An Englishwoman Defends the Slave Trade

Anna Maria Falconbridge (born 1769) was the first modern European woman to write about travels to Africa. She married surgeon and abolitionist Alexander Falconbridge in 1788, whose testimony before the British government became the basis for his 1788 abolitionist work, An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa. Anna Maria Falconbridge sailed with her husband to Sierra Leone, where a British company had established a settlement of “black poor,” or African Americans who had fled the United States after the American Revolution. Her letters from these voyages were published as the Narrative upon her return to England in 1794. The excerpt here shows how her initial abolitionist views changed with her firsthand experience.

We embarked and sailed on the ninth of June; nothing could have reconciled me to the idea of taking my passage in a slave ship . . . for I always entertained most horrid notions of being exposed to indelicacies, too offensive for the eyes of an English woman, on board these ships; however, I never was more agreeably disappointed in my life. In the center of the ship a barricade was run across, to prevent any communication between the men and women; the men and boys occupied the forward part, and the women and girls, the after, so I was only liable to see the latter, who were full as well habited as they would have been in Africa. . . . Having heard such a vast deal of the ill treatment to slaves during the middle passage, I did not omit to make the nicest [closest] observations in my power. . . . I would declare I had not the slightest reason to suspect any inhumanity or mal-practice was shewn towards [the slaves], through the whole voyage; on the contrary, I believe they experienced the utmost kindness and care, and after a few days, when they had recovered from sea sickness, I never saw more signs of content and satisfaction, among any set of people, in their or any other country. . . . Regularly every day their rooms were washed out, sprinkled with vinegar, and well dried with chafing dishes of coal; during this operation the slaves were kept on deck, where they were allowed to stay the whole day (when the weather would permit) if they liked it. . . . Their provisions were excellent, consisting of boiled rice and English beans . . . and relished with a piece of beef, salt fish, or palm oil. . . . Great attention was paid the sick, of which, however, there were few. . . .

Whether slaves are equally well treated in common, I cannot pretend to say, but when one recollects how much the masters are interested in their well doing, it is natural to suppose such is the case, for self-interest so unalterably governs the human heart, that it alone must temper the barbarity of any man, and prevent him from committing violence on, or misusing his own property. . . .

For a length of time I viewed the Slave Trade with abhorrence — considering it a blemish on every civilized nation that countenanced or supported it, and that this, our happy enlightened country was more especially stigmatized for carrying it on, than any other; but I am not ashamed to confess, those sentiments were the effect of ignorance, and the prejudice of opinion, imbibed by associating with a circle of acquaintances, bigoted for the abolition. . . . So widely opposite are my ideas of the trade from what they were, that I now think it in no shape objectionable either to morality or religion, but on the contrary consistent with both, while neither are to be found in unhappy Africa; and while three-fourths of that populous country come into the world, like hogs or sheep, subject, at any moment, to be rob’d of their lives by the other fourth, I say, while this is the case, I cannot think the Slave Trade inconsistent with any moral, or religious law — in place of invading the happiness of Africa, tends to promote it; by pacifying the murdering, despotic Chieftains of that country, who only spare the lives of their vassals from a desire of acquiring the manufactures of this and other nations, and by saving millions from perdition, whose future existence is rendered comfortable, by the cherishing hands of Christian masters, who are not only restrained from exercising any improper or unjust cruelties over their slaves, by the fear of reciprocal injury, but by the laws of the land, and their religious tenets. . . .

Pray do not misinterpret my arguments, and suppose me a friend to slavery, or wholly an enemy to abolishing the Slave Trade; lest you should, I must explain myself — by declaring from my heart I wish freedom to every creature formed by God, who knows its value — which cannot be the case with those who have not tasted its sweets; therefore, most assuredly, I must think favorably of the Slave Trade, while those innate prejudices, ignorance, superstition, and savageness, overspread Africa; and while the Africans feel no conviction by continuing it, but remove those errors of nature, teach them the purposes for which they were created, the ignominy of trafficking in their own flesh, and learn them to hold the lives of their fellow mortals in higher estimation, or even let me see a foundation laid, whereupon hopes itself may be built of their becoming proselytes to the doctrine of Abolition; then, no person on earth will rejoice more earnestly to see that trade suppressed in every shape.

Anna Maria Falconbridge, Narrative of Two Voyages to the River Sierra Leone, ed. Christopher Fyfe (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000), 89–94.

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