CAPTAIN CANOT;
OR,
TWENTY YEARS OF AN AFRICAN SLAVER
BEING AN ACCOUNT OF
HIS CAREER AND ADVENTURES ON THE COAST,
IN THE INTERIOR, ON SHIPBOARD, AND IN
THE WEST INDIES.
WRITTEN OUT AND EDITED FROM THE
Captain's Journals, Memoranda and Conversations,
BY
BRANTZ MAYER.
NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
846 & 848 BROADWAY.
LONDON: 16 LITTLE BRITAIN.
M.DCCC.LIV.
ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by
BRANTZ MAYER,
in the Clerk's Office of the United States District Court for the
District of Maryland.
TO
N. P. WILLIS,
OF IDLEWILD.
MY DEAR WILLIS,
While inscribing this work with your name, as a testimonial of our
long, unbroken friendship, you will let me say, I am sure, not only
how, but why I have written it.
About a year ago I was introduced to its hero, by Dr. James Hall, the
distinguished founder and first governor of our colony at Cape Palmas.
While busy with his noble task in Africa, Dr. Hall accidentally became
acquainted with Captain Canot, during his residence at Cape Mount, and
was greatly impressed in his favor by the accounts of all who knew
him. Indeed,--setting aside his career as a slaver,--Dr. Hall's
observation convinced him that Canot was a man of unquestionable
integrity. The zeal, moreover, with which he embraced the first
opportunity, after his downfall, to mend his fortunes by honorable
industry in South America, entitled him to respectful confidence. As
their acquaintance ripened, my friend gradually drew from the wanderer
the story of his adventurous life, and so striking were its incidents,
so true its delineations of African character, that he advised the
captain to prepare a copious memorandum, which I should write out for
the public.
Let me tell you why I undertook this task; but first, let me assure
you that, entertaining as the story might have been for a large class
of readers, I would not have composed a line for the mere
gratification of scandalous curiosity. My conversations with Canot
satisfied me that his disclosures were more thoroughly candid than
those of any one who has hitherto related his connection with the
traffic. I thought that the evidence of one who, for twenty years,
played the chief part in such a drama, was of value to society, which,
is making up its mind, not only about a great political and domestic
problem, but as to the nature of the race itself. I thought that a
true picture of aboriginal Africa,--unstirred by progress,--unmodified
by reflected civilization,--full of the barbarism that blood and
tradition have handed down from the beginning, and embalmed in its
prejudices, like the corpses of Egypt,--could not fail to be of
incalculable importance to philanthropists who regard no people as
beyond the reach of enlightenment.
The completed task rises before me like a moving panorama whose
scenery and background are the ocean and tropics, and whose principal
actor combines the astuteness of Fouche with the dexterity of Gil
Blas. I have endeavored to set forth his story as plainly as possible,
letting events instead of descriptions develope a chequered life which
was incessantly connected with desperate men of both colors. As he
unmasked his whole career, and gave me leave to use the incidents, I
have not dared to hide what the actor himself displayed no wish to
conceal. Besides the sketches of character which familiarize us with
the aboriginal negro in Africa, there is a good moral in the
resultless life, which, after all its toils, hazards, and successes
leaves the adventurer a stranded wreck in the prime of manhood. One
half the natural capacity, employed industriously in lawful commerce,
would have made the captain comfortable and independent. Nor is there
much to attract in the singular abnegation of civilized happiness in a
slaver's career. We may not be surprised, that such an _animal_ as Da
Souza, who is portrayed in these pages, should revel in the
sensualities of Dahomey; but we must wonder at the passive endurance
that could chain a superior order of man, like Don Pedro Blanco, for
fifteen unbroken years, to his pestilential hermitage, till the
avaricious anchorite went forth from the marshes of Gallinas, laden
with gold. I do not think this story is likely to seduce or educate a
race of slavers!
The frankness of Canot's disclosures may surprise the more reserved
and timid classes of society; but I am of opinion that there is an
ethnographic value in the account of his visit to the Mandingoes and
Fullahs, and especially in his narrative of the wars, jugglery,
cruelty, superstition, and crime, by which one sixth of Africa
subjects the remaining five sixths to servitude.
As the reader peruses these characteristic anecdotes, he will ask
himself how,--in the progress of mankind,--such a people is to be
approached and dealt with? Will the Mahometanism of the North which is
winning its way southward, and infusing itself among the crowds of
central Africa, so as, in some degree, to modify their barbarism,
prepare the primitive tribes to receive a civilization and faith which
are as true as they are divine? Will our colonial fringe spread its
fibres from the coast to the interior, and, like veins of refreshing
blood, pour new currents into the mummy's heart? Is there hope for a
nation which, in three thousand years, has hardly turned in its sleep?
The identical types of race, servitude, occupation, and character that
are now extant in Africa, may be found on the Egyptian monuments built
forty centuries ago; while a Latin poem, attributed to Virgil,
describes a menial negress who might unquestionably pass for a slave
of our Southern plantations:
"Interdum clamat Cybalen; erat unica custos;
Afra genus, tota patriam testante figura;
Torta comam, labroque tumens, et fusca colorem;
Pectore lata, jacens mammis, compressior alvo,
Cruribus exilis, spatiosa prodiga planta;
Continuis rimis calcanea scissa rigebant."[1]
It will be seen from these hints that our memoir has nothing to do
with slavery as a North American institution, except so far as it is
an inheritance from the system it describes; yet, in proportion as the
details exhibit an innate or acquired inferiority of the negro race
_in its own land_, they must appeal to every generous heart in behalf
of the benighted continent.
It has lately become common to assert that Providence permits _an
exodus through slavery_, in order that the liberated negro may in time
return, and, with foreign acquirements, become the pioneer of African
civilization. It is attempted to reconcile us to this "good from
evil," by stopping inquiry with the "inscrutability of God's ways!"
But we should not suffer ourselves to be deceived by such imaginary
irreverence; for, in God's ways, there is nothing _less_ inscrutable
than his _law of right_. That law is never qualified in this world. It
moves with the irresistible certainty of organized nature, and, while
it makes man free, in order that his responsibility may be
unquestionable, it leaves mercy, even, for the judgment hereafter.
Such a system of divine law can never palliate _the African slave
trade_, and, in fact, it is the basis of that human legislation which
converts the slaver into a pirate, and awards him a felon's doom.
For these reasons, we should discountenance schemes like those
proposed not long ago in England, and sanctioned by the British
government, for the encouragement of spontaneous emigration from
Africa under the charge of _contractors_. The plan was viewed with
fear by the colonial authorities, and President Roberts at once issued
a proclamation to guard the natives. No one, I think, will read this
book without a conviction that the idea of _voluntary expatriation_
has not dawned on the African mind, and, consequently, what might
begin in laudable philanthropy would be likely to end in practical
servitude.
Intercourse, trade, and colonization, in slow but steadfast growth,
are the providences intrusted to us for the noble task of
civilization. They who are practically acquainted with the colored
race of our country, have long believed that gradual colonization was
the only remedy for Africa as well as America. The repugnance of the
free blacks to _emigration from our shores_ has produced a tardy
movement, and thus the African population has been thrown back grain
by grain, and not wave by wave. Every one conversant with the state of
our colonies, knows how beneficial this languid accretion has been. It
moved many of the most enterprising, thrifty, and independent. It
established a social nucleus from the best classes of American colored
people. Like human growth, it allowed the frame to mature in muscular
solidity. It gave immigrants time to test the climate; to learn the
habit of government in states as well as in families; to acquire the
bearing of freemen; to abandon their imitation of the whites among
whom they had lived; and thus, by degrees, to consolidate a social and
political system which may expand into independent and lasting
nationality. Instead, therefore, of lamenting the slowness with which
the colonies have reached their vigorous promise, we should consider
it a blessing that the vicious did not rush forth in turbulent crowds
with the worthy, and impede the movements of better folks, who were
still unused to the task of self-reliance.
Men are often too much in a hurry to do good, and mar by excessive
zeal what patience would complete. "Deus quies quia aeternus," saith
St. Augustine. The cypress is a thousand years in growth, yet its
limbs touch not the clouds, save on a mountain top. Shall the
regeneration of a continent be quicker than its ripening? That would
be miracle--not progress.
Accept this offering, my dear Willis, as a token of that sincere
regard, which, during an intimacy of a quarter of a century, has never
wavered in its friendly trust.
Faithfully, yours,
BRANTZ MAYER.
BALTIMORE, _1st July, 1854_.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] MORETUM,--Carm. Virg. Wagner's ed. vol. 4, p. 301.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAP. I.--My parentage and education--Apprenticed at Leghorn to
an American captain--First voyage--its mishaps--overboard--black
cook--Sumatra--cabin-boy--Arrival in Boston--My first
_command_--View of Boston harbor from the mast-head--My first
interview with a Boston merchant, WILLIAM GRAY 1
CHAP. II.--My uncle tells my adventure with LORD BYRON--CAPTAIN
TOWNE, and my life in Salem--My skill in Latin--Five years
voyaging from Salem--I rescue a Malay girl at Quallahbattoo--The
_first_ slave I ever saw--End of my apprenticeship--My backslidings
in Antwerp and Paris--Ship on a British vessel for Brazil--The
captain and his wife--Love, grog, and grumbling--A scene in the
harbor of Rio--Matrimonial happiness--Voyage to Europe--Wreck
and loss on the coast near Ostend 10
CHAP. III.--I design going to South America--A Dutch galliot
for Havana--Male and female captain--Run foul of in the Bay
of Biscay--Put into Ferrol, in Spain--I am appropriated by
a _new_ mother, grandmother, and sisters--A comic scene--How
I got out of the scrape--Set sail for Havana--Jealousy of
the captain--Deprived of my post--Restored--Refuse to do
duty--Its sad consequences--Wrecked on a reef near