Latest / The Atlantic Slave Trade: Empire Built on Human Suffering — Fexingo History / The Secret Lives of Slave Ship Captains
Transcript
- Lucas: You know, we've covered a lot of ground on this show — the revolts, the forts, the legal battles. But I realized we've never really talked about the men who actually captained the slave ships. Luna: The captains? That's a good point. They're kind of the invisible hands behind the whole operation. Lucas: Exactly. And when you start looking into their lives, you find a mix that's hard to categorize. Some were brutal sadists, sure. But others were just... ordinary men doing a job. And a few even became abolitionists later. Luna: That's a wild shift. Who made that turn? Lucas: The most famous is John Newton. You've heard of him — he wrote 'Amazing Grace.' But before that, he captained three slave voyages between 1750 and 1754. He kept detailed journals, and they're honestly chilling to read. He records the number of people he transported, the deaths, the punishments, all in a matter of fact tone. Luna: So he was fully aware of what he was doing, but he just saw it as commerce. Lucas: Exactly. And this is the part that's complicated — later in life, he became a clergyman and a vocal abolitionist. He even testified before the Privy Council in 1788 about the horrors of the trade. But he never fully renounced his own past. He said 'I am not the man I once was,' but he never made a public apology. Lucas: And Newton's case isn't unique. There were other captains who, years later, wrote memoirs or gave testimony that helped the abolitionist cause. But the majority just went on with their careers. Some moved into other trades — sugar, rum, even legitimate goods — and they rarely talked about what they'd done. Luna: What was a typical day like for a slave ship captain? Lucas: A lot of it was logistics. You're managing a crew of maybe 30 to 40 men, you're navigating by sextant and dead reckoning, you're dealing with disease — not just among the enslaved but among your own crew. Mortality rates for crew on slave ships were actually higher than for enslaved people on some voyages, because of malaria, yellow fever, dysentery. Lucas: And then there's the human cargo. The captain had to keep order. That meant constant surveillance, rationing food and water, and administering punishment. Floggings were routine. Some captains used thumbscrews or iron muzzles. The goal was to break resistance before it started. Luna: And they kept logs of all that? Like, officially? Lucas: Yes, and that's one of the most disturbing documents we have. Captain James Fraser, who sailed out of Liverpool in the 1780s, kept a log where he notes things like 'two slaves died in the night, cause unknown' or 'flogged John, a seaman, for neglect of duty.' He also records the 'diurnal occurrences' — wind, weather, position, and the number of enslaved people on board. Luna: It's dehumanizing in its precision. Like an inventory. Lucas: Exactly. And the captains were under enormous pressure from the investors. The venture was expensive — a ship, a crew, trade goods, insurance, port fees. The captain had to bring back a profit, which meant delivering as many healthy Africans as possible. So they had incentives to keep people alive, but also to maximize space, which meant packing them in. Lucas: And then there was the insurance angle. That's where things get really dark. If enslaved people died of natural causes, the investors lost money. But if they were killed or died in a revolt, or if they were jettisoned to save the ship, the insurance might cover it. That's what happened with the Zong. Luna: The Zong — that's the case where the captain threw 132 people overboard. Lucas: Right. In 1781, the Zong was sailing from the Gold Coast to Jamaica. The captain, Luke Collingwood, miscalculated their position and overshot Jamaica. Fresh water was running low. He argued that if the enslaved people died of thirst, the owners would take the loss, but if they were thrown overboard to save the rest, the insurers would pay. So he ordered 132 chained people thrown into the sea. Luna: And the insurers fought it in court, didn't they? Not because it was murder, but because they didn't want to pay. Lucas: Yes. The case went to the Court of King's Bench in London in 1783. The insurers argued that Collingwood had acted improperly — that he could have rationed water more carefully. The court, led by Lord Mansfield, initially ruled for the owners. But then Granville Sharp, the abolitionist, got involved and pushed for a new trial. It never actually got a final verdict on the murder charge, but the publicity helped turn public opinion. Lucas: And that case really highlighted how the slave trade turned human beings into commodities, legally speaking. The debate wasn't about whether killing was wrong — it was about whether the loss was insurable under 'general average.' That's the same legal principle used for jettisoning cargo. Luna: General average. That's the same term we talked about in the episode on Lloyd's Coffee House. Lucas: Exactly. So you have this legal framework that treats enslaved people as goods, and the captain is the key enforcer of that system. He's the one who decides when to apply the whip, when to shackle, when to throw overboard. He's the human face of a dehumanizing machine. Luna: And some of them probably felt the weight of that, even if they didn't show it. Lucas: There are hints. John Newton, in his later journals, writes about nightmares and guilt. He never said it publicly, but privately he struggled. And there's a story about a captain named Richard Bowen, who commanded the ship Ann in the 1750s. After a particularly brutal voyage where many died, he apparently never went to sea again. He became a recluse. Luna: So there were men who couldn't live with what they'd done. Lucas: Yes, and that's important to remember. The slave trade didn't just destroy the lives of the enslaved — it also corrupted the souls of those who ran it. Some were monsters, some were just ordinary men caught up in an evil system, and a few found redemption. But the system itself was built to break anyone who participated. Lucas: You know, speaking of ordinary people caught up in this, it reminds me that this show is possible because of listeners like you who support it directly. If you've been following our conversations about the Atlantic world — the ships, the ports, the human stories — and you want to keep us ad-free and independent, you can help at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure, just a way to keep these stories alive. Luna: Yeah, it's a small way to make sure we can keep digging into the details that textbooks skip. Lucas: So, back to the captains. One thing I find striking is how young many of them were. John Newton got his first command at 24. James Fraser was in his late 20s. These were young men, often from merchant families, who saw the slave trade as a fast track to wealth. And some did get rich — but many died young, or came home broken. Luna: So the captain's life was itself a kind of gamble. Lucas: Exactly. And the crew's life was even more precarious. But the captain held all the power. He decided who lived and who died — not just among the enslaved, but among his own sailors. If a sailor disobeyed, the captain could flog him, put him in irons, or even maroon him on an island. Lucas: And that power extended to the African coast. When captains went ashore to negotiate with local rulers, they had to walk a fine line. They were dealing with kingdoms like Dahomey, Asante, and the Oyo Empire — powerful states that controlled the supply of captives. A captain who offended a king could lose his cargo, or his life. Luna: Did any captains write about those negotiations? Like, what it was like to sit down with a king or a chief? Lucas: Yes, some did. Captain Thomas Phillips, who commanded the Hannibal in 1693, left a famous account. He describes meeting with the King of Dahomey, who he calls 'a very absolute prince.' There was gift-giving, ritual, and hard bargaining over prices. Phillips writes that the king 'would not suffer any European to have a white hat' because he wanted all the best ones for himself. Luna: So even the captains were part of a larger system where they weren't fully in control. Lucas: Exactly. They were intermediaries between European capital and African power, and they had to navigate both worlds. And when things went wrong — a revolt, a storm, a disease outbreak — they bore the brunt of the blame from investors. Some lost everything. Lucas: One of the most famous examples is Captain John Kimber, who was tried in 1792 for the murder of a 15-year-old enslaved girl. He was accused of flogging her to death because she refused to eat. The case was publicized by William Wilberforce and the abolitionist movement, but Kimber was acquitted. His reputation was destroyed, though. Luna: So the courts were reluctant to convict a captain for violence against enslaved people, even when it was extreme. Lucas: Exactly. The legal system treated the enslaved as property, and a captain's right to discipline his cargo was almost absolute. The only time it became a crime was if it threatened the profit of the venture — like the Zong case, where the issue was insurance fraud, not murder. Lucas: And that's the dark core of it. The slave trade was a business, and the captain was its most important employee. He had to be ruthless, meticulous, and adaptable. And when he succeeded, he was rewarded. When he failed, he was ruined. But the human cost — the millions of lives destroyed — was just an externality. Luna: So when we think about the captains, we're really thinking about how ordinary people become complicit in extraordinary evil. Lucas: Yeah. And that's a thread worth pulling on. Next time, I want to look at the surgeons on slave ships — the men responsible for keeping the 'cargo' alive for sale. They had a very different perspective. Luna: I'm already dreading it. But let's do it.