Natural History, the Curious Institution

We do not often think of the wretched, miserable, and inhuman space of slave ships as simultaneously being spaces of natural history. . . . The collections of these naturalists bear witness to the deeply intertwined histories of the slave trade and early modern science in the Atlantic.

—Kathleen S. Murphy, “Collecting Slave Traders: James Petiver, Natural History, and the British Slave Trade,” The William and Mary Quarterly vol. 70, no. 4

two months to the Caribbean,our hold crammed tightwith cargo still breathing.

      In Lisbon after eight weeks in the bowels      of a slave ship: samples of carmine and indigo,      preserved scale insects, the dye’s dried flower.

fifteen hundred blocks iron ballastto steady our galley with Negroes loaded, hullplangent in rough seas’ throes and tortures.

      The right to sell slaves in New Spain accords      with our grand scheme—imagine the returns      in American herbs, the cures and remedies!

eleven of us tried to starve ourselves,but with a metal tool, the ship’s surgeon prisedour mouths open, pouring gruel down our throats.

      On picking up Jamaican fish preserved in spirits,      I met strident abolitionists at the harbor. Yes, their treatment is abhorrent,      but a civilizing yoke can only be best for the African.

twenty percent of our Africanswritten off to the squalor below deck:diarrhea, fever, chains’ wounds gangrened.

      Yesterday arrived a most diverse assortment of seashells      in the hold of a new-built slaver; I detest the trade      and pity their cargo, but science nonetheless must progress.

two hundred and twelve slaves salvagedwhile rescuing people from our Guineamanfoundered amid reefs off the Swahili Coast.

      While leaving the Bight of Benin, a squall downed the ship      fully loaded—truly a tragedy—the crew and captain lost      along with specimens of rhinoceros, antelope, and bats.

sixty-four slaves staged a mutiny—we hailedthem with lead from our barricade, dispensingviperous man, woman, and child overboard.

      En route to New Orleans, the slaves, I learned,      mutinied, escaping to some small isle; with deepest      displeasure I write that your malachite nodules are lost.

thirty at a time they rowed us out to their greatand stinking ship, our bodies then chainedto planks stacked one atop another, coffin tight.

      Along with an array of dried leaves and seeds,      my collector surprised me with a section of carved ivory,      showing the heathens’ fancy and hand at detail.

five hundred and ten, we marched them downto the shore, from the fort’s white walls atop the hill,the chaplain come down to bless our ship’s sailing.

      With the captain having lost on the journey only five      percent his Africans, and the safe arrival of these nests      and eggs, we can both delight in a profitable enterprise.

a dozen jetsam corpses to bait the sharks—we put on a show for the blacks, dissuadingany uprising with the terror of bloodied waves.

      Enclosed is an enormous snake from Suriname, a gentleman       by the name of De Jong generously loaned me a troop      of his blacks to procure the beast and prepare its skeleton.

three hundred and one of our number passing onwith no return; in subsequent weeks’ chains,the iron savored our blood and entered our souls.

      Upon stowing the chains for those wretches away, fill      the hold with the sugar, rum, and cotton, and find some      room for these crates, bones for some naturalist in Paris.

forty lashes to stripe the back of that niggerflashing a bold eye: we’ll not have him abuseour kind ration of sun and air above deck.

      Six species named in the last years, all received      through the safe care of the forts and their garrisons      that stock ships calling along the Slave Coast.

one African wench braineddead amid the crew’s night whoring: 30 £her price docked from their wages.

      The accounts of harpy vulture and sloth are remarkable,      but the loathsome vessel for this knowledge bottoms on      the question: are our morals to be the price of discovery?

one hundred and thirty-two sick and infirmthe defendants pitched to the...