Skip to main content

The Interview of James Towne

 James Towne was a carpenter.
 He served  on the slave ships.
He was asked many questions about the slave conditions.
These are the question's.

Q:When the Negroes are brought down to the coast , do they appear to come willingly ?

A:By no means.

Q:Were the Negroes fettered on board ships which you have known?

A:Always with legshackles and handcuffs, two and two. right and left .

Q:Has the space in which they have been confined on board the ship been sufficient for their convenience or health?

A:By no means. They lay in a crowded and cramped state , neither had their length or breadth .

Q:Did you know any inconvenience arising from the heat of their rooms?

A:I have known them to go down well , and in the morning  brought up dead , from the suffocated state they were in below.

Q:Do you recollect the height between decks of the ships which you sailed?

A:The Peggy was about 4 feet , and the Sally was about 4 feet 4 inches or 5 feet 5 inches.

Q:Whereabouts were the number of Negroes taken on board the peggy?

A:About 230 , i believe , altogether.


This was James Towne's interview.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Portuguese slave trade:15th - 17th century

The Portuguese slave trade: 15th - 17th century The  Portuguese expeditions of the 15th century bring European ships for the first time into regular contact with sub-Saharan Africa. This region has long been the source of slaves for the route through the Sahara to the Mediterranean. The arrival of the Portuguese opens up another channel. Nature even provides a new collection point for this human cargo. The volcanic Cape Verde Islands, with their rocky and forbidding coastlines, are uninhabited. But they contain lush tropical valleys. And they are well placed on the sea routes between West Africa, Europe and America. Portuguese settlers move into the Cape Verde islands in about 1460. In 1466 they are given an economic advantage which guarantees their prosperity. They are granted a monopoly of a new slave trade. On the coast of Guinea the Portuguese are now setting up trading stations to buy captive Africans. Some of these slaves are used to work the settlers' estates in the Cape Ve...

Slavery in British India - Bengal

Slaves during the great Famine of Eastern India(above). Bengal trade, 1640-85. In Bengal the East India Company had established a factory at Hughly, hard by the dismantled Portuguese fortress; but were exposed to so much insolence and extortion from the Mogul authorities that they were prepared to leave Bengal rather than tamely submit to further oppression. The trade was enormously profitable, and had helped to defray the cost of the fortifications at Madras and Bombay. Saltpetre had been in large demand ever since the breaking out of the civil war between Charles the First and his parliament. Raw silk and opium were equally marketable, and all three products could be brought from Patna to Hughly by the river Ganges. At Dacca, the old capital of Bengal to the eastward of the Ganges, muslins were manufactured of so fine a texture that a piece sufficient for a dress might be passed through a wedding ring; and every young lady in the British Isles who aspired to be a bride w...

The atlantic slave trading route

The  Atlantic slave trade  or  transatlantic slave trade  took place across the  Atlantic Ocean  from the 15th through the 19th centuries. The vast majority of those who were enslaved and transported to the  New World , mainly on the  triangular trade route  and its  Middle Passage , were Africans from the  central  and  western  parts of the continent who had been sold by other West Africans to  Western European  slave traders (with a small minority being captured directly by the slave traders in coastal raids), and brought to the Americas.  The South Atlantic and Caribbean economic system centered on producing commodity crops, making goods and clothing to sell in Europe, and increasing the numbers of African slaves brought to the New World. This was crucial to those western European countries which, in the late 17th and 18th centuries, were vying with each other to create overseas empires.