(SLAVE TRADE.) Rules to be Observed on Board Ships Carrying Liberated African Emigrants from St. Helena to the West Indies. Letterpress broadside, 13 x 8 inches, signed and dated in manuscript by the St. Helena surgeon Robinson Bonstead; tipped into modern folder, folds, minor wear and mount staining. St. Helena, 26 October 1862
The remote South Atlantic island of St. Helena is a British territory best known as Napoleon Bonaparte's final residence. The British established a naval base there in 1840 to help end the slave trade between Africa and South America. Over the coming decades, approximately 25,000 "liberated Africans" from intercepted slave ships were brought to St. Helena. They often arrived in desperate condition due to hunger and disease. Some remained on the island, and others were brought to British-held Sierra Leone, South Africa, and the West Indies.
This broadside set forth the rules for somewhat humane treatment of those being transported to the West Indies. One imagines that for each of these 21 regulations, some history of apathy or abuse on the part of the British navy had rendered it necessary. The ships were to be washed and disinfected every morning, no corporal punishment was to be inflicted, "Spirits" were forbidden to be distributed, and meals served three times daily on a fixed schedule. Rule #11: "Any Seaman or other of the Ship's Company found between Decks, or with the African Women, will be liable to a deduction of Wages."
We trace no other examples of this broadside, which sheds important light on the British efforts to thwart the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
