Freshwater Passages: The Trade and Travels of Peter Pond

2. A Connecticut Yankee’s Pathway to Detroit

31 CHAPTER TWO A Connecticut Yankee’s Pathway to Detroit Home in Milford With the end of the war, Pond returned home. He would later observe of this time: “All Cannaday subdued I thought thare was no bisnes left for me.”¹ If he now considered his father’s wish that he settle back in his hometown for a quiet life as a shoemaker, he did not consider it for long. Rather, Pond recalled: “[I] turnd my atenshan to the Seas, thinking to make it my Profesion, and in Sixty one I went a Voige to the Islands in the West Indens.”² Emulating the example of his Hubbard and Hobby forebears, he embarked on a West Indies trading venture, likely joining a Milford or New Haven vessel and serving under a local captain. Small sloops, schooners, and brigs of less than one hundred tons, with crews of only five to ten young men, were the most common vessels sailing out of these Connecticut ports, as they could not handle larger draft vessels. The islands of the West Indies, which included colonies of Spain, the Netherlands, Britain, and France, were Connecticut’s most important trading partners.The planters there did not like to sow limited agricultural space with anything other than cash crops, mainly sugar cane, so they imported the necessities of life from elsewhere, especially the mainland. Lumber and horses were two of the most common Connecticut exports, but Pond’s vessel may also have carried provisions, such as cornmeal, 32 ∙ a connecticut yankee’s pathway to detroit wheat, flax, beef, and pork; and livestock, including sheep, oxen, pigs, and poultry. In his narrative, Pond does not indicate that he knew anything about seafaring before this, but it is likely that growing up in a seaport town he was no stranger to small boats or the principles of sailing. Perhaps he had been on some previous coastal voyages to New York, the Carolinas, or Boston. Even during the war he may have embarked on some voyages between stints in the army. While at sea he would be kept busy“learning the ropes,”helping to sail the vessel, or tending to the livestock on board. As the war with France was not yet over in much of the world, including the West Indies, the crew surely took turns watching out for French privateers. Pond does not give their specific destination, but Barbados is a possibility, as it was the largest of the British sugar islands. Another possibility is Guadeloupe, a French island that had fallen to the British in 1759. The French planters there offered better prices and were allowed to continue their trade under British rule.³ The trip to the islands would have taken less than a month if they followed a direct route and avoided unfavorable conditions. Once there, the captain had to find a buyer for his goods and a return cargo. This could take several weeks, during which Pond would have had time to look around at a part of the world that was new to him.The sugar islands were slave societies, ruled by a small minority of white planters living on large plantations. Seventy-five to ninety percent of the population were slaves from Africa. Unlike the varied economy he knew back in New England, these islands were dominated by one occupation: growing and processing sugarcane as a cash crop bound for Europe or mainland North America. The cane was cut and refined into either a light brown sugar called Muscovado or the fancier white “clayed”sugar. A by-product was molasses,which was itself a saleable commodity.Molasses was either used as a sweetener or distilled into rum, which was in particular demand in the thirsty North American colonies. Some was distilled on the islands, while more was exported to be distilled on the mainland, making the cheaper New England or New York rum. Another common cargo was salt from Turks Island,useful to New England fishermen as a preservative, a connecticut yankee’s pathway to detroit ∙ 33 though small amounts of specialty items like citrus fruits could also be found on vessels sailing back to New England from the islands.4 Pond’s seafaring career was interrupted when he returned home from his first voyage. Pond recalled:“[Back in Milford I] found that my father Had gon a trading Voig [voyage] to Detroit and my Mother falling sick with a...