Content area
Full Text
Editor's Introduction: This article examines the first known slave voyage from British North America, that of the Rainbow, which sailed from Boston in 1644-45 to West Africa. Carefully reviewing the historiography, Dr. Kelley demonstrates how the Rainbow's voyage came to be seen as the first transatlantic slaving voyage from Boston, much as the landing ofa group of slaves in Jamestown in 1619 from a captured Dutch ship has been characterized as the beginning of African slavery in Virginia.
However, newly discovered documents from the High Court of Admiralty (HCA) in London reveal hitherto unknown details regarding the voyage, especially about events on the coast of Africa. The HCA sources demonstrate that the ship had only recently been registered in New England and its voyage was not initially intended as a slaving expedition. The HCA documents also reveal far more specific details about the journey and its aftermath. The Rainbow sailed to Portudal, located in the militarily powerful Senegambian kingdom of Baol, where the crew's efforts to attack and enslave residents were successfully repulsed. All of the court depositions agree that the landing party was forced to withdraw, and none tell of any actual fighting on the part of the sailors. John Winthrop's brief references to an assault that "killed many people" and "neare 100 slaine," which many historians have relied upon over the last two centuries, appear to have been based on inaccurate and incomplete evidence. The author's careful investigation of the African aspects of the voyage further recasts assumptions about European strength and African weakness in the seventeenth century.
Dr. Kelley argues that these new sources force a reconsideration of the early American slave trade, underscoring the many obstacles faced by colonial traders. The Rainbow's failure and its foiled effort to attack the port of Portudal help to explain why New Englanders' involvement in the transatlantic slave trade did not become either common or profitable until the mid-eighteenth century. Characterizing the Rainbow's voyage of1644-45 as the seamless beginning of the New England transatlantic slave trade is both misleading and ahistorical. During the seventeenth century, New England merchants dispatched a total of only fourteen slaving ships to Africa.
Dr. Sean M. Kelley is a Senior Lecturer in Global History at the University of Essex and...