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Antislavery and Imperialism: The British Suppression of the Slave Trade and the Opening of Fernando Po, 1827–1829

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 March 2020

Jeff Pardue
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Abstract

This article chronicles the construction of the first permanent foreign settlement on the West African island of Fernando Po (today called Bioko) as part of the British effort to suppress the slave trade in the 1820s. The settlement ended centuries of relative isolation by the indigenous Bubi who hitherto had successfully navigated between occasional trade with outsiders and repelling slave traders. Although British plans ultimately failed, the settlement remained, as did a large portion of the settlers. This article argues that the disruptive power of suppression created the conditions for a colonial shift toward integration of the island into the larger Euro–West African world. While the settlement's influence grew in the short term through its successful leveraging of economic and military resources, it was the landing of liberated slaves that would have the greatest long-term significance, and highlights the (often unintentional) connection between antislavery and imperialism.

Keywords

Fernando Po (Bioko)Clarence TownBritish slave trade suppressionBubiWilliam Fitzwilliam Owen
Type
Articles
Information
Itinerario , Volume 44 , Special Issue 1: Violence, Migration, and Gender in the Portuguese and Spanish-Speaking World. Local Impacts, Global Processes, and the Echoes of Empire, 1945–2019 , April 2020 , pp. 178 - 195
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Research Institute for History, Leiden University

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Footnotes

*

Jeff Pardue is a professor of history and department head at the University of North Georgia. His research focuses on British imperial history in the early nineteenth century, with particular emphasis on British slavery and antislavery.

References

Bibliography

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Owen Sound Library, Owen Sound, Ontario:Google Scholar
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Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database (website): www.slavevoyages.org/assessment/estimates (accessed July 27, 2017)Google Scholar
“A Geographical and Commercial View of Northern Central Africa; containing a particular Account of the Course and Termination of the great River Niger in the Atlantic Ocean.” Quarterly Review 26:51 (Oct. 1821): 51–82.Google Scholar
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Brown, Robert T. “Fernando Po and the Anti-Sierra Leonean Campaign: 1826–1834.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 6:2 (1973): 249–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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Drescher, Seymour. “Emperors of the World: British Abolitionism and Imperialism.” In Abolitionism and Imperialism in Britain, Africa, and the Atlantic, edited by Peterson, Derek R., 129–49. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2010.Google Scholar
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Eltis, David. “The Volume of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, 1781–1867.” Unpublished paper, 1983.Google Scholar
Fegley, Randall. Equatorial Guinea. Oxford: ABC-CLIO, 1991.Google Scholar
Fyfe, Christopher. A History of Sierra Leone. London: Oxford University Press, 1962.Google Scholar
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Howell, Raymond. The Royal Navy and the Slave Trade. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987.Google Scholar
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Lynn, Martin. “Commerce, Christianity and the Origins of the ‘Creoles’ of Fernando Po.” Journal of African History 25 (1984): 257–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynn, M. R. S.John Beecroft and West Africa 1829–54. PhD diss., University of London, 1978.Google Scholar
Miers, Suzanne. Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade. New York: Africana Publishing Co., 1975.Google Scholar
Newbury, C. W. “Credit in Early Nineteenth Century West African Trade.” Journal of African History 13:1 (1972): 81–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scanlan, Padraic X. “The Colonial Rebirth of British Anti-Slavery: The Liberated African Villages of Sierra Leone, 1815–1824.” American Historical Review 121:4 (2016): 1085–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sundiata, Ibrahim. From Slaving to Neoslavery: the Bight of Biafra and Fernando Po in the Era of Abolition. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Sundiata, Ibrahim. “Moka of Bioko (Late 1820–1899): The Chief Who United a Central African Island.” In The Human Tradition in Modern Africa, edited by Cordell, Dennis D., 47–66. Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2011.Google Scholar
Sundiata, Ibrahim. “State Formation and Trade: The Rise and Fall of the Bubi Polity, c. 1840–1910.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 27:3 (1994): 505–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Temperley, Howard. White Dreams, Black Africa: The Antislavery Expedition to the River Niger 1841–1842. London: Yale University Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Turley, David. “Anti-Slavery Activists and Officials: ‘Influence,’ Lobbying and the Slave Trade, 1807–1850.” In Slavery, Diplomacy and Empire: Britain and the Suppression of the Slave Trade, 1807–1975, edited by Hamilton, Keith and Salmon, Patrick, 81–92. Sussex Academic Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Vansina, Jan. Paths in the Rainforests: Toward a History of Political Tradition in Equatorial Africa. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Vansina, Jan. “Western Bantu Expansion.” Journal of African History 25:2 (April 1984): 129–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wills, Mary. “At War with the ‘Detestable Traffic’: The Royal Navy's Anti-Slavery Cause in the Atlantic Ocean.” In The Royal Navy and the British Atlantic World, c. 1750–1820, edited by McAleer, John and Petley, Christer (London: Macmillan, 2016), 139.Google Scholar
Wood, Geoffrey. “Business and Politics in a Criminal State: The Case of Equatorial Guinea.” African Affairs 103:413 (Oct. 2004): 547–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
The National Archives of the UK [TNA]:Google Scholar
-CO 82/2, FO 84/38, FO 84/45, FO 84/54, FO 84/66, FO 84/67 FO 84/73, FO 84/74, FO 84/76, FO 84/78, FO 84/85, FO 84/86Google Scholar
Owen Sound Library, Owen Sound, Ontario:Google Scholar
-“Private Narrative Journal of Cpt. W. F. W. Owen while superintendent of Clarence Town, Fernando Po, 1827–1829”Google Scholar
Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database (website): www.slavevoyages.org/assessment/estimates (accessed July 27, 2017)Google Scholar
“A Geographical and Commercial View of Northern Central Africa; containing a particular Account of the Course and Termination of the great River Niger in the Atlantic Ocean.” Quarterly Review 26:51 (Oct. 1821): 51–82.Google Scholar
Hansard Parliamentary Debates, 1st series (1803–20).Google Scholar
Owen, W. F. W. Narrative of Voyages to Explore the Shores of Africa, Arabia and Madagascar. 2 Vols. London: Richard Bentley, 1833.Google Scholar
Parliamentary Papers.Google Scholar
-1812 X. “Report of the Commissioners appointed for investigating the state of the Settlements and Governments along the Coast of Africa.”Google Scholar
-1830 (661) X. “Report of the Select Committee on the Settlements of Sierra Leone and Fernando Po.”Google Scholar
Bethell, Leslie. “The Mixed Commissions for the Suppression of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in the Nineteenth Century.” Journal of African History 7 (1966): 79–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Robert T. “Fernando Po and the Anti-Sierra Leonean Campaign: 1826–1834.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 6:2 (1973): 249–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Robert Thomas. William Fitzwilliam Owen: Hydrographer of the African Coast 1774–1857. PhD diss., Syracuse University, 1965.Google Scholar
Burrows, E. H.Captain Owen of the Africa Survey: The Hydrographic Surveys of Admiral W. F. W. Owen on the Coast of Africa and the Great Lakes of Canada, His Fight against the African Slave Trade, His Life in Campobello Island, New Brunswick, 1774–1857. Rotterdam: Balkema, 1979.Google Scholar
Curtin, Philip D.The Image of Africa: British Ideas and Action, 1780–1850. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1964.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dike, K. O. “John Beecroft, 1790–1854: Her Brittanic Majesty's Consul to the Bights of Benin and Baifra 1849–1854.” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 1:1 (Dec. 1956): 5–14.Google Scholar
Dike, K. O.Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta 1830–1885. Oxford, 1959.Google Scholar
Drescher, Seymour. “Emperors of the World: British Abolitionism and Imperialism.” In Abolitionism and Imperialism in Britain, Africa, and the Atlantic, edited by Peterson, Derek R., 129–49. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Eltis, David. Economic Growth and the Ending of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Eltis, David. “The Volume of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, 1781–1867.” Unpublished paper, 1983.Google Scholar
Fegley, Randall. Equatorial Guinea. Oxford: ABC-CLIO, 1991.Google Scholar
Fyfe, Christopher. A History of Sierra Leone. London: Oxford University Press, 1962.Google Scholar
Galbraith, John S. “The ‘Turbulent Frontier’ as a Factor in British Expansion.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 2:2 (Jan. 1960): 150–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrison Church, R. J.West Africa: A Study of the Environment and of Man's Use of It. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1963.Google Scholar
Howell, Raymond. The Royal Navy and the Slave Trade. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Huzzey, Richard. Freedom Burning: Anti-Slavery and Empire in Victorian Britain. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huzzey, Richard. “Minding Civilisation and Humanity in 1867: A Case Study in British Imperial Culture and Victorian Anti-Slavery.” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 40:5 (Dec. 2012): 807–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Latham, A. J. H.Old Calabar, 1600–1891. Oxford, 1973.Google Scholar
Law, Robin. “Abolition and Imperialism: International Law and the British Suppression of the Atlantic Slave Trade.” In Abolitionism and Imperialism in Britain, Africa, and the Atlantic, edited by Peterson, Derek R., 150–74. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Lloyd, C.The Navy and the Slave Trade. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1949.Google Scholar
Lynn, Martin. “Britain's West Africa Policy and the Island of Fernando Po, 1821–43.” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 18:2 (1990): 191–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynn, Martin. “Commerce, Christianity and the Origins of the ‘Creoles’ of Fernando Po.” Journal of African History 25 (1984): 257–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynn, M. R. S.John Beecroft and West Africa 1829–54. PhD diss., University of London, 1978.Google Scholar
Miers, Suzanne. Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade. New York: Africana Publishing Co., 1975.Google Scholar
Newbury, C. W. “Credit in Early Nineteenth Century West African Trade.” Journal of African History 13:1 (1972): 81–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scanlan, Padraic X. “The Colonial Rebirth of British Anti-Slavery: The Liberated African Villages of Sierra Leone, 1815–1824.” American Historical Review 121:4 (2016): 1085–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sundiata, Ibrahim. From Slaving to Neoslavery: the Bight of Biafra and Fernando Po in the Era of Abolition. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Sundiata, Ibrahim. “Moka of Bioko (Late 1820–1899): The Chief Who United a Central African Island.” In The Human Tradition in Modern Africa, edited by Cordell, Dennis D., 47–66. Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2011.Google Scholar
Sundiata, Ibrahim. “State Formation and Trade: The Rise and Fall of the Bubi Polity, c. 1840–1910.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 27:3 (1994): 505–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Temperley, Howard. White Dreams, Black Africa: The Antislavery Expedition to the River Niger 1841–1842. London: Yale University Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Turley, David. “Anti-Slavery Activists and Officials: ‘Influence,’ Lobbying and the Slave Trade, 1807–1850.” In Slavery, Diplomacy and Empire: Britain and the Suppression of the Slave Trade, 1807–1975, edited by Hamilton, Keith and Salmon, Patrick, 81–92. Sussex Academic Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Vansina, Jan. Paths in the Rainforests: Toward a History of Political Tradition in Equatorial Africa. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Vansina, Jan. “Western Bantu Expansion.” Journal of African History 25:2 (April 1984): 129–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wills, Mary. “At War with the ‘Detestable Traffic’: The Royal Navy's Anti-Slavery Cause in the Atlantic Ocean.” In The Royal Navy and the British Atlantic World, c. 1750–1820, edited by McAleer, John and Petley, Christer (London: Macmillan, 2016), 139.Google Scholar
Wood, Geoffrey. “Business and Politics in a Criminal State: The Case of Equatorial Guinea.” African Affairs 103:413 (Oct. 2004): 547–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar