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The Mixed Commissions for the Suppression of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in the Nineteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Leslie Bethell
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Extract

As a contribution to the history of Britain's campaign for the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in the nineteenth century this article examines, first, the creation of various mixed commissions for the adjudication of vessels captured on suspicion of trading in slaves after the trade had been declared illegal; secondly, the composition of these mixed commissions and the way in which they functioned, with special reference to the several commissions sitting in Sierra Leone which for 25 years dealt with the majority of captured slave vessels; and thirdly, the reasons why after 1839, and especially after 1845, captured ships were increasingly taken before British vice-admiralty courts with the result that the mixed commissions were gradually allowed to run down, although most of them were not abolished until the Atlantic slave trade had been finally suppressed.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , March 1966 , pp. 79 - 93
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1966

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References

1 This article is based primarily, but not exclusively, on research in the Foreign Office records at the Public Record Office, London. The Slave Trade series (F.O. 84), a rich and little used source, includes correspondence to and from British commissioners in the various mixed courts, judges in British vice-admiralty courts and naval officers on the West African, Cape and South American stations, besides a great deal of diplomatic correspondence. In addition, there are the archives of the Freetown mixed court (F.O. 315), the Cape mixed court (F.O. 312) and the Spanish Town mixed court (F.O. 314), and sections from the archives of the Havana mixed court (F.O. 313) and the Rio de Janeiro mixed court (F.O. I28, 129, 131).Google Scholar

2 See, for example, Coupland, R., The British Anti-Slavery Movement, 2nd ed. (London, 1964), 151–60.Google Scholar

3 This view was stated in its classic form on 15 December 1817 by Sir William Scott (later Lord Stowell), Judge of the High Court of Admiralty and a notable authority on international maritime law, in the case of the French ship Le Louis. See Dodson, J., Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the High Court of Admiralty, II (London, 1828), 236–64.Google Scholar

4 British and Foreign State Papers (B.F.S.P.), IV, 85–115; IV, 33–68; V, 525–43. Sweden had abolished the slave trade in 1813 and in November 1824 Britain and Sweden also signed a right of search treaty, but, since the slave trade was no longer carried on under the Swedish flag, it was felt unnecessary to establish any Anglo-Swedish mixed commissions.Google Scholar

5 In Britain the Foreign Office was responsible for the mixed commissions. The British commissioners in Sierra Leone, who were rightly expected to deal with the bulk of the captured vessels, were initially offered unusually generous salaries: the commissary judge received £3,000 per annum (which should be compared with the Governor's salary of £2,000), the commissioner of arbitration £2,000 and the registrar £1,000, plus outfit allowances and pensions after only six years service in each case. Elsewhere salaries were also attractvie compared with those in the colonial service: the commissioners in Rio de Janeiro, for instance, received £1,500 and £1,000 respectively. In the early thirties all salaries were slightly reduced. See The Contingent Expenses of the Mixed Courts 1824–43, F.O. 96 (Cabinet and Slave Trade memoranda)/34; Slave Trade Estimates 1846–64, F.O. 84/1234; Account of the amount paid for salaries and incidental expenses for the commissions…up to January 1842, Parliamentary Papers, XLIV (1842), 426. For health reasons alone long spells of leave were necessary from all four courts; salaries and pensions were adjusted according to the time actually spent on duty.Google Scholar

6 John Tasker Williams, August 1826;Google ScholarDaniel Malloy Hamilton, December 1826;Google ScholarWalter William Lewis, January 1842;Google ScholarGeorge Skelton, May 1865.Google Scholar

7 For the Fernando Po scheme, see Dike, K. Onwuka, Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta, 1830–85 (Oxford, 1956), 55–60;Google ScholarFyfe, Christopher, A History of Sierra Leone (London, 1962), 165, 175, 178, 187–8.Google Scholar For the housing of the mixed court in Freetown, see Fyfe, 143, 198, 216, 302–3.Google Scholar

8 B.F.S.P. XIV, 609–12.Google Scholar

9 In 1823 the Brazilian government had agreed to abide by the Anglo-Portuguese antislave trade treaties of 1815 and 1817, signed when Brazil formed part of the Portuguese empire (Hayne and Cunningham, commissioners in Rio de Janeiro, to Canning, Foreign Secretary, 5 March, 28 March 1823, F.O. 84/23). The Anglo-Portuguese commission in Rio de Janeiro became an Anglo-Brazilian commission although in the period up to 1828 only one case came before it. No new Anglo-Portuguese commission was created to replace it.Google Scholar

10 Mello Mattos to Aberdeen, Foreign Secretary, October 1830, F.O. 84/111.Google Scholar

11 Palmerston to Mello Mattos, 10 December 1830, F.O. 83/111, and 16 August 1831, F.O. 84/122, the latter based on Law Officers to Palmerston, 28 July 1831, F.O. 83 (Great Britain and General)/2345; separate article to the Convention of 1817, 11 September 1817, B.F.S.P. IV, 115–26.Google Scholar

12 30 November 1831, B.F.S.P. XVIII, 641–4.Google Scholar

13 See King, James F., ‘The Latin American Republics and the suppression of the slave trade’. Hispanic Am. Hist. Rev. XXIV (1944), 387–411. Only the treaty with the Argentine Confederation was ratified immediately.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Ibid. 411.

15 Lloyd, Christopher, The Navy and the Slave Trade (London, 1949), 67–8. The West African coast was to remain an independent command for fifty years, except for the years 1832–39 and 1857–60 when it was combined with the Cape Station (see Lloyd, Appendix D). The British preventive squadron never took more than a small proportion of the slave ships which annually crossed the Atlantic to Cuba and Brazil but, in view of the size of the squadron (prior to 1840 there were never more than eight ships stationed along the entire West African coastline, see Lloyd, Appendix C), the poor quality of most of the ships, the severe limitations imposed upon their activities by the treaties, and the ingenuity of the slave traders, it is remarkable that the squadron captured as many slave ships as it did.Google Scholar

16 Figures calculated from the annual reports sent to the Foreign Office in London by British commissioners in Sierra Leone, Havana, Rio de Janeiro and Surinam.Google Scholar

17 Campbell and Lewis, commissioners in Freetown, to Palmerston, General no. 4, 5 January 1837, F.O. 84/212;Google ScholarMacaulay and Doherty, commissioners in Freetown, General no. 202, 31 December 1839, F.O. 84/273.Google Scholar

18 The Dutch slave trade was finally suppressed in the late twenties. Only one Dutch ship—the barque Jane in 1862—was brought into Sierra Leone after 1829.Google Scholar

19 Jackson and Grigg to Palmerston, no. 21, 24 April 1839, F.O. 84/275.Google Scholar

20 Castlereagh, Foreign Secretary, to H.M. commissioners, 20 February 1819, F.O. 315/1; B.F.S.P. VIII, 25–49. On the basis of Annex B (concerning mixed court procedure) attached to the various right of search treaties, and with the regulations governing procedure in British prize courts to guide them, this memorandum was drawn up by the Law Officers of the Crown together with William Rothery, registrar to the Anglo-Portuguese mixed commission which sat in London from 1819 to 1824 to award compensation to Portuguese slave ships illegally captured by British cruisers during the Napoleonic Wars; it was subsequently approved by Sir William Scott.Google Scholar

21 Slaves normally remained on board throughout the period of adjudication, although at Sierra Leone the sick and dying were sometimes taken ashore. In Rio de Janeiro and Havana, where proceedings in the mixed courts could drag on for weeks, there were often armed attempts from the shore to recapture slaves and rescue crew members held prisoner; the Admiralty eventually sent out two superannuated warships, the Romney to Havana and the Crescent to Rio de Janeiro, to receive slaves and act as floating hospitals and prisons.Google Scholar

22 For example, Daniel Malloy Hamilton, King's Advocate and Chief Justice, then registrar of the court 1819–23 and commissioner of arbitration 1823–26; William Smith, registrar 1825–26, arbitrator 1826–32, judge 1832–35; Walter William Lewis, Secretary of the Colony and Chief Justice, then registrar 1829–35, arbitrator 1835–41, judge 1841–42; Michael Linning Melville, King's Advocate, then registrar 1835–41, arbitrator 1841–42, judge 1842–48.Google Scholar

23 Castlereagh to Thomas Gregory, Britain's first commissary judge in Freetown, 19 February 1819, F.O. 315/1.Google Scholar

24 Anglo-Spanish treaty 10 December 1822, Anglo-Dutch treaty 31 December, 1822, Anglo-Portuguese treaty 15 March 1823, B.F.S.P. XI, 713–14; X, 554–7; XI, 23–6.Google Scholar

25 Hayne and Cunningham to Canning, 5 April 1825, F.O. 84/40.Google Scholar

26 25 January 1823, B.F.S.P. X, 557–61.Google Scholar

27 28 June 1835, B.F.S.P. XXIII, 343–74. In 1833 France, too, had conceded an ‘equipment clause’, but captured French vessels were still to be handed over to French national courts.Google Scholar

28 Jackson and Grigg to Ouseley, chargé d'affaires, 12 January 1839, enclosed in Ouseley to Palmerston, no. 4, 15 January 1839, F.O. 84/185;Google ScholarJackson and Grigg to Palmerston, no. 8, 22 January 1839, F.O. 84/275;Google ScholarMacaulay and Doherty to Palmerston, Brazil no. 105, 2 September 1839, F.O. 84/271;Google ScholarTucker (senior naval officer on the West African coast) to Macaulay, 25 July and 18 October 1839, Bidwell (registrar) to Tucker, 14 September 1839, enclosed in Macaulay and Doherty to Palmerston, General no. 180, 31 December 1839, F.O. 84/273.Google Scholar

29 Fergusson and Melville, commissioners at Freetown, to Aberdeen, Brazil nos. 3 and 10, 13 and 25 January 1842, F.O. 84/391.Google Scholar

30 There was, for example, no Brazilian representative at Freetown July 1836 to February 1838, July 1838 to October 1841, May 1842 to May 1843, November 1843 to June 1844.Google Scholar

31 See Fyfe, Sierra Leone, 195–6.Google Scholar

32 In the late twenties and early thirties, the Black Joke (formerly the Brazilian slave brig Henriquetta) was the most successful cruiser on the West African Station. See Lloyd, Navy and the Slave Trade, 71–3.Google Scholar The Fawn (formerly the Brazilian slaver Carolina, condemned by the mixed court at Rio de Janeiro in 1839) was the first really fast cruiser stationed on the Brazilian coast.

33 During the thirties, the British government tried to persuade other governments to permit condemned vessels to be broken up and sold in separate lots. Portugal and Brazil both rejected this suggestion, but a ‘break-up clause’ was inserted into the Anglo-Spanish treaty of 1835; the shore east of Susan's Bay in Freetown where Spanish slavers were later dismantled before sale is still called Destruction Bay (Fyfe, Sierra Leone, 197).Google Scholar

34 At Rio de Janeiro, Havana and Surinam the contingent expenses of the courts were shared equally; at Freetown Britain paid two-sixths, and Portugal, Spain, Brazil and the Netherlands one-sixth each.Google Scholar

35 For the long dispute over the condition of these emancipados see, for example, Christie, W. D., Notes on Brazilian Questions (London, 1865).Google Scholar

36 See Fyfe, Sierra Leone, 138–9.Google Scholar The Liberated African establishments were severely curtailed after 1843 (ibid. 229–30).

37 Palmerston to Hamilton, Minister in Rio de Janeiro, no. 6, 30 November 1837, F.O. 84/223.Google ScholarAlso Palmerston to Howard de Walden, Minister in Lisbon, no. 4, 3 March, no. 6, 24 March 1838, F. O. 84/248, and 10 February, 24 March, 7 April 1838, private, Broadlands MSS.Google Scholar (I have to thank Admiral of the Fleet, the Earl Mountbatten of Burma, for permission to use the Palmerston papers.) (Hansard's Parliamentary Debates 3rd series, XLII, 1150–1, 10 May 1838).Google Scholar

38 2 and 3 Vict. Cap. 73. On the origins of the Palmerston Act, see my article, ‘Britain, Portugal and the suppression of the Brazilian slave trade: the origins of Lord Palmerston's Act of 1839’, English Hist. Rev. LXXX (1965), 761–784.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 Minto to Palmerston, 19 April 1839, private, Broadlands MSS.Google Scholar

40 List of captures adjudicated at St Helena, 1840–45, F.O. 84/748; list of captures adjudicated in the Cape vice-admiralty court, August 1839 to September 1849, F.O. 84/824; list of adjudications in the Freetown vice-admiralty court, 1840–44, enclosed in Melville to Bandinel, Superintendent of the Slave Trade Department at the Foreign Office, 1 January 1845, F.O. 84/556.Google Scholar

41 Anglo-Portuguese treaty of 3 July 1842, B.F.S.P. XXX, 527–81; Portuguese decree of 25 July 1842, B.F.S.P. xxxi, 450.Google Scholar

42 Three vessels were taken to the Cape 1843–44 (Frere and Surtees to Aberdeen, no. 2, 1 January 1845, F.O. 84/514, no. I, 1 January 1845, F. O. 84/566)Google Scholar and fifteen were taken to Luanda 1844–45 (Gabriel to Aberdeen, no. 61, 31 December 1845, F.O. 84/572), but very few subsequently.Google Scholar

43 2 March 1845, B.F.S.P. XXXIV, 577–80; see Aimes, H. H. S., A History of Slavery in Cuba, 1511–1868 (New York, 1907), 567–8.Google Scholar

44 Ferreira França, Brazilian Minister of Foreign Affairs, to Hamilton, 12 March, enclosed in Hamilton to Aberdeen, no. 8, 22 March 1845, F.O. 84/581. The Anglo-Brazilian commissions ceased to function on 13 September at the end of the six month period allowed for the adjudication of Brazilian vessels captured before 13 March.Google Scholar

45 Aberdeen to Peel, 18 October 1844, Peel Papers, British Museum, 40454; memorandum on the present position of Brazil as regards the slave-trade treaties with Great Britain compared with that of Portugal in 1839, 11 November 1844, F.O. 96/29;Google ScholarAberdeen to Hamilton, 4 December 1844, Aberdeen Papers, British Museum, 43124.Google Scholar

46 8 and 9 Vict. Cap. 122.Google Scholar

47 See Lloyd, , Navy and the Slave Trade, 101 and Appendix C.Google Scholar

48 The future of these two commissions had first been discussed in 1847 (memorandum, October 5847, F.O. 97/430). They were finally closed on 30 September 1851. The British government allowed the other commissions gradually to run down. At Havana, for instance, no British arbitrator was appointed after 1847 and no judge after 1855; the consulgeneral was instructed to assume their duties should the need arise. At Sierra Leone no commissary judge was appointed from 1848 until 1859 when George Skelton, the commissioner of arbitration, was finally promoted (though with a salary of only £1,500); the post of arbitrator then went unfilled. After Skelton's death in 1865 the Governor and Commander-in-Chief in the British settlements of West Africa was appointed commissary judge, but he was not expected to attend the court except in the unlikely event of a case coming before one of the mixed commissions (Clarendon, Foreign Secretary, to Blackall, 23 February 1866, F.O. 315/11). William Smith Jr., the registrar, was paid an additional £250 a year in order that the Governor might be relieved of all the routine work of the court. Smith, son of a former commissary judge and a Fanti mother, held the record for long service in the mixed court at Sierra Leone. He rose from second to first clerk in the registrar's office and then from third to first clerk in the office of the commissioner between 1833 and 1850; he was then registrar from 1850 until his retirement in 1871.Google Scholar

49 7 April 1862, Hertslet, Lewis, Complete Collection of Treaties and Conventions, XI (London, 1864), 621–34.Google Scholar The American government appointed commissioners to all three courts; the duties of the British commissioners in Freetown and the Cape were duly extended and the British consul in New York was appointed commissary judge there. See Howard, W. S., American Slavers and the Federal Law 1837–62 (Berkeley, 1963), 63–4.Google Scholar

50 The last ship to come before the mixed court in Sierra Leone was the Spanish vessel America, condemned by the Anglo-Spanish commission in 1864 after the British arbitrator had been called upon to cast the deciding vote. The last ship to be taken before any mixed court was the Portuguese vessel Dahomey, captured in the mouth of the Congo by the British steamer Espoir in March 1866 and taken to the Anglo-Portuguese court in Luanda; it was acquitted in June after Portuguese arbitration.Google Scholar

51 Figanière e Morão to Clarendon, 22 June 1869, B.F.S.P. LX, 592.Google Scholar

52 The Anglo-Portuguese commissions at Luanda and the Cape were suspended from 30 June 1870 and finally abolished by Convention in 1872. In June 1870 Britain and the United States signed a Convention abolishing the Anglo-American Commissions at Freetown, the Cape and New York from 30 September 1870. The other remaining commissions also ceased to function, if they had not already done so, but were not formally dissolved until later in the century. The British government decided, for example, that it was still not expedient finally to abolish the Anglo-Spanish commissions since, unlike the United States and Portugal, Spain had not yet entirely abolished slavery (Viscount Enfield to Rances, Spanish minister in London, 26 April, 10 May 1871, B.F.S.P. LXII, 1033–4).Google Scholar

53 Smith, the registrar, was retired, and the duties of commissary judge were transferred to the colony's Chief Justice, who was given an annual allowance of £50 for clerical assistance and 5 guineas a day should he have to adjudicate a case (Granville, Foreign Secretary, to Kennedy, Governor, no. 3, 6 April 1871, F.O. 84/1342).Google Scholar

54 Memorandum on the Sierra Leone archives, October 1871, F.O. 84/1342.Google Scholar