The Slave Smuggler's Lie: A Seattle Sailor’s Close Call on the Congo
In a gripping first-person account reprinted in local papers, a young American sailor recounts his terrifying encounter with a slave ship off the coast of Africa, where he nearly fell for a deceitful mate's story to avoid a deadly confrontation.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
While it was agreed between all civilized nations that the slave trade should be put down by force of arms, nine tenths of the work of doing it was left to England. The United States and France made some pretense of assisting, but where one government vessel was on the station three or four private craft, owned and manned by citizens of that government, were running cargoes. The records of captures and of the prize courts will prove that the Americans hung onto the trade after every other people except the Arabs had given up.
Nearly all the so-called Spanish trailers running cargoes to Cuba were owned, equipped and manned by American citizens, and against every craft was armed and prepared for desperate defence. I was for nine years in the Navy, on foreign station, engaged entirely in the work of aiding to suppress the traffic in human flesh, and I know whereof I write.
I went out to the Lower Guinea as a midshipman on board the Meteor... Our mission was three months of the summer... On the very next night of our arrival we were anchored off the river, with a light land breeze blowing and strong watch on deck and on the lookout, when a brig came round the head in the river about half a mile away.
The guns were ordered loaded, the crew mustered instantly, and presently the brig came running along. She was headed to pass us to starboard, and only showed a small crew on her decks. When she was within pistol shot the first lieutenant hailed her, and the answer came back:
'Brig Petrel American—Jackson, master. We are in distress.'
'What's the trouble?'
'Cholera aboard—lost four men—send a boat and a doctor.'
'Do you say cholera?'
'Yes; got it bad. I'll round to and come to anchor, and you send me your surgeon.'
As the brig slowly passed us not over pistol shot away, a smell came to our nostrils which staggered a man as if he had been struck. We were green enough to believe it was the odor of the dread disease, but later on it became familiar as the slave smell. It hangs to a chip like the odor of musk, and the strongest disinfectants are needed to banish it.
From the movements on the stranger deck we were led to believe that he meant to round to, but the first thing we knew he was out to sea and out of sight. We afterward learned that he had 400 blacks aboard.
This excerpt highlights the complex role of American citizens in the transatlantic slave trade, a dark chapter often overshadowed by the domestic abolitionist movement. While Seattle itself was not a hub of this trade, the city's maritime culture and its residents' engagement with global news reflect how deeply interconnected the nation was with these economic and moral crises. The story serves as a reminder of the global scale of human rights abuses and the long, difficult history of international law enforcement.
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