Current Project

Africans, Americans, and slowing the slave trade at sea 

How British and American Evangelicals and Africans used diplomacy, persuasion, and changes in maritime technology to slow a centuries- old traffic in human cargo, 1807 - 1861.

Keywords: Atlantic World, Kroomen, human trafficking, West African Squadron

Research questions:

image of USS Constellation: Google images

A Question of Great National Importance Has Lately Been Much Agitated Namely, Whether the Measures in Operation for the Suppression of the Slave Trade, Should, or Should Not, Be Abandoned ... . Goldsmiths’-Kress Library of Economic Literature ; No. 37170. England? s.n., 1850.

Barnard, Frederick Lamport. A Three Years’ Cruize in the Mozambique Channel: For the Suppression of the Slave Trade. London: Bentley, 1848.

Blyth, Robert J. Britain, the Royal Navy and the Suppression of Slave Trade in the Nineteenth Century., 2007.

Broich, John. Squadron: Ending the African Slave Trade. London: Overlook Duckworth, 2017.

Bryson, Alexander, bookseller., Great Britain, Admiralty., and printer. Report on the Climate and Principal Diseases of the African Station: Compiled from Documents in the Office of the Director-General of the Medical Department, and from Other Sources, in Compliance with the Directions of the Right Honorable the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty / Burnett, William,; Sir,; 1779-1861. London: Printed by order of the Lords Commissioners of the Admirality sold by Samuel Highley, 1847.

Burroughs, Robert M. British Policies, Practices and Representations of Naval Coercion. Studies in Imperialism; Variation: Studies in Imperialism (Manchester, England). Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2015.

Canney, Donald L. Africa Squadron: The U.S. Navy and the Slave Trade, 1842-1861. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2006.

Crowther, Samuel. Slave Trade: African Squadron. London: John Mortimer, 1850.

Dale, A. J. A.J. Dale Log of the HMS Ranger, 1859-1863., 1859.

Denman, Joseph. The Slave Trade, the African Squadron, and Mr. Hutt’s Committee. London : Published by John Mortimer, 15, Beaufort Buildings, Strand, London : D.M. Aird, 340 Strand, and 170 Fleet Street, 1849.

Du Bois, W. E. B. 1868-1963 (William Edward Burghardt). The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870. New York: Russell & Russell, 1965.

Eardley-Wilmot, Arthur Parry. A Letter to the Right Honorable Viscount Palmerston, M.P., One of Her Majesty’s Secretaries of State, &c.: On the Present State of the African Slave Trade, and on the Necessity of Increasing the African Squadron / Palmerston, Henry John Temple,; Viscount,; 1784-1865. Variation: Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection. London: J. Ridgway, 1853.

Edwards, Bernard. Enforcing Abolition at Sea 1808-1898. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Maritime, 2007.

Great Britain. Treaties, Conventions, and Engagements, for the Suppression of the Slave Trade. Goldsmiths’-Kress Library of Economic Literature ; No. 33979. England? s.n., 1844.

Great Britain Admiralty. Further Papers Relating to the Suppression of the Slave Trade: Viz., A. Copies or Extracts of All Communications Received by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty ... Relative to the State of the Slave Trade [and] B. Copies or Extracts of All Instructions Issued by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty ... Relative to the Suppression of the Slave Trade. London? H.M.S.O.?, 1821.

———. Instructions for the Guidance of Her Majesty’s Naval Officers Employed in the Suppression of the Slave Trade. London: Printed by T.R. Harrison ..., 1844.

Great Britain, Colonial Office., and former owner. A Letter to the Right Honourable Lord Denman, on the Slave Trade: With a Plan for Its Speedy and Final Extinction. London: C. Cox, 1851.

Great Britain Foreign Office. Treaty of Friendship, Commerce, and for the Suppression of the Slave Trade, between H.M. and the King of Dahomey. Signed, May, 12, 1877 ; Presented to Both Houses of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty. [C, 1902]. London: Printed by Harrison and Sons, 1878.

Grindal, Peter. The Royal Navy’s Campaign against the Atlantic Slave Trade. London: I.B. Tauris, 2018.

Hamilton, Keith, and Patrick Salmon. Slavery, Diplomacy and Empire: Britain and the Suppression of the Slave Trade, 1807-1975. Brighton [England] ; Sussex Academic Press, 2009.

Hargrove, Jarvis L. Krumen and the Suppression of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade from West Africa, 2011.

Harms, Robert W., Bernard K. Freamon, and David W. Blight. Indian Ocean Slavery in the Age of Abolition. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013.

Hazell, Alastair. The Last Slave Market: [The Incredible Story of John Kirk, the Man Who Ended the East African Slave Trade]. London: Constable, 2012.

Hogg, Peter C. The African Slave Trade and Its Suppression: A Classified and Annotated Bibliography of Books, Pamphlets and Periodical Articles. Cass Library of African Studies. General Studies ; No. 137. London: Frank Cass, 1973.

Howell, Raymond. The Royal Navy and the Slave Trade. London: Croom Helm, 1987.

Huzzey, Richard. Freedom Burning: Anti-Slavery and Empire in Victorian Britain. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012.

Kennaway, John H. East African Slave-Trade. s.l: s.n., 1876.

Kielstra, Paul Michael. The Politics of Slave Trade Suppression in Britain and France, 1814-48: Diplomacy, Morality and Economics. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000.

Late senior officer of the West-African Squadron. The West-African Slave-Trade: Suggestions for Its Gradual Extinction. London: W.H. Dalton, 1860.

Lawrence, John C. Voyage to a Thousand Cares: Master’s Mate Lawrence with the African Squadron, 1844-1846. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2004.

Leonard, Peter, Great Britain, Colonial Office., and former owner. Records of a Voyage to the Western Coast of Africa in His Majesty’s Ship Dryad: And of the Service on That Station for the Suppression of the Slave Trade, in the Years 1830, 1831, and 1832. Edinburgh: Printed by Andrew Shortrede for William Tait, 1833.

Leonard, William Ambrose. USS Constellation on the Dismal Coast: Willie Leonard’s Journal,1859-1861. Studies in Maritime History. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 2013.

LeVeen, E. Phillip. British Slave Trade Suppression Policies, 1821-1865. Dissertations in European Economic History. New York: Arno Press, 1977.

Lloyd, Christopher. The Navy and the Slave Trade; the Suppression of the African Slave Trade in the Nineteenth Century. London: Longmans, Green, 1949.

———. The Suppression of the African Slave Trade in the Nineteenth Century. Cass Library of African Studies. Slavery Series ;; No. 4; Variation: Cass Library of African Studies.; Slavery Series ;; No. 4. London, Cass, 1968.

Mansfield, J. S. Remarks on the African Squadron. Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive; Variation: Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive. London: J. Ridgway, (Harrison and Son), 1851.

McNeilly, Earl E. The United States Navy and the Suppression of the West African Slave Trade, 1819-1862, 1973.

Morison, Samuel Eliot. “Old Bruin”: Commodore Matthew C. Perry, 1794-1858 : The American Naval Officer Who Helped Found Liberia, Hunted Pirates in the West Indies, Practised Diplomacy with the Sultan of Turkey and the King of the Two Sicilies ; Commanded the Gulf Squadron in the Mexican War, Promoted the Steam Navy and the Shell Gun, and Conducted the Naval Expedition Which Opened Japan. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1967.

Rees, Siân. Sweet Water and Bitter the Ships That Stopped the Slave Trade. Durham, N.H: University of New Hampshire Press, 2011.

———. The Ships That Stopped the Slave Trade. Durham, N.H.: University of New Hampshire Press, 2011.

Rooks, A. E. The Black Joke: The True Story of One Ship’s Battle against the Slave Trade. First Scribner hardcover edition. New York: Scribner, 2022.

Rowley, K. M. 8. the Suppression of the African Slave Trade: 1807-1865, 1940.

Silva, Daniel Domingues da, David Eltis, Philip Misevich, and Olatunji Ojo. “The Diaspora of Africans Liberated from Slave Ships in the Nineteenth Century.” The Journal of African History 55, no. 3 (2014): 347–69.

Sulivan, G. L. Dhow Chasing in Zanzibar Waters /by G.L. Sulivan ; [Edited by Gemma Pitcher]. Zanzibar: Gallery Publications, 2003.

Sullivan, Anthony. Britain’s War against the Slave Trade: The Operations of the Royal Navy’s West Africa Squadron, 1807-1867. Yorkshire ; Frontline Books, 2020.

Suzuki, Hideaki. Slave Trade Profiteers in the Western Indian Ocean: Suppression and Resistance in the Nineteenth Century. Palgrave Series in Indian Ocean World Studies. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.

Turnbull, David. The Jamaica Movement for Promoting the Enforcement of the Slave-Trade Treaties, and the Suppression of the Slave-Trade; with Statements of Fact, Convention, and Law. London: C. Gilpin, 1850.

United States Congress House. Deficiencies of Appropriation for Suppression of Slave Trade: Letter from the Secretary of the Interior, Communicating Estimates for Deficiencies in the Appropriation for the Suppression of the Slave Trade, &c. Ex. Doc. / House of Representatives 36. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1861.

United States Congress House Committee on the Suppression of the Slave Trade. Report of the Committee on the Suppression of the Slave Trade, April 12, 1822. S.l: s.n., 1822.

United States Dept of State. Message from the President of the United States, Transmitting a Report from the Secretary of State, Relating to Negotiations for the Suppression of the Slave Trade. Slavery ; ST151. Washington: Gales & Seaton, 1821.

United States Dept of the Interior. Records of the Office of the Secretary of the Interior Relating to the Suppression of the African Slave Trade and Negro Colonization, 1854-1872. National Archives Microfilm Publications ; M160. Washington, D.C: The National Archives, 1949.

United States. President (1841-1845 : Tyler). Message from the President of the United States, Communicating (in Compliance with a Resolution of the Senate) Information Relative to the Operations of the United States Squadron on the West Coast of Africa, the Condition of the American Colonies There, and the Commerce of the United States Therewith. Congress (28th, 2nd Session). Senate. [Doc.] ;; 150; Variation: Congress; (28th, 2nd Session).; Senate.; Doc. ;; 150. [Place of publication not identified], 1840s.

Ward, W. E. F. The Royal Navy and the Slavers: The Suppression of the Atlantic Slave Trade. London: Allen & Unwin, 1969.

Ward, W. E. F. 1900-1994 (William Ernest Frank), and (Ian Theodore),. The Suppression of the Atlantic Slave Trade. New York, Pantheon Books, 1969.

Wilson, Henry. The Suppression of the Slave Trade Speech of Hon. Henry Wilson, of Mass. Delivered in the Senate of the United States, May 21, 1860. Slavery ; ST86. Washington, D.C: Buell & Blanchard, 1860.

Wilson, J. Leighton. The British Squadron on the Coast of Africa. Goldsmiths’-Kress Library of Economic Literature ; No. 37176. London: J. Wilson, 1850.

Yule, Henry. The African Squadron Vindicated. 2nd ed. Goldsmiths’-Kress Library of Economic Literature ; No. 37177. London: J. Ridgway, 1850.