By 1808, both Britain and the United States had passed laws
outlawing the transatlantic slave trade. Yet the trade covertly
carried on. In the summer of 1813, in what is now Liberia, a
compound of slave pens was bursting with sick and anguished
captives, guarded by other African slaves. As a British patrol
swooped down on the illicit barracoon, the slavers burned the
premises to the ground, hoping to destroy evidence. This story can
be told because of an exceptional trove of court documents that
provides unparalleled insight into one small link in the great,
horrific chain of slavery. Emma Christopher follows a trail of
evidence across four continents to examine the lives of this
barracoon's owners, their workers, and their tragic human
merchandise. She reveals how an American, Charles Mason, escaped
justice, while British subjects Robert Bostock and John McQueen
were arrested. In court five African men - Tamba, Tom Ball, Yarra,
Noah, and Sessay - courageously testified against their former
owners/captors. They, and 233 other liberated men, women, and
children, were relocated to Freetown, Sierra Leone. There they
endured harsh lives of "freedom", while the punishment of Bostock
and McQueen was fleeting. From the fragmented facts of these lives,
Christopher sheds fascinating light on the early development of the
nations of Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Australia (where Bostock and
McQueen were banished) and the role of former slaves in combatting
the illegal trade.
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