Black Sam - Prince of Pirates

Forty-Three - THE SLAVE TRADE

Forty - Three - THE SLAVE TRADE

February 1717

The African slave port Ouidah was alive and bustling with activity as usual. Men who dabbled in this trade found it to be very lucrative; some even created small empires based solely on human trafficking, specifically, but not exclusively, in Africa.

Captain Lawrence Prince finished the first leg of his maiden voyage in the technologically advanced ship built specifically for the slave trade, The Whydah Gally. She was fast, maneuverable, and by arming her with the latest in weaponry, well protected against warships and pirates.

Prince was welcomed into port like a king. He had never been here before but he assumed that his ship gave off a certain kind of impression. The Royal African Trade Company sent men with Prince to handle the business dealings of the trade. His opinion was that they sent these company men to protect their investment. They didn’t trust him.

In the not so distant past, Prince kept company with men like Captain Henry Morgan and Captain John Morris: pirates who worked for Governor Modyford of Jamaica. The British government sent Thomas Lynch to arrest Modyford and take his place as Governor of Jamaica. Lynch assigned Prince as his lieutenant in a move made to avoid conflict with Morgan and Morris. Prince did well in Jamaica but longed to get back out to sea. Now he was captain of the fastest, most powerful merchant ship in the Caribbean.

He did not like having an escort; he saw it as another slap in the face. He decided that he would lose Cyprian somewhere on his way to the Caribbean. The company men would do the trading of goods for slaves, but Prince wanted to be as involved as he could. He wanted future ventures to be without the need of company men. Therefore, he would observe and learn.

The trade market was actually just an open piece of land with several large holding facilities laid out in a large half circle. On the opposite end, finishing the circle, were the companies who were there to purchase and trade for slaves. Prince stood behind the company men as a group of slaves were ushered from their cells to the middle of this circle. Their escorts tied each one of them to a separate pole that protruded out of the ground.

Among this group were three children who cried as they looked towards a man and a woman who were in the same group. The two adults struggled in their chains as if to try to get free and console the children, but men with whips silenced them all. A man of African descent dressed in civilized clothes stood and walked around the slaves, slapping the side of one male as if he were a side of beef.

“This one.” The man said slapping the male again. “He has many years left as a hard laborer.” The male slave spit in the civilized man’s face and yelled in his native language. The civilized man took out a handkerchief and wiped his face clean. He smiled and then looked at the woman right next to the man. “This one will prove her value in the home. Cooking, cleaning, whatever the woman of the house will have her do. Or the man of the house for that matter,” he said cupping one of her breasts and looked at the male slave who was writhing in his restraints and screaming out.

The crowd laughed.

The civilized man motioned to one of the guards. He held a coiled whip, and let the length of it fall to the ground. With one strike, he cracked the whip across the male slave’s side. The male slave screamed out through clenched teeth. His eyes, red and flowing with tears, clamped shut.

The civilized man raised up his hand to stop the whip from going again. The male slave was no longer screaming, just breathed heavily.

“As you can see they are easily put back in line,” the civilized man said with a smile back on his face. “The young ones there, well they can be trained up to be just about anything you wish them to be. Together or individually this lot is a bargain at any price.”

Another man walked around and hung small thin boards with numbers burned into them around the necks of each person tied to a post.

One of Prince’s company men wrote down all five numbers, while the slaves were untied from their posts and taken back to the holding cells. The guards ushered out another group of slaves to the poles, this time they were all male. One of the men broke the rope that bound his hands together, grabbed the civilized man around the neck, and took his dagger from around his waist. When a man from the crowd stepped forward to help, the slave put the dagger to the civilized man’s throat.

He moved closer to another one of the bound slaves and spoke in his native tongue. The man turned around the pole so his ropes were facing out and the other cut his bands with the dagger. The newly freed man was untying another bound slave when a thunderous shot rang out. A guard stood with his pistol still raised and smoking. The slave holding the civilized man at knifepoint, now laid dead. The second freed slave stood in shock, his face splattered with the blood of his fellow. Guards grabbed him and tied him back up.

Men dragged the lifeless body out of the arena and threw it into a nearby mire, where hungry pigs went to work.

Prince’s stomach turned at the sight. He had seen many things in his life, but none so disgusting as this. He had slaves on his plantation in Jamaica, but he never treated them with such disdain as these men did today. They were merely a product set out for sale, nothing more. Africans selling other Africans to the English and French.

Another slave filled the empty spot. Business continued as if nothing had happened. Prince looked around him and saw smiles on the men’s faces, as if this was entertainment to them. The civilized African slapped and prodded them. Prince could no longer watch. He quietly backed out of the crowd.

***

Captain Prince watched from the bow of his ship as the company men loaded the slaves into the cargo hold. According to his calculations, there were roughly three hundred men, women, and children tied up, and herded like animals. Prince wondered how he would fit them all and was amazed and horrified when the last one entered the ship. They must be stacked on top of each other down there. Prince shook the thought from his mind.

The company men did very well in their business dealings. They had traded for all the slaves they wanted and the slave ranchers awarded them with two free slaves for their long-standing business relationship with the Royal African Trade Company. The company men wanted to stay and celebrate, but that was not on Prince’s agenda. The faster he got these slaves to their destination, the better their chances of survival. Therefore, it was off to the West Indies with Cyprian on his tail.