Dark Voyage: An American Privateer's War on Britain's African Slave Trade by Christian McBurney
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Christian McBurney's Dark Voyage: An American Privateer's War on Britain's African Slave Trade offers a dramatic telling of how a Rhode Island privateer conducted a risky campaign against the British during the Revolutionary War. McBurney focuses on the experiences of the Marlborough, a sleek and powerful vessel sent out by John Brown of Providence, Rhode Island, in 1778. Its sole purpose was to raid British slave traders along the west coast of Africa. Although McBurney situates this endeavor in the history of a growing abolitionist movement in New England, these sailors were far from abolitionists. Rather, their patriotic motives to attack the British merged seamlessly with their callous quest to collect a fortune by claiming the same cargoes of enslaved people for sale.Dark Voyage is a strong narrative history, starting with the abolitionist landscape of Rhode Island and the well-known political tensions within Providence's Brown family, which grew divided over slavery. McBurney traces the outfitting of the Marlborough, and the effort to recruit sailors who exhibited either maritime experience or a hatred for the British. The book explores the ship's dramatic successes, including a devastating attack on a British slave post at Kassa Island, and the relatively easy capture of roughly 20 British vessels. Some were smaller intercoastal traders, but one larger vessel—the Fancy—held hundreds of enslaved Africans onboard. McBurney discusses the fates of these ships, as well as the larger careers of several major figures, such as Captain George Waite Babcock of the Marlborough. Thanks to his privateering activities, Babcock built a reputation as a courageous but reckless leader who never backed down from a fight.To tell this story, McBurney relies mainly on the journal of the Marlborough, held by both the Morristown National Historical Park and the Naval History and Heritage Command, but thus far never given its own book-length treatment. He effectively integrates a wide array of sources, ranging from other ships’ logs and newspaper notices to British Admiralty records. Dark Voyage is deeply researched, and attentive to larger historiographical debates about how the Revolutionary War disrupted British commerce.One of the book's strengths is the incredible amount of detail that McBurney sews into the story. The Marlborough is the core focus. He also engages topics touching on mercantile culture, town politics, privateering practices, the role of free and enslaved African intermediaries in the slave trade, the flurry of privateering in the revolutionary Caribbean, the fate of British investors who lost ships, and the tense relationships between John Brown and his brothers. One of the best moments of the book is McBurney's vivid account of how the Marlborough daringly slipped past the British naval blockade of southern Rhode Island, reached open waters, and steered its course to West Africa. At moments like this, McBurney's writing has an almost cinematic quality; the rich details make the text read like it could be adapted for the screen. On the other hand, that weight of detail can be a weakness. Dark Voyage is about the Marlborough's privateering activities along the African coast, but the ship does not reach Africa until nearly 90 pages in. There are a few times when McBurney states a research discovery and quickly moves on. More signposting between paragraphs or chapters would have helped narrative transitions.One exception to this pattern is the final chapter of the book, perhaps McBurney's best. There he explores the impact that American privateers had on British commerce and the African slave trade during the Revolutionary War. Here he could have relied on the Transatlantic Slave Trade Database, which he uses well. But showing that British slave trading fell drastically during these years brings up the age-old question of causation versus correlation. McBurney moves beyond the database by looking at mercantile records, parliamentary debates, newspaper editorials, and a range of other sources. This material shows that slave trading was on the decline, and that British slave-trading companies based out of places like Liverpool and Bristol suffered terribly as a result of American privateering, both in Africa and in the Caribbean.Overall, Dark Voyage is a well-written and deeply researched book that tells a fascinating and original story. McBurney took considerable effort to include helpful illustrations and appendices that add to the value of his analysis, offering useful guides for future researchers. It is a book that will engage a wide readership, especially those who want a deeper understanding of privateering, commerce, and slave trading in the Revolutionary era.
Source: The New England Quarterly
DOI: 10.1162/tneq_r_01039
Author: Edward E. Andrews
Language: English
Subfield: Anthropology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4402308577