Africa Squadron

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The Africa Squadron was a unit of the United States Navy that operated from 1819 to 1861 in the Blockade of Africa to suppress the slave trade along the coast of West Africa. However, the term was often ascribed generally to anti-slavery operations during the period leading up to the American Civil War.

The squadron was an outgrowth of the 1819 treaty between the United States and the United Kingdom that was an early step in stopping the trade, and further defined by the Webster–Ashburton Treaty of 1842. Although technically coordinated with a British West Africa Squadron based in Sierra Leone, in practice the American contingent worked on its own.

Matthew Perry was the first commander of the squadron, and based himself in Portuguese Cape Verde.

The squadron was generally ineffective, since the ships were too few, and since much of the trading activity had shifted to the Niger River delta area (present-day Nigeria), which was not being covered. In the two years of Perry's leadership, only one slaver was reported to have been captured, and that ship was later acquitted by a New Orleans court. In the 16 years of squadron operation, only the crews of 19 slave ships went to trial. These slavers were acquitted or only lightly fined. Other commanders, however, were more successful.

African slave trade patrolEdit

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} Template:Campaignbox Suppression of the Slave Trade The Africa Squadron's cruising area eventually ranged from Cape Frio to the south (about 18 degrees south latitude), to Madeira in the north. However, the squadron's supply depot was in Cape Verde archipelago, approximately Template:Convert from the northernmost centers of the slave trade in the Bight of Biafra and southward. The navy department did not move the depot location until 1859, when it was set up at São Paulo de Luanda, in Portuguese Angola, about eight degrees south latitude. At the same time the department put Madeira out of bounds for the squadron.

The majority of the squadron's cruising in its first decade was along the coast of Western Africa, with particular attention to Liberian interests. By the 1850s much of the slave trade in this area had been eliminated by the British, based in their colony at Sierra Leone, as well as the Liberians.

This however, did not stop the board of directors of the American Colonization Society from writing the President of the United States to bolster the Africa Squadron's "fleet" in 1855 in accordance with the Webster-Ashburton treaty in an attempt to crack down on sailors and slavers use of sea-letters to claim American nationality in their attempt to further the slave trade on the African coast.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Template:AnchorVessels seizedEdit

Africa SquadronEdit

Vessel	Captor	Date	Location
Uncas	Template:USS	1 March 1844	Gallinas
Spitfire	Template:USS	24 March 1845	Pongas R.
Patuxent	Template:USS	27 September 1845	Cape Mount
Pons	Template:USS	30 September 1845	Kabenda
Merchant	Template:USS	3 December 1845	Sierra Leone
Panther	Template:USS	15 December 1845	Kabenda
Robert Wilson	Template:USS	15 January 1846	Porto Praya
Malaga	Template:USS	13 April 1846	Kabenda
Casket	Template:USS	2 August 1846	Kabenda
Chancellor	Template:USS	10 April 1847	Cape Palmas
Excellent	Template:USS	23 April 1850	Ambriz
Martha	Template:USS	6 June 1850	Ambriz
Chatsworth	Template:USS	11 September 1850	Ambriz
Advance	Template:USS	3 November 1852	Porto Praya
R.P. Brown	Template:USS	23 January 1853	Porto Praya
H.N. Gambrill	Template:USS	3 November 1853	Kongo
Glamorgan	Template:USS	10 March 1854	Kongo
W.G. Lewis	Template:USS	6 November 1857	Kongo
Brothers	Template:USS	8 September 1858	Mayumba
Julia Dean	Template:USS	28 December 1858	Cape Coast Castle
Orion	Template:USS	21 April 1859	Kongo
Ardennes	Template:USS	27 April 1859	Kongo
Emily	Template:USS	21 September 1859	Loango
Delicia	Template:USS	21 September 1859	Kabenda
Virginian	Template:USS	6 February 1860	Kongo
Falmouth	Template:USS	6 May 1860	Porto Praya
Thomas Achorn	Template:USS	29 June 1860	Kabenda
Triton	Template:USS	16 July 1860	Loango
Erie	Template:USS	8 August 1860	Kongo
Storm King	Template:USS	8 August 1860	Kongo
Cora	Template:USS	26 September 1860	Kongo
Bonito	Template:USS	10 October 1860	Kongo
Express	Template:USS	25 February 1861	Possibly Loango
Template:USS	Template:USS	21 April 1861	Kabenda
Triton	Template:USS	20 May 1861	Kongo
Falmouth	Template:USS	14 June 1861	Kongo

Source: Canney, D.L., Africa Squadron, Potomac Books, 2006, pp. 233–234

ReferencesEdit

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SourcesEdit

Richard Andrew Lobban Jr. and Peter Karibe Mendy, Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, 3rd ed. (Scarecrow Press, 1997 Template:ISBN) pp. 66–68
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