Fighting the Slave Trade: West African Strategies

Chapter 6

81 Chapter 6 The Last Resort Redeeming Family and Friends Sylviane A. Diouf In June 1829 a caravan left Timbo in Futa Jallon and headed south toward Monrovia, Liberia, carrying $6,000 to $7,000 in gold to be remitted to Ibrahima abd al-Rahman Barry, a son of the late almamy Ibrahima Sori Mawdo.1 The aging man had returned to Liberia two months earlier, after forty years of bondage in Mississippi. Upon arrival, he had sent word to his wealthy and in¶uential family to help him redeem his ¤ve children and eight grandchildren still living on a cotton plantation near Natchez. One hundred and ¤fty miles from Monrovia , the caravan learned of Ibrahima’s death. The men turned back, and, as a result, most of his descendants spent the rest of their life in servitude (Russwurm 1830, 60; Alford 1977, 184). An African family in one country and their formerly enslaved kin in another had tried and failed to gain the release of children born in America with gold gathered through the labor, or perhaps the sale into the Atlantic trade, of domestic slaves in Africa. Ibrahima’s story illustrates the contradictions of redemption, a double-edged tactic that saved many Africans from bondage to the detriment, sometimes, of others. Captive redemption is a well-documented practice, depicted in two main You are reading copyrighted material published by Ohio University Press/Swallow Press. Unauthorized posting, copying, or distributing of this work except as permitted under U.S. copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. 82 Sylviane A. Diouf categories of sources. One consists of the autobiographies and biographies of, and interviews with, Africans. They represent a range of experiences: some people had been redeemed before but ultimately failed to be ransomed; others had witnessed the ransoming of captives; still others had attempted to be redeemed. The testimony of men and women who had been the victims of ransoming—as they were exchanged for somebody’s freedom—would be of immense interest, but research has not turned up any documentation so far. Anyhow, given the way transactions were conducted, it is probable that many if not most substitutes were not even aware that they were taking someone else’s place, and therefore such testimonies may very well not exist. Westerners’ accounts are another font of information. They extend from the writings of witnesses to the transaction to statements by traders and of¤cials who engaged in the practice. The slave trade’s victims, organizers, and opponents offer perspectives on the practice that are very often of a personal nature, the type that is frequently missing in slave trade studies. But records of actual transactions were seldom kept, and when they were, they do not necessarily offer the kind of information that would help a quantitative study. The logbook of the slaver Bruce Grove, for example, has two entries on a redemption case that describes the circumstances of the transaction and the reactions of the protagonists, but does not give any indication as to what exactly the ransom was—money, goods, or people: Cape Coast 1 April 1802 Two of the men purchased this day were lately taken in a kind of skirmish[,] brought on board and sold in the presence of some of the party for whom they fought which occasion’d a little fracas on board the ship. Cape Coast 10[?] April 1802 The men which were sold a few days back that occasioned a Quarrele on board our ship[,] were this day redeem’d by three Friends. I need not attempt to describe the poor fellows joy on being released from their irons.2 Because detailed information on speci¤c transactions is lacking, it may remain impossible to assess the number of people involved in redemption, either as ransomed or as “replacements.” Nevertheless, the regularity with which redemption is reported in African and European sources—in passages such as “they are frequently redeemed from us by their Friends” (testimony of James A. Penny, in Lambert 1975–76, 69:33; emphasis mine) and “In many cases his family or his friends are at hand, who redeem him with a slave” (testimony of You are reading copyrighted material published by Ohio University Press/Swallow Press. Unauthorized posting, copying, or distributing of this work except as permitted under U.S. copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. The Last Resort 83 Richard Miles, in Lambert 1975–76, 68:120)—suggests that this strategy...