed with, the only indications of the trade being a small red flag hanging from the front door post, and a piece of paper upon which is written . . . this simple announcement--'Negroes for sale at auction' . . . ."

3G