A British blacksmith removing the leg irons off a slave, 1907.
This photograph shows a sailor removing
the manacle from a newly freed slave. The picture is part of a small
collection donated by Samuel Chidwick to the Royal Naval Museum in
Portsmouth. His father Able Seaman Joseph Chidwick, born in 1881, was
serving aboard HMS Sphinx.
The Africans featured in the photos
escaped in a canoe from a slave-trading village on the coast on hearing
that the Royal Navy ship was in the area. In his report dated 15th
October 1907, Commander Litchfield wrote that the ship received ‘six
fugitives’ on a cruise off the Batineh Coast, Oman between 10th and 14th
October. One of the fugitives had been manacled for three years and had
escaped with his leg irons still on.
Samuel Chidwick said: “The pictures
were taken by my father who was serving aboard HMS Sphinx while on armed
patrol off the Zanzibar and Mozambique coast in about 1907. They caught
quite a few slavers and those particular slaves that are in the
pictures happened while he was on watch. That night a dhow (sailing
vessel) sailed by and the slaves were all chained together. He raised
the alarm and they got them on to the ship and got the chains knocked
off them. They then questioned them and sent a party of marines ashore
to try to track the slave traders down. They caught two of them and I
believe they were of Arabic origin. My father thought the slave trade
was a despicable thing that was going on, the slaves were treated very
badly so when they got the slavers they didn’t give them a very nice
time”.
The saved slaves on board of HMS Sphinx. The crew gave them new clothes (second photo).
An Arab slave dealer in custody. (این عرب نیست و احتمالا نزدیکی ها بوشهر است)
The Royal Navy, which then controlled the
world’s seas, established the West Africa Squadron in 1808 to patrol
the coast of West Africa, and between 1808 and 1860 they seized
approximately 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans who were
aboard. Most of the ship captured were headed to South America. The
first stop was always South America after Africa. This was mostly due to
Brazil being the biggest importer of slaves and also due to the trade
winds and a ships inability to sail directly to North America.
Brazil was the largest importer of
African slaves during the slave trade era and was also probably the
worst in terms of treatment of their slaves. Nonetheless, despite laws
banning their importation, between 1808 and 1888 more than a million new
slaves were forcibly shipped to Brazil.
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