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 balantas taken from the southern rivers area

Excerpt taken from Senegambia and the Atlantic Slave Trade by Boubacar Barry:

“Walter Rodney gives estimates of slaves shipped in the Southern Rivers area, which remained the main market for British, French and Portuguese slave traders operating in Senegambia. From 1754 on, Bissau and Cacheu became the principal entrepots for the large-scale export of slaves, fed by the revival of manhunts and warfare in the hinterland. In 1789, the Southern Rivers easily exported over 4,000 slaves. In 1788, French navel intelligence reports estimated the number of slaves exported by the British at 3,000 from Gambia, 2,000 from Casamance, Cacheu, and Bissau, and 4,000 from Sierra Leone.

The critical evaluation conducted by Jean Mettas on Portuguese commerce at Bissau and Cacheu between 1758 and 1797, under the near-total monopoly of the Companhia General do Grao Para e Maranhao, gives a good idea of Senegambia’s contribution to the development of certain parts of Brazil. The turnover of slaving vessels owned by the C.G.G.P.M. at Cacheu and Bissau was exceptionally rapid. Between 1756 and 1778, the total number of voyages was as high as 105. Jean Mettas estimates that the Portuguese shipped an annual average of 420 captives from Cacheu between 1758 and 1777, while Bissau, more open to the inflow of French or British slavers, shipped an annual average of 620 slaves from 1767 to 1773. It is a remarkable fact that in the second half of the eighteenth century the number of slaves exported averaged slightly over 1,000 per year. The uninterrupted drain caused by Portuguese traders was particularly devastating for the inhabitants of the Southern Rivers: the Balanta, Bijago, Joola, Manjak, Bainuk, Papel, Nalu, Beafada, and, to a lesser extent Manding and Peul from the hinterland. The Portuguese monopoly belonged to the C.G.G.P.M., a chartered company whose slaving business was part of a vast enterprise of interconnected activities in Portugal and Brazil. Its profits were impressive: starting with a capital base of 465,600,000 reis, the company succeeded in paying out 17,396,600 reis to its shareholders between 1759 and 1777, with a rate of profit running at 11.50 percent from 1768 to 1774.”

The Royal African Company Trades for Commodities Along the West African Coast

The English trading rights granted to the Royal African Company by Charles II in 1682 included

“the North Coast of Guinny, neer the Cape de Verde Islands. In the River Gambia, upon James Island, the Compa[ny] have built a Fort, where seaventy men, at least, are kept. And there is a Factory from whence Eliphants Teeth, Bees-wax, and Cowhides are exported in very considerable quantities. The River Gambia is very large, and runs up very high (much higher than any discovery hath bin made) and it is supposed the Gold comes most from places, at the head of this River. The Company have several small factorys in this River, vizt, at Rio Noones, Riopongo, and Calsamança, and doe trade by their Sloops, to Rio Grande and Catchao, for those Commodities, and alsoe for Negro's.”

The Sally's account book offers a meticulous record of economic transactions on the ship, describing the date of each purchase of an enslaved African and precisely what was traded for him or her. Unfortunately, it offers little information about his ship's exact whereabouts. It is unclear where the Sally first made landfall when it arrived in Africa on November 10, 1764, but by December it was at James Fort, the primary British "factory," or slave trading post, on the Upper Guinea coast, near the mouth of the Gambia River. The ship seems then to have proceeded south along the coast of what is today Guinea-Bissau, stopping briefly at the city of Bissau before anchoring somewhere near the mouth of the Grande River. This was Portuguese territory, supposedly off limits to ships from other countries, but there were a few British factories in the area and British slave ships often stopped there on the way down the coast.

According to the Voyage of the Slave Ship Salley 17654-1765 website:

“Slave ships typically worked their way up and down a stretch of coastline. The Sally, in contrast, seems to have spent most of its time in one place, apparently the site of a small British factory. Judging from the account book, the Sally operated as a kind of rum dispensary, supplying passing slave ships with the rum they needed to conduct business on the coast and receiving in exchange manufactured goods like cloth, iron, and guns, which were in turn exchanged for supplies or captives. When food stocks ran low, the Sally's captain, Esek Hopkins, bartered with locals or dispatched one of the Sally's boats up the coast to Bolor, a rice-trading settlement on the Cacheu River.

Slaves slowly trickled in, usually one or two at a time, some purchased from local slave traders, others from passing slave ships. On several occasions, Hopkins dispatched a boat to "Jabe" – probably Geba, a trading center up the Geba River – to purchase small lots of captives. By the time the Sally finally embarked for the West Indies, in August 1765, Hopkins had acquired a total of 196 Africans, some of whom he then sold to other traders. Nineteen Africans had already died on the ship, and a twentieth was left for dead on the day the ship departed. . . .

August 28, 1765: Slaves Rose on us was obliged fire on them and Destroyed 8.

Four more Africans died in the first week of the Sally's return voyage. On August 28, desperate captives staged an insurrection, which Hopkins and the crew violently suppressed. Eight Africans died immediately, and two others later succumbed to their wounds. According to Hopkins, the captives were "so Desperited" after the failed insurrection that "Some Drowned them Selves Some Starved and Others Sickened & Dyed. . . .

The Sally reached the West Indies in early October, 1765, after a transatlantic passage of about seven weeks. After a brief layover in Barbados, the ship proceeded to Antigua, where Hopkins wrote to the Browns, alerting them to the scope of the disaster. Sixty-eight Africans had perished during the passage, and twenty more died in the days immediately following the ship's arrival, bringing the death toll to 108. A 109th captive would later die en route to Providence. . . .

November 16, 1765: Sales of Negroes at Public Vendue.

When they dispatched the Sally, the Brown brothers instructed Hopkins to return to Providence with four or five "likely lads" for the family's use. The rest of the Sally survivors were auctioned in Antigua. Sickly and emaciated, they commanded extremely low prices at auction. The last two dozen survivors were auctioned in Antigua on November 16, selling, in one case, for less than £5, scarcely a tenth of the value of a ‘prime slave.’”

NOTE: In the 1750’s Merchants of Grao Para and Maranhao (Brazil) call for an increase in its slave imports from Guinea for sugar, cotton, rice and cacao production and are authorized by the Crown to form a slave trading and commercial company.

1776 The American Revolutionary War begins, and Americans increase imports of rice and cotton from Maranhao, which requires more slaves from Guinea.