This article is about the period from 1808–1856, 1866. For the succeeding article Cape of Good Hope and West Africa Station (1857–1865, 1867–1920), see Cape of Good Hope Station. For the succeeding article (1942–1945), see West Africa Station.
Further information on diplomatic efforts by the United Kingdom to end the slave trade: Blockade of Africa
West Africa Squadron
HMS Black Joke and prizes (clockwise from top left) Providentia, Vengador, Presidenta, Marianna, El Almirante, and El Hassey
Active
1808–1867
Country
United Kingdom
Branch
Royal Navy
Type
Fleet
Role
Suppression of the Slave Trade, from Cape Verde to Beguela
v
t
e
Slave Trade suppression
Abolitionism
Blockade of Africa
West Africa Squadron (U.K.)
African Slave Trade Patrol (U.S.)
Africa Squadron (U.S.)
Brazil Squadron (U.S.)
Slave Trade Acts
Capture of the Providentia
Capture of the Presidente
Capture of the El Almirante
Capture of the Marinerito
Capture of the Veloz Passagera
Capture of the Brillante
Creole case
La Amistad Incident
Capture of the Emanuela
Bombardment of Johanna
Mary Carver Affair
Edward Barley Incident
Battle of Little Bereby
Part of a series on Slavery
Contemporary
Child labour
Child soldiers
Conscription
Debt
Forced marriage
Bride buying
Wife selling
Forced prostitution
Human trafficking
Peonage
Penal labour
Contemporary Africa
21st-century Islamism
Sexual slavery
Wage slavery
Historical
Antiquity
Ancient Rome
Ancient Greece
Asia
Babylonia
Medieval Europe
The Muslim World
Byzantine Empire
Ottoman Empire
Crimean Khanate
Topics and practices
Atlantic slave trade
Middle Passage
Arab slave trade
Ghilman
Mamluk
Saqaliba
Harem
Kafala system
Ottoman slave trade
Circassian beauties
Crimean–Nogai raids
Devshirme
Millet system
Imperial Harem
Odalisque
Barbary slave trade
Barbary corsairs
The Barbary Coast
Turkish Abductions
Aztec
Blackbirding
Coolie
Corvée labor
Field slaves in the United States
House slaves
Kholop
Panyarring
Thrall
Serfs
History
Russia
Slave market
Slave raiding
Child soldiers
Naval
Galley slave
Impressment
Pirates
Shanghaiing
Slave ship
By country or region
Sub-Saharan Africa
Contemporary Africa
Slave Coast
Angola
Chad
Ethiopia
Mali
Mauritania
Niger
Somalia
South Africa
Sudan
Seychelles
North and South America
Americas indigenous
U.S. Natives
Brazil
Lei Áurea
Canada
Caribbean
Barbados
Code Noir
Cuba
Haiti
revolt
Restavek
Latin America
(Encomienda)
Puerto Rico
Trinidad
United States
colonial
maps
female
partus
penal labor
Slave codes
interregional
Human trafficking
Virgin Islands
Central, East, and South Asia
Human trafficking in Southeast Asia
Bhutan
China
Booi Aha
Laogai
India
Debt bondage
Chukri System
Japan
comfort women
South Korea
Yankee princess
North Korea
Vietnam
Australia and Oceania
Blackbirding in Australia
Human trafficking in Australia
Slave raiding in Easter Island
Human trafficking in Papua New Guinea
Blackbirding in Polynesia
Europe and North Asia
Sex trafficking in Europe
Britain
Denmark
Dutch Republic
Germany in World War II
Malta
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
Spain
colonies
Sweden
North Africa and West Asia
Iran
Libya
Human trafficking in the Middle East
Yemen
Religion
Slavery and religion
Bible
Christianity
Catholicism
Mormonism
Islam
21st century
Mukataba
Ma malakat aymanukum
Judaism
Bahá'í Faith
Opposition and resistance
Abolitionism
U.K.
U.S.
Anti-Slavery International
Blockade of Africa
U.K.
U.S.
Colonization
Liberia
Sierra Leone
Compensated emancipation
Freedman
manumission
Freedom suit
Abolitionists
Slave Power
Underground Railroad
songs
Slave rebellion
Slave Trade Acts
International law
Third Servile War
13th Amendment to the United States Constitution
Timeline of abolition of slavery and serfdom
Related
Common law
Indentured servitude
Unfree labour
Fugitive slaves
laws
Great Dismal Swamp maroons
List of slaves
owners
Slave narrative
films
songs
Slave name
Slave catcher
Slave patrol
Slave Route Project
Treatment in U.S.
breeding
court cases
Washington
Jefferson
Adams
Lincoln
40 acres
Freedmen's Bureau
bit
Emancipation Day
v
t
e
The Royal Navy established the West Africa Squadron at substantial expense in 1808 after Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act of 1807. The squadron's task was to suppress the Atlantic slave trade by patrolling the coast of West Africa.[1] With a home base at Portsmouth,[2] it began with two small ships, the 32-gun fifth-rate frigate HMS Solebay and the Cruizer-class brig-sloop HMS Derwent. At the height of its operations, the squadron employed a sixth of the Royal Navy fleet and marines. In 1819 the Royal Navy established a West Coast of Africa Station and the West Africa Squadron became known as the (Preventative Squadron) [3] it remained an independent command until 1856 and then again 1866 to 1867.
Between 1808 and 1860 the West Africa Squadron captured 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans.[1]
Contents
1History
2Administration of West Africa squadron
2.1Senior Officer, West Africa Squadron (1808-1818)
3Administration of West Coast of Africa Station
3.1Commodore, West Coast of Africa Station, (1818-1832)
3.2Commodore/Senior Officer, on the West Coast of Africa Station (1841-1867)
4See also
5References
6Further reading
7External links
History[edit]
On 25 March 1807 Britain formally abolished the Slave Trade, prohibiting British subjects from trading in slaves, crewing slave ships, sponsoring slave ships, or fitting out slave ships. The Act also included a clause allowing the seizure of ships without slave cargoes on board but equipped to trade in slaves. In order to enforce this ruling in 1808 the Admiralty dispatched two vessels to police the African Coast. The small British force was empowered, due to the ongoing Napoleonic Wars, to stop any ship bearing the flag of an enemy nation, making suppression activities much easier. Portugal, however, was one of the largest slave trading nations and Britain's ally against France. So in February 1810 under diplomatic pressure, it signed a convention that allowed British ships to police Portuguese shipping, meaning Portugal could only trade in slaves from its own African possessions.
The letter of marque Dart, a private vessel chasing slavers to profit from the capture of slave ships and the bounties the British government paid for freed slaves, made the first captures under the 1810 convention. Dart, and in 1813 another letter of marque, (Kitty), were the only two vessels to pursue slavers for profit, and thus augment the efforts of the West Africa Squadron. The lack of private initiatives, and their short duration, suggest that they were not profitable.
With the ending of the Napoleonic Wars, Viscount Castlereagh had ensured a declaration against slavery appeared in the text of the Congress of Vienna, committing all signatories to the eventual abolition of the trade. In 1814, France agreed to cease trading, and Spain in 1817 agreed to cease North of the equator, adding to the mandate of the Squadron. Unfortunately, early treaties against slave trading with foreign powers were often very weak and in practice meant that until 1835 the Squadron could seize vessels only if slaves were found on board at the time of capture. This meant the squadron could not interfere with vessels clearly equipped for the trade but without a cargo.[4] Occasionally, slavers being pursued would throw their captives overboard in an attempt to avoid prosecution.[5]
In order to prosecute captured vessels and thereby allow the Navy to claim its prizes, a series of courts were established along the African Coast. In 1807, a Vice Admiralty Court was established in Freetown, Sierra Leone. In 1817, several Mixed Commission Courts were established, replacing the Vice Admiralty Court in Freetown. These Mixed Commission Courts had officials from both Britain and foreign powers, with Anglo-Portuguese, Anglo-Spanish, and Anglo-Dutch courts being established in Sierra Leone.
Far from the Pax Britannica style policing of the 1840s and 1850s, early efforts to suppress the slave trade were often ineffectual due to a desire to keep on good terms with other European powers. The actions of the West Africa Squadron were "strictly Governed"[6] by the treaties, and officers could be punished for overstepping their authority.
Commodore Sir George Ralph Collier, with the 36-gun HMS Creole as his flagship, was the first Commodore of the West Africa Squadron. On 19 September 1818, the navy sent him to the Gulf of Guinea with the orders: "You are to use every means in your power to prevent a continuance of the traffic in slaves."[7] However, he had only six ships with which to patrol over 5,000 kilometres (3,000 mi) of coast. He served from 1818 to 1821.
In 1819, the Royal Navy created a naval station in West Africa at Freetown. This was the capital of the first British colony in West Africa, Sierra Leone. Most of the enslaved Africans freed by the squadron chose to settle in Sierra Leone as for fear of otherwise being re-enslaved.[1] From 1821, the squadron also used Ascension Island as a supply depot,[8] before this moved to Cape Town in 1832.[9]
As the Royal Navy began interdicting slave ships, the slavers responded by adopting faster ships, particularly Baltimore clippers. At first, the Royal Navy was often unable to catch these ships. However, when the Royal Navy started to use captured slaver clippers and new faster ships from Britain the Royal Navy regained the upper hand. One of the most successful ships of the West Africa Squadron was one such captured ship, renamed HMS Black Joke. She successfully caught 11 slavers in one year.
By the 1840s, the West Africa Squadron had begun receiving paddle steamers such as HMS Hydra, which proved superior in many ways to the sailing ships they replaced. The steamers were independent of the wind and their shallow draughts meant they could patrol the shallow shores and rivers. In the middle of the 19th century, there were around 25 vessels and 2,000 personnel with a further 1,000 local sailors involved in the effort.[10]
The Royal Navy considered the West Africa Station one of the worst postings due to the high levels of tropical disease. This did however provide Royal Navy surgeons with the experience they would use to effectively fight such diseases, but at a huge cost in lives.
Britain pressed other nations into treaties to give the Royal Navy the right to search their ships for slaves.[11][12] As the 19th century wore on, the Royal Navy also began interdicting slave trading in North Africa, the Middle East, and the Indian Ocean.
The United States Navy assisted the West Africa Squadron, starting in 1820 with HMS Cyane, which the US had captured from the Royal Navy in 1815. Initially the US contribution consisted of a few ships, but eventually the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842 formalised the US contribution into the Africa Squadron.[13][14]
In 1867, the Cape of Good Hope Station absorbed the West Coast of Africa Station .[15] In 1942 during World War Two the West Africa Station was revived as an independent command until 1945.
Administration of West Africa squadron[edit]
Senior Officer, West Africa Squadron (1808-1818)[edit]
Post holders included[16]
Rank
Flag
Name
Term
Senior Officer, West Africa Squadron
1
Captain
Edward Henry
1808-1811
2
Captain
Hon. Frederick Paul Irby
1811-1818
Administration of West Coast of Africa Station[edit]
Commodore, West Coast of Africa Station, (1818-1832)[edit]
Post holders included:[17]
Rank
Flag
Name
Term
Commodore, West Coast of Africa Station
1
Commodore
Sir George Collier
1818-1821
2
Commodore
Sir Robert Mends
1822-1823
3
Commodore
Sir Charles Bullen
1824-1827
4
Commodore
Francis Augustus Collier
1826-1830
5
Commodore
John Hayes
1831
Note West Coast of Africa command is merged with Cape of Good Hope command 1832-1841
Commodore/Senior Officer, on the West Coast of Africa Station (1841-1867)[edit]
Post holders included:[18]
Rank
Flag
Name
Term
Commodore/Senior Officer, on the West Coast of Africa Station
1
Commodore
William Tucker
1841-1842
2
Captain
John Foote
1842-1844
3
Captain
William Jones
1844-1846 (promoted to Commodore during post)
4
Commodore
Charles Hotham
1846-1849
5
Commodore
Arthur Fanshawe
1850-1851
6
Commodore
Henry William Bruce
1851-1854
7
Commodore
John Adams
1854-1856
8
Commodore
Charles Wise
1857-1859
9
Commodore
William Edmonstone
1860-1862
10
Commodore
A. P. Eardley Wilmot CB
1862-1865 [19]
11
Commodore
Geoffrey Thomas Phipps Hornby
1866-1867
Note West Coast of Africa command is abolished and its functions are absorbed by the Cape of Good Hope command from 1867.
^"From slave trade to humanitarian aid". BBC News. 2007-03-19. Retrieved 2007-04-02.
^Lewis-Jones, Huw (17 February 2011). "BBC - History - British History in depth: The Royal Navy and the Battle to End Slavery". BBC History. BBC. Retrieved 21 March 2018.
^Lloyd (1949), The Navy and the Slave Trade, p. 46.
^"Suppressing the trade".
^TNA ADM 2/1328 Standing Orders to Commanders-in-Chief 1818-1823. p. 274.
^Lloyd, Christopher (1968). The Navy and the Slave Trade. Routledge. p. 67. ISBN 978-0-7146-1894-4.
^"Green Mountain". Peter Davis. Retrieved 2007-04-02.
^"West Africa". Peter Davis. Retrieved 2007-04-02.
^Lewis-Jones, Huw, "The Royal Navy and the Battle to End Slavery", BBC History, 17 February 2011..
^Falola, Toyin; Warnock, Amanda (2007). Encyclopedia of the middle passage. Greenwood Press. pp. xxi, xxxiii–xxxiv. ISBN 9780313334801.
^"The legal and diplomatic background to the seizure of foreign vessels by the Royal Navy". Peter Davis.
^Falola, Toyin; Amanda Warnock (2007). Encyclopedia of the Middle Passage. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 113. ISBN 978-0-313-33480-1.
^Lovejoy, Paul E. (2000). Transformations in slavery. Cambridge University Press. p. 292. ISBN 978-0-521-78430-6.
^"West Africa Squadron". William Loney. Retrieved 28 December 2014.
^Lloyd, Christopher (1968). Navy and the Slave Trade. [S.l.]: F. Cass. ISBN 9780714618944.
^Lloyd, Christopher (1968). Navy and the Slave Trade. [S.l.]: F. Cass. ISBN 9780714618944.
^Lloyd, Christopher (1968). Navy and the Slave Trade. [S.l.]: F. Cass. ISBN 9780714618944.
^Archives, The National. "Commodore A. P. Eardley Wilmot CB Commanding West Coast of Africa". discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk. The National Archives, 1862 - 1865, ADM 50/294. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
Further reading[edit]
Chasing Freedom: The Royal Navy and the Suppression of the Transatlantic Slave Trade
The West African Squadron and slave trade
BBC News - "10 things about British slavery"
Hochschild, Adam. Bury the Chains: The British Struggle to Abolish Slavery. (London: Macmillan, 2005),
ISBN 0-333-90491-5
Lloyd, Christopher. The Navy and the Slave Trade: The Suppression of the African Slave Trade in the Nineteenth Century. (Cass library of African studies, no. 4. London: Cass, 1968), OCLC: 177145
External links[edit]
v
t
e
Admiralty Department
Direction and control of Admiralty and Naval affairs
Office of First Lord of the Admiralty and President of the Board of Admiralty
Lord High Admirals Council
Boards and offices under the First Lord
Board of Admiralty
Navy Board
Office of the Naval Secretary
Office of the First Naval Lord
Office of the First Sea Lord
Office of the Senior Naval Lord
Office of the Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty
Office of the Permanent Secretary to the Admiralty
Office of the Private Secretary to the First Lord of the Admiralty
Direction of Admirals Naval/Sea Lords War and Naval Staff
Office of the Senior Naval Lord
Office of the First Naval Lord
Office of the First Sea Lord
Secretariat and staff under the First Sea Lord
Office of the Naval Assistant to the First Sea Lord
Office of the Additional Naval Assistant to the First Sea Lord
Florida Star v. B. J. F. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search United States Supreme Court case Florida Star v. B. J. F. Supreme Court of the United States Argued March 21, 1989 Decided June 21, 1989 Full case name The Florida Star v. B. J. F. Citations 491 U.S. 524 ( more ) 109 S. Ct. 2603; 105 L. Ed. 2d 443; 1989 U.S. LEXIS 3120; 57 U.S.L.W. 4816; 16 Media L. Rep. 1801 Prior history The Florida Star v. B.J.F., 530 So.2d 286 (1988) Supreme Court of Florida; Florida Star v. B.J.F., 499 So.2d 883 (1986) Fla. Dist. Court of Appeals Holding Florida Stat. § 794.03 is unconstitutional to the extent it makes the truthful reporting of information that was a matter of public record unlawful, as it violates the First Amendment. Court membership Chief Justice William Rehnquist Associate Justices William J. Brennan Jr. · Byron White Thurgood Marshall · Harry Blac...
Danny Elfman From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search Danny Elfman Elfman at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con Born Daniel Robert Elfman ( 1953-05-29 ) May 29, 1953 (age 65) Los Angeles, California, U.S. Spouse(s) Bridget Fonda ( m. 2003) Children 1 Musical career Genres Rock [1] ska [2] new wave film music video game music Occupation(s) Composer, singer, songwriter, record producer Instruments Trombone guitar percussion vocals keyboards [3] Years active 1972–present Associated acts Oingo Boingo James Newton Howard Daniel Robert Elfman (born May 29, 1953) is an American composer, singer, songwriter, and record producer. Elfman first became known for being the lead singer and songwriter for the band Oingo Boingo from 1974 to 1995. He is well known for scoring films and television shows, particularly his frequent collabora...
Unincorporated community in Oklahoma, United States Lugert, Oklahoma Unincorporated community Foundations from the town of Lugert at the bottom of Lake Altus-Lugert Lugert, Oklahoma Location within the state of Oklahoma Coordinates: 34°53′45″N 99°16′31″W / 34.89583°N 99.27528°W / 34.89583; -99.27528 Coordinates: 34°53′45″N 99°16′31″W / 34.89583°N 99.27528°W / 34.89583; -99.27528 Country United States State Oklahoma County Kiowa Time zone UTC-6 (Central (CST)) • Summer (DST) UTC-5 (CDT) GNIS feature ID 1100597 Lugert is an unincorporated community in Kiowa County, Oklahoma. [1] The town of Lugert was founded in 1901 on 80 acres (320,000 m 2 ). In the town, there was a general store that housed the Post office and sold dry goods, school supplies, groceries, harnesses, axes and much more. It was named for Frank Lugert, who had moved to the area in 1898. Lugert owned land where the town was sited and also owned the general st...