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AN EXCEPTIONALLY DETAILED LETTER

,

DISCUSSING A KNOWN SLAVE SHIP

,

THE ANTONIA

[“

ALIAS LA AFRICANA

”]

AS CITED IN JOURNALS OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS FOR

1821.

The

owner of the slave ship, writing from Matanzas province in Cuba, asks Mr. Forsyth in Baltimore to

“make some insurance for me on my schooner the Antonia, Antonio Echevarria, master, now on a

voyage to the Coast of Africa for cargo of slaves, south of the Equator, agreeable to a royal order from

the King of Spain. This vessel is a first rate pilot boat built schooner, about one hundred thirty

American tons . . . built by Noah Brown of New York, launched in February 1817 . . . Has made

two voyages to the Coast of Africa and now on a third . . . request you will write to your friend in

Baltimore to make some insurance for me,

say fifteen thousand dollars for vessel and

cargo from this port (Matanzas) to a port or

ports on the Coast of Africa, south of the

Equator and back to this place with a cargo

of slaves. The Antonia is provided with a

Royal passport from the King of Spain. . .”

The passport would be accompanied by the

Spanish flag; both were to avoid being

boarded by the British or American revenue

cutters, patrolling the Coast of Africa follow-

ing the 1807 ban on taking of slaves from

Africa. He continues “The whole of the

expedition cost a little over twenty-eight

thousand dollars. The vessel is armed with

on eighteen pound gunnade (a small can-

non) on a pivot, and a good proportion of

small arms and manned by nineteen per-

sons, all told, and is calculated to make an

excellent defense from attack of boats” (pre-

sumably native boats). It is hard to imagine

the Antonia firing on a British patrol boat.

LOT

21,

continued