Slavery: Not Just Something For The South

Slavery: Not Just Something For The South

Part XXV

In describing the floggings used as punishment for other Kentucky
rebels, Page said they were stretched flat on the deck and tied hand and foot:

"They were then whipped by 2 men at a time, by the one with a stick about two feet long, with five or six strands of rawhide secured to the end of it...and by the other with a piece of hide.....as thick as  one's finger, or thicker, and hard as whalebone, but more flexible."

He also testified that these floggings lasted so long that the Brazilian crew got tired and forced him and another English crewman to team up in beating 4 of the slaves.  The 20 men whipped survived, but all 6 of the women whipped soon died.

Page's deposition, for the most part, focused on the partnership between the Kentucky and the Porpoise
& their twin sets of captains. The relationship between these captains was so good that Page had this to say: "The understanding was so good between the Portuguese captain of the Kentucky
and Capt. Douglass ...that the Portuguese captain would only have to hold up his finger, and Douglass would go on board in a minute."

John Ulrick, the mate of the Porpoise from Portland, Maine, bought at least 2 slaves, a young woman about 20 and a boy about 10, whom Page saw branded with a U.

In his testimony Page also told that the American flags Douglass left on the Kentucky flew constantly, which inspired the U.S. Ambassador, Henry Wise, to comment, "Without the aid of our citizens and our flag, [the slave trade] could not be carried on with success at all."

Page's testimony was included by British diplomats in their annual report on the illegal trade. (British slave trade papers, vol. 29, Class A correspondence, Rio de Janeiro, document #201,p. 518.)

They noted that 43 vessels of various nations had brought 16,200 new slaves to Brazil, and that the most successful slave voyages were those of ships that flew the American flag. (my emphasis)

Identified by British as one of the wealthiest and boldest slave dealers as Manoel Pinto da Fonseca, his fleet contained the Kentucky and the Porpoise. He purchased the friendship of government officials by lending them money; the government was controlled by the coffee planters, who in turn needed slaves to supply the world's growing addiction to coffee.  In 1848, a peak year, Brazil exported 134,000 tons of coffee, much of it to the United States, and imported 60,000 slaves.

A Brazilian Senator is said to have declared: "Brazil is coffee and coffee is the Negro."  (R.E. Conrad, World of Sorrow: The African Slave Trade in Brazil, , Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1986, p. 62)

It can only be estimated what the true scale of the illegal slave trade was; but it was a criminal enterprise designed to go undetected.

By Allen (Piewacket1861) He is member in the forum