CHAPTER X

PRIVATEERS, PIRATES, AND SLAVERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

When seen in its true light, one of the most curious and interesting chapters in the history of the American merchant marine is that relating to the men who, having the might, used it to take from those who were weaker not only property but liberty and life; but the reader who supposes that superior ability, natural or acquired, gives him the _right_ to take more of the good things of life than his less-favored neighbor receives, will scarcely comprehend the facts.

The fighting done by the American merchantmen who were commissioned as privateers during the War of 1812 has been well described by our histories of the navy, but the story of one battle is worth recalling briefly because it may well stand in some respects for the story of the entire fleet. On March 26, 1815, the privateer schooner _General Armstrong_, Captain Samuel Chester Reid, anchored in Fayal Roads, in the Azores. As night came on, a British squadron, bound for New Orleans, came into the roads, and on seeing the _Armstrong_, sent four boats full of men to capture her. A well-directed broadside from the privateer sent them in haste back to their ships, but a little after midnight the enemy came again in twelve boats, carrying more than 400 men. Each boat was armed with a cannon. The _Armstrong_ had 90 men, and she mounted a long 24-pounder on a pivot with four 9-pounders in each broadside.

When the flotilla came within point-blank range, Captain Reid opened a fire that would have beaten back any other civilized enemy, but this veteran host pulled steadily in until the boats were alongside from stem to stern, and then they rose up, as one man, and strove to board the low-lying schooner. But with sword and pike and battle-axe the privateersmen fought not only for life but to avenge the wrongs that had been suffered by American seamen at the hands of press-gangs, and even British valor could not face them. One of the defeated wrote that the "Americans fought more like blood-thirsty savages than anything else." We may believe that they were thrilled with the joy of battle, and if a modern, peace-loving American is ever permitted to envy any of his countrymen who have had part in any battle described in the histories of the nation, the men of the _General Armstrong_ will come to his mind first of all. But a liner, a frigate, and a brig were at hand to back the boats, and at last Reid had to burn his ship.

The gallant fight and the ultimate loss stand for much good fighting without profit in the work of our private armed ships during the War of 1812. Our histories, almost without exception, have overstated the success of the privateers and their influence upon the course of the war. A few of these ships--a very few--made enormous profits; the others made insignificant gains or actual losses. Our histories laud the work of the few that really succeeded; they ignore all that failed, save only as the reader is left to infer that all, or nearly all, did well. Thus the fact that the _Rossie_, of Baltimore, Captain Joshua Barney, in a single cruise, captured vessels supposed to be worth more than $1,500,000 is told in every history; the equally well-authenticated fact that Barney's share of the plunder amounted to only $1000 (see Mary Barney's _Memoir_), because the much-vaunted prizes were either destroyed at sea, or were sold for little or nothing in port,--this fact is deliberately omitted.

In the matter of net gains the _Rossie_ stands as a type of the successful privateers, with a few exceptions. On November 23, 1812, less than six months after war was declared, and while the successful privateers were securing the best of their prizes, the privateer owners of Boston, New York, and Norfolk united in a petition to Congress, begging help through legislation because captured goods sold for such low prices that no profit was made by even the successful privateers. The captured ships, it was said, could not be sold at any price, even when fit for use as privateers. In short, "the profits of private naval warfare are by no means equivalent to the hazard." (Rep. Com. Ways and Means, December 12, p. 3.)

In Guernsey's _New York City During the War of 1812_ is a list of the privateers sailing from that city--120 in all. Of these, 57 took not one prize. It is to be presumed that 21 of them made some money, because they took at least 5 prizes, while 7 took at least 15, and it may be supposed that they did well. But when it is remembered that in those days a ship commonly paid for herself in one voyage in ordinary trade, it cannot be said that privateering was of any special benefit except to three or four that took many prizes.

The total number of merchant ships that were used for privateers during this war was 515, and the total number of prizes was 1345. The British admiralty reported the capture of 1328 American merchantmen, of which 228 were privateers. The unrecorded disasters to privateers through storms certainly brought the number of total losses of these vessels up to a half of all that were commissioned. It is notable, too, that the number of American merchantmen captured by the enemy was only thirteen less than the number taken from the enemy, and it follows that the American losses were greater, in this respect, than those of the British; for the American ships were, on the average, worth much more than the British. On the whole it appears that, if the predatory part of the War of 1812 had any influence upon the result, the Americans were the greater losers.

Then, too, the losses of property were only one part of the injury inflicted upon the country by this kind of war. A consideration of the effect of the prevailing greed for a "subject of safe and uncontested capture" is of special interest here because some of the owners of our privateers, influenced solely by this greed, became pirates after the war ended. The Spanish colonists in America had revolted, beginning in 1810. The insurgent armies were scattered in small bands, here and there, in the vast territory between Texas and the Rio de la Plata, and the leader of every band was a law unto himself. But in every revolted province some aggregation of patriots--some _junta_--was recognized by foreign powers as enough of a government to be entitled to belligerent rights. When the War of 1812 came to an end, the privateers that were loath to give up their predatory career looked away to the Spanish main. The insurgent leaders were competent to commission armed cruisers for war upon Spanish commerce, and rich Spanish ships were afloat.

Some of the work done by American ships sailing under Spanish-American commissions is memorable. Two that were owned in Baltimore brought to Norfolk, in March, 1817, coin and cochineal valued at $290,000, and there is reason to suppose that Captain James Chaytor, who was senior officer of the two, and one of the best known of the men so engaged, brought to port property worth half a million of dollars in the course of that year. One of Chaytor's prizes was a galleon from the Philippines, and it was taken within sight of Cadiz.

Captain Joseph Almeda, of Baltimore, was another noted commander of this class of cruisers. In a vessel named the _Congress_ he blockaded the port of Havana for weeks at a stretch, and took prizes almost within range of the Morro.

For a time the American people applauded the success of these cruisers, because it was supposed that they were aiding struggling patriots to gain liberty. The story of one of the cruisers, as told in court, however, in time changed public opinion. Captain James Barnes, commanding a Baltimore cruiser named the _Puerrydon_, with a commission from Buenos Ayres, captured on March 21, 1818, the Spanish brig _Corrunes_, while she was carrying general merchandise from Tarragona, Spain, to Vera Cruz, Mexico. A prize crew of seven men was placed upon the prize, and five of her Spanish crew were left on board to help work ship. On May 8 a storm separated the two vessels, whereupon the foremast hands upon the prize mutinied, put their officers upon a passing merchantman, and then went cruising along the coast of the United States. They were not bound for any particular port; they were just enjoying life while they might. Eventually they ran ashore on Block Island, and when the inhabitants came to the beach to look at the stranded brig, the mutineers began trading the cargo of the vessel for fresh provisions, and later for coin. The islanders made such good bargains that they sent for friends in Newport to come over and share in the good fortune, but that was an error of judgment, because the revenue officers thereby learned about the trading, and brig, crew, and some of the traders were haled before the United States court.

The trials that followed were among the most remarkable ever reported in the annals of the Supreme Court. Although held in jail on the charge of piracy, the crew libelled the vessel on the ground that they had rescued her from Barnes, whom they denounced as a pirate. Captain Barnes and the other owners sued for the property on the ground that Barnes had captured it while he was a citizen of Buenos Ayres, and in command of a lawful Buenos Ayres cruiser. A Spanish consul sued for it in behalf of the original owners. In the court of last resort it was held, in spite of much perjury, that the naturalization of Barnes in Buenos Ayres was "altogether in fraud of the laws of his own country," and that the owners of the cruiser were asking for the possession of a vessel that they had captured "in violation of the most solemn stipulation of a treaty, and provision of a law of their own country, and of which they had been dispossessed by their own associates in guilt."

"It is a melancholy truth," continued the court, "too well known to this court, that the instruments used in these predatory voyages, carried on under the colors of the South American states, are among the most abandoned and profligate of men."

Under the treaty mentioned, these American-owned cruisers were pirates. How many cruisers of the kind were fitted out from American ports (there were some European ships in the business also) cannot be learned now, but a list of twenty-eight is printed in the Annals of the Fifteenth Congress. The list is incomplete. Most of them were owned in Baltimore, and in 1823 the Columbia, South Carolina, _Telescope_ denounced that city as "the home port of a fleet of Spanish-American pirates." In reply to this, _Niles's Register_, dated May 24, 1823, said:--

"Perhaps it may afford the editor of the _Telescope_ some satisfaction to learn that _every_ person who was fully regarded as being engaged in whatever could have given rise to his censure for piracy has become a bankrupt as well in character as in property."

It is to be noted, further, that these cruisers were not pirates merely by the existence of a treaty with Spain. They captured the ships of all nations when it could be done safely, and sometimes they did this openly. When Almeda was blockading Havana, he seized a British vessel at the mouth of the harbor because she happened to have some Spanish property on board. But the most deplorable cases were those in which the ships were seized by cruisers that had been unlucky. For in such cases the prizes were robbed and then sunk with all hands.

Still another result of the work of these pirates was the establishment of two remarkable communities, one in Texas and the other in Florida, both of which territories were then under the Spanish crown. Both settlements were made to provide a market for the goods which these cruisers captured; for after the decision of the courts noted above, the prizes could be no longer sent to the United States.

The Texas community was established by Jean Lafitte, who had had much experience as a smuggler at Barataria Bay, Louisiana, both before and during the War of 1812. He had also made several cruises on pirate ships--enough to learn that more money could be made buying prizes from the cruisers than in cruising.

Lafitte went to the island where the thriving city of Galveston now stands, late in 1816, and found there a number of shanties which had been built by one Luis de Aury, a pirate who had intended to establish such a nautical "fence" as Lafitte had in mind. But Aury thought the distance from the United States too great, and left the place to Lafitte, who at once sent word to all the ports of the warm seas that he was at the head of "an asylum to the armed vessels of the party of independence." The asylum included facilities for repairing vessels, stores for the sale of supplies, and numerous taverns and other places of resort for the crews. In short, a town--seaport--was built there by capitalists and mechanics, but all paid tribute to Lafitte. As at Barataria, slave-ships were more highly prized than any others because of the ease with which the "goods" could be smuggled into the United States. When General James Long, a noted Texas filibuster, visited the settlement, he found that "doubloons were as plentiful as biscuit," while the harbor was strewn with the wrecks of prizes.

After a time Lafitte went through with the forms of organizing the "Republic of Texas," and elected a governor, who appointed a justice to preside over the court of admiralty that the constitution of the "Republic" had provided. Then cruisers were commissioned and prizes were condemned, but when these condemned prizes were sent to New Orleans, they were seized by the United States authorities, and some of the pirate crews were hanged. Nevertheless, it was not until 1821--after nearly five years of unmolested prosperity--that Lafitte was driven away, and even then he was allowed to carry away all of his portable plunder. To add to the interest of the story, when Lafitte left the island he disappeared forever. Rumor said he was seen in Mexico, and in the thick of a fight at sea, and in France, but the truth is that he had gone to the port of missing ships. When the Luis de Aury mentioned above left Galveston Island, he cruised around for a while, and then, on September 2, 1817, landed on Amelia Island, Florida, where Fernandina now stands. A Scotch adventurer named MacGregor had been trying to build a town there and organize the "Republic of the Two Floridas," but without success. He sailed away when Aury came, and Aury continued the work of nation-building, combined with smuggling goods captured by "the party of independence." He thought the location admirable because of the proximity to the United States, but he soon learned that the convenience due to distance was more than counterbalanced by the attention attracted. Many speculators came to the camp and bought his goods, but the customs officials pressed them closely. Moreover, while Aury supplied the planters with cheap slaves, he was so short-sighted as to encourage Georgia slaves to leave their masters to join his forces. The Georgia planters who suffered losses in this way had no difficulty in persuading the Washington authorities to invade Spanish Florida and drive the pirate away--December 23, 1817. But Aury, like Lafitte, was allowed to carry away his plunder.

The effect of the piracies upon American commerce can be traced in the annual reports of exports and imports. Thus the exports of American products to the Spanish West Indies amounted to $3,606,588 in the fiscal year 1816-1817, while American exports of foreign goods to the same ports reached the sum of $3,477,511. The corresponding figures for 1819-1820 were $3,439,365 of American products and $2,545,717 of American exports of foreign goods. American tonnage fell off, also, of course. The common saying that there is no friendship in business is untrue. American commerce and the use of American ships were increasing in that period at an astonishing rate in all other trades, but Spanish resentment produced a "boycott" that is shown by the official returns.

But this boycott was the mildest form of expression of Spanish resentment. Within a short time after the American-owned cruisers under the Spanish-American flags began ravaging Spanish commerce, the Spaniards retaliated by making reprisals after the fashion common in the sixteenth century. Encouraged by the island authorities, the ship-owners of Cuba fitted out armed vessels to prey upon American commerce. The Cuban pirates were in no case commissioned, but the Porto Rico authorities gave commissions to half a dozen or more. The Cuban pirates, however, worked openly. Regla, a village on the east side of Havana Bay, was the chief pirate port. In November, 1821, eleven Spanish pirate vessels were cruising between Cape Maisi and Santiago, five were working as a squadron at Cape San Antonio, and at least five more were cruising on the north coast east of Matanzas. Between Havana and Matanzas was a flotilla of small boats the crews of which kept constant watch for vessels becalmed in the offing. All such vessels were attacked as soon as night came. Another gang of small-boat pirates operated at Cape Cruz, where they lived in the caves for which the region is noted.

The extent of the depredations of these pirates was never completely known, of course, but in _Niles's Register_ of May 24, 1823, it is stated that 3002 piratical assaults had been committed upon merchant ships in the West Indies since the War of 1812. The "Naval Affairs" volumes of the American State Papers contain many accounts of such assaults, and it appears from these that the pirates not infrequently tortured captured sailors. In March, 1823, the captain and two men of the brig _Alert_, of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, were killed in the mouth of Havana harbor. The captain of the brig _Bellisaurius_, captured near Cape San Antonio, had his arms cut off, after which he was placed on a bed of oakum and burned to death.

The markets of Cuba were frequently flooded with merchandise taken by the pirates, and a number of schooners plied between Cape San Antonio and Regla to carry supplies to the pirate flotilla at work there and bring back captured goods.

The efforts of the Washington authorities to deal with the situation created by the American-owned pirate ships were, as noted, hampered at first by public sympathy for the Spanish-American insurgents. Even after the Spaniards began making reprisals, nothing effective was done until May 15, 1820, when Congress provided for the building of five swift war schooners, a force that was by no means sufficient to cope with the evil. Other ships of the navy were ordered to the region, and these were still further reënforced with a flotilla of small schooners bought in Chesapeake Bay. A number of huge rowboats were built to destroy the pirates operating in small boats near Havana, but the depredations continued; the aid of the Cuban authorities was sufficient to keep the pirates at work. It was not until the independence of the Spanish-American republics was acknowledged, and the Spanish-American privateers thereby lost their commissions, that piracy came to an end in the West Indies.

The last American vessel to suffer at their hands was the _Mexico_, Captain John G. Butman, of Salem. She sailed from home with $20,000 in coin, for Rio Janeiro, on August 29, 1832. On September 20 she was captured by the schooner _Panda_, Captain Pedro Gibert, of Havana. After taking out the coin, Gibert fastened the crew in the forecastle and set the _Mexico_ on fire; but the crew released themselves in time to put out the fire. The _Panda_ was captured later on the coast of Africa, a number of the pirates were sent to Salem for trial, and Pedro Gibert and four others were hanged. It is an interesting fact that two members of the _Mexico's_ crew lived until 1905 and one until 1908. Life at sea agreed well with the New Englanders.

As the facts thus far given show plainly, the slave-trade had intimate relations with the pirates who operated under the Spanish-American flags, and later with those fitted out from Cuba; for the _Panda_ cleared out from Havana for a cargo of slaves. But she carried no trade goods; her clearance for the African coast was merely a cover for the real purpose in view. Still, she might have brought a cargo of slaves to Cuba but for the interference of a British war-ship. But the American slave-trade lasted for thirty years after the captain of the _Panda_ was hanged, and such acts of piracy as his had long been out of fashion in American waters.

By the act of Congress dated March 2, 1807 (it passed the House by a vote of sixty-three to forty-nine), the importations of slaves into the United States after January 1, 1808, was forbidden. The penalties provided included forfeiture of the vessel, and fines, together with imprisonment, for those involved.

As this legislation had been provided for in the Constitution of the nation, the trade in slaves was naturally brisk in the years immediately preceding prohibition. Thus, from January 1, 1804, to December 31, 1807, 202 ships imported 39,075 slaves into the port of Charleston, South Carolina. Of these ships, 61 were registered at Charleston (though generally owned elsewhere), 59 were owned in Rhode Island, from 1 to 4 in each of several other American ports, and 70 in England. While the prospect of prohibition increased the importations at this time beyond the normal, it is evident that a strong demand for slaves existed among slave-owners. The demand was particularly strong in the Mississippi Valley, where the profits on cotton were enormous. This demand naturally raised the price as soon as lawful importations came to an end. At the same time the existence of the American prohibitory law (England prohibited the trade at about the same time, too) depressed the price on the coast of Africa. Thus a premium was placed on smuggling, and 202 ships were afloat that had been engaged in the trade to one port alone.

All this is to say that while the law drove many ships out of the trade, it added much to the profits of those that remained in it.

Because the trade was continued, an effort was made to strengthen the law in 1818 by increasing the emoluments of informers. Then, by the Act of March 3, 1819, Congress authorized the President to use the naval ships to intercept slavers, and finally by the Act of May 15, 1820, all Americans engaging in the trade were declared pirates, who should be hanged on conviction.

One would be glad to believe that these laws were enacted because the American people had become sufficiently enlightened to appreciate the effects of the trade upon the human race, and especially upon the white people connected with it, but it is impossible to do so. The laws were enacted because of a passing wave of sentiment that had its origin in the work of the pirates herein described. In a dim way people saw that a connection existed between some of the pirates and the slave-trade. The slave-trade was held responsible (properly, too) for some of the horrors of the piracies, and while Congress was legislating against the pirates, it was easy to get acts against the trade passed. Moreover, the desire of the slave-owners to rid their States of free negroes was just then giving strength to the movement for sending those negroes to Africa--Liberia. In short, the prohibitory laws were the result of a sort of hysteria rather than of any real enlightenment of the American people. In truth, we are not so enlightened even now as to appreciate our whole duty toward the inferior race--properly a race of children--we brought from Africa.

As said, prohibiting the trade did but increase the profits of those who disregarded the law, but a more memorable result of prohibition was the effect upon the unfortunate victims of the trade--the increase in the horrors of the middle passage. A brief description of the ships used in the trade will help one to understand how the slaves were affected.

The American slave-ships were usually small vessels, say 100 feet or so long, and 10 or 12 deep. On the way to the coast what was called the slave-deck was laid. By means of beams, stanchions, and rough planks a temporary deck was built 3 feet below the regular deck. The naked slaves were placed upon this deck. In the days of the lawful trade they were compelled to lie down on their backs, shoulder to shoulder, with heads outboard in a row all around the slave-deck. Then other rows of the kind were made on the deck inside of the first row until the deck was entirely covered. When the law prohibited the trade, the slavers increased the number carried to the utmost capacity of their vessels, in order to increase the profits and cover the risks. To do this they compelled the negroes to lie down on their sides breast to back,--"spoon fashion,"--or else they were made to sit in rows, breast to back, from the wall of the ship to the centre. When sitting thus, the only air-space between the two decks was that over the rows of shoulders and between the rows of heads. When lying down, the air-space was greater, but whenever the vessel heeled to the wind, those on the lee side had to lie with their feet higher than their heads, and when the vessel rolled to the waves all of them sawed to and fro over the cracks between the unplaned deck boards. Moreover, the slaves were kept fastened to the deck--they were not allowed to leave their cramped berths for any purpose save only at fixed hours, when they were fed and, in small gangs, were taken to the upper deck for a short airing. In storms the washing of the waves across the deck compelled the crew to put on the hatches and keep them on sometimes for days at a stretch.

Meantime the allowance of water was a pint a day. In short, the slave-ship was a horrible floating cesspool. How the inhuman drivers added to the sufferings of the wretched slaves by the use of the whip, and other means of torture, may be suggested by one story.

When the slaver _Brillante_, Captain Homans, with 600 slaves in her hold, was overhauled by British cruisers during a calm, and Homans saw that the boats of the cruisers would soon come to the vessel, he got the anchor in position as if for anchoring the vessel. Then the iron cable was stretched along the rail outside of all and held in place by slender cords. To this chain all the slaves were carefully secured by means of ropes and chains. Then, just before the cruisers' boats came into view (it was at night), the anchor was cast loose and the 600 slaves were dragged down to the bottom of the sea.

To save a vessel worth at most $5000 from confiscation, Homans murdered 600 negroes. The story is told in detail in the _African Repository_, Vol. XXIII, p. 371.

The profits in the trade are shown by the fact that slaves costing from $12 to $20 on the coast of Africa sold for $350, when delivered alive and able to walk, in Cuba. When smuggled into the United States, they sold all the way from $750 to $1000.

Old ships of known speed were in demand. Speed was necessary because the British government maintained cruisers on the coast that captured and confiscated vessels found with slaves actually on board. Our navy department sold the schooner _Enterprise_ (the second of the name) to men in the slave-trade at a small fraction of her value. The swift privateers of the War of 1812 were also bought for the purpose. In later years it was the custom to build swift vessels especially for the trade. Baltimore and New York builders were patronized more than others, New York having the lead in later years. The builders always knew what trade the vessels were to enter, and charged accordingly. No builder ever lost standing in society because he turned out ships for this purpose. In fact, the slave-traders were well known, and they lived among the wealthiest society people of New York--at the Astor House, for instance, where they were in the habit of meeting to arrange the details of their voyages. Public documents show that the most respected merchants of the city were ready to go on the bonds of these slavers, when bonds were required. A New Bedford whale-ship owner who was convicted of fitting out one of his vessels for the trade was afterward elected mayor of his city. Even after the Civil War was begun, a United States district attorney--a man appointed by Lincoln--was seen dining at the leading New York restaurant with a slaver whom he should have been prosecuting at that moment; for while the two ate together, the slaver talked about a slave voyage that he intended to make.

Though American packets had for years controlled the trade between the United States and Europe, and the American clippers were making records that stirred the whole nautical world, the flag from those proud ships was used to cover the reeking slime in the slaver's hold, and it was the only flag that could protect the slaver from inspection on the African coast. These facts were well known, but they roused not a tremor of indignation among the American people, not one, save only in the breasts of a few "fanatics," and the arguments of the fanatics were answered by asking, "How would you like to have your sister marry a nigger?"

The story might well be forgotten--it would have been omitted here but for the fact that the humiliation of it may serve in righting wrongs as yet unheeded, or but partly heeded, which, if less brutal, are born of the same greed and the same disregard for human rights that made the slave-trade possible in the United States until after the middle of the nineteenth century.