Appendix: Documents for Comparison

Other documents and records can corroborate details of Johann Peter Oettingers’s account, provide valuble context, and allow us to compare Oettinger’s journal with other sources on Atlantic slavery. For comparison, we have selected sources on the West African kingdom of Hueda, a major supplier of enslaved captives, and on the Danish island of St. Thomas, the destination of Oettinger’s second slave voyage in 1693.

THE KINGDOM OF HUEDA

In the late seventeenth century the Kingdom of Hueda supplied many captives for the rapidly expanding slave markets of the Americas. Due to its importance to the slave trade, Hueda is fairly well documented, but there are only a few published travelogues describing the royal court at Savi and its unique commercial role.1 Oettinger’s detailed journal entry about his stay in Savi, including his account of the palace of King Agbangla (ruled early 1680s–1703) is especially valuable. The information on the Kingdom of Hueda provided by Oettinger can be compared with two contemporary travel accounts written by slave-ship captains: the journal of the Welshman Thomas Phillips and the report drafted by the French captain Jean-Pierre-Thibault des Marchais, commonly known as the chevalier Des Marchais.

Phillips was already an experienced mariner when he entered the slave trade. In the early years of the War of the Grand Alliance, while sailing back to England from the Mediterranean, Phillips had been captured off the Irish coast by a French naval squadron and was taken as a prisoner to Brest (just as Oettinger was in 1693). After returning to England, he entered the service of the Royal African Company (RAC) and assumed command of the slave-trader the Hannibal. This ship’s voyage began in 1693 in Gravesend, in the Thames estuary, and ended—after sailing along the coast of West Africa and making a particularly deadly Middle Passage to Barbados—in 1695 in Falmouth, Cornwall. The Hannibal dropped anchor in Hueda in May 1694 and left in July with a cargo of almost 700 enslaved Africans. To put this in perspective, Phillips arrived in Hueda just fourteen months after Oettinger. There he also met King Agbangla and purchased a comparable number of captives. The account by Phillips—who died in his native town of Brecknock in 1713—was not published until 1732 as the sixth volume of the extended second edition of A Collection of Voyages and Travels, edited by the brothers Awnsham and John Churchill.2

Des Marchais’s voyage from Havre-de-Grâce (Le Havre) in the French province of Normandy to West Africa, then to Cayenne (French Guiana), and finally back to Europe took place three decades later, from 1724 to 1726. He arrived in Hueda in January 1725, shortly after the troops of Dahomey had conquered the Kingdom of Allada and two years before they would overrun Hueda and destroy its capital at Savi (1727). In 1724 the conflict between Dahomey and Allada led to an increase in the number of captives to be sold as slaves, but in early 1725 ongoing warfare blocked many trade routes, causing a shortage of available slaves from the hinterlands. As a result, Des Marchais had to wait in Hueda for five months (January–May 1725) to be able to purchase enough slaves. He noted that he had plenty of time to gather information and write a detailed report about the coastal kingdom, which he had already visited during a previous voyage in 1704. After his return to France, he sent his report to the missionary traveler, author, and compiler Jean-Baptiste Labat, as the two had planned before Des Marchais’s journey.3 Labat, who had never been to Africa, later enriched Des Marchais’s narrative with material taken from other texts and published a substantially expanded travelogue in four volumes in 1730.4 In contrast, the richly illustrated manuscript by Des Marchais still awaits a critical edition.

The selected excerpts from Phillips and Des Marchais shed more light on the Huedan monarchy and the mechanisms of the slave trade in this region. First, both authors describe the ceremonial of the court at Savi. They note that even the highest-ranking dignitaries were expected to perform a number of emphatic gestures of submission and self-humiliation in front of the monarch. Sumptuary display was central: members of the Huedan elite profited from maritime trade and were great consumers of foreign commodities, but they had to take off all their luxury items before appearing in front of the king, who was himself lavishly dressed in imported textiles. The curtain screening the king from view suggests that these courtly codes were also influenced by concepts of sacred kingship. However, the accounts from Phillips and Des Marchais also show that despite these rituals of hierarchy and subordination, the king’s authority was far from being absolute. Phillips touches briefly on the autonomy of the members of the Huedan elite under King Agbangla, while Des Marchais’s description of King Huffon (ruled 1708–27) shows in detail how the monarch’s inability to control the elites—whose power and wealth may have increased thanks to the thriving slave trade—had undermined the political stability of the kingdom. By the 1720s the centrifugal dynamics of Atlantic trade had reached a level that weakened the Huedan monarchy and thus facilitated the conquest by Dahomean troops. Finally, both accounts show that the court approached the representatives of European chartered companies pragmatically: on the one hand, visitors such as Oettinger, Phillips, and the chevalier Des Marchais were lodged inside the Savi palace district and had to trade under the direct control of the monarch; on the other hand, they were exempted from acts of ritual submission and could interact with the king in far less subordinate ways (e.g., they were greeted with finger-snap handshakes and permitted to sit on chairs in front of him). Like Oettinger’s account, these two texts offer detailed descriptions of the institutions, customs, and practices that guided the selling and buying of enslaved persons. We can gather details about the preliminary negotiations accompanied by diplomatic gifts and the payment of duties, the hierarchical sequence imposed when buying slaves from the king and other sellers, agreements on prices and quantities of commodities exchanged for the captives, as well as the bodily practices that accompanied chattel slavery (such as examination by a surgeon and branding) and the ways enslaved people resisted through escape, shipboard rebellion, and suicide.

Slave-Ship’s Captain Thomas Phillips (1694): “A Journal of a Voyage Made in the Hannibal of London”

<216> Visit to the king.5 When we came to the palace (which is the meanest I ever saw, being low mud walls, the roof thatch’d, the floor the bare ground, with some pools of water and dirt in it) we were met at the entrance by several cappasheirs [caboceers],6 with the usual ceremony of clapping their hands, and taking and shaking us by ours, with great demonstration of affection: when we enter’d the palace-yard they all fell on their knees near the door of the room where the king was, clapping their hands, knocking the ground with their foreheads, and kissing it, which they repeated three times, being their usual ceremony when they approach’d his majesty, we standing and observing till they had done; then rising, they led us to the room where the king was, which we found cover’d with his nobility upon their knees, and those that introduced us fell on theirs, and crawl’d to their several stations, and so they continued all the time we were with the king then, and all other times when we saw him.

When we enter’d, the king peep’d upon us from behind a curtain, and beckon’d us to him; whereupon we approach’d close to his throne, which was of clay, rais’d about two foot from the ground, and about six foot square, surrounded with old dirty curtains, always drawn ’twixt him and his cappasheirs, whom he will not allow the sight of his handsome phiz [face]. He had two or three little black children with him, and was smoaking tobacco in a long wooden pipe, the bole of which, I dare say, would hold an ounce, and rested upon his throne, with a bottle of brandy and a little dirty silver cup by his side;7 his head was tied about with a roll of coarse callicoe, and he had a loose gown of red damask to cover him; <217> he has gowns and mantles of rich silver and gold brocaded silks, trimm’d with flowers of small party-colour’d beads, which were presents made him, as he told us, by white captains, who traded there, and his variety of which he often shew’d us; but he never wore shirt, shoe, nor stocking, in his life.

We saluted him with our hats, and he took us by the hands, snapt our fingers,8 and told us we were very welcome, that he was glad to see us, that he long’d for it, and that he lov’d Englishmen dearly, that we were his brothers, and that he would do us all the good offices he could; we returned him thanks by his interpreter, and assur’d him how great affection our masters, the royal African company of England, bore to him, for his civility and fair and just dealing with their captains; and that notwithstanding there were many other places, more plenty of negroe slaves that begg’d their custom,9 yet they had rejected all the advantageous offers made them out of their good will to him, and therefore had sent us to trade with him, to supply his country with necessaries, and that we hop’d he would endeavour to continue their favour by his kind usage and fair dealing with us in our trade, that we may have our slaves with all expedition, which was the making of our voyage; that he would oblige his cappasheirs to do us justice, and not impose upon us in their prices; all of which we should relate to our masters, the royal African company, when we came to England. He answer’d, that the African company was a very good brave man; that he lov’d him; that we should be fairly dealt with, and not impos’d upon: But he did not prove as good as his word; nor indeed (tho’ his cappasheirs shew him so much respect) dare he do any thing but what they please. . . .

According to promise we attended his majesty with samples of our goods, and made our agreement about the prices, tho’ not without much difficulty; he and his cappasheirs exacted very high, but at length we concluded as per the latter end; then we had warehouses, a kitchen, and lodgings assign’d us, but none of our rooms <218> had doors till we made them, and put on locks and keys; next day we paid our customs to the king and cappasheirs, as will appear hereafter; then the bell was order’d to go about to give notice to all people to bring their slaves to the trunk to sell us: this bell is a hollow piece of iron in shape of a sugar loaf,10 the cavity of which could contain about 50 lb. of cowries: This a man carry’d about and beat with a stick, which made a small dead sound. . . .

When we were at the trunk,11 the king’s slaves, if he had any, were the first offer’d to sale, which the cappasheirs would be very urgent with us to buy, and would in a manner force us to it ere they would shew us any other, saying they were the Reys Cosa,12 and we must not refuse them, tho’ as I observ’d they were generally the worst slaves in the trunk, and we paid more for them than any others, which we could not remedy it being one of his majesty’s prerogatives; then the cappasheirs each brought out his slaves according to his degree and quality, the greatest first, &c. and our surgeon examin’d them well in all kinds, to see that they were sound [of] wind and limb, making them jump, stretch out their arms swiftly, looking in their mouths to judge of their age; for the cappasheirs are so cunning, that they shave them all close before we see them, so that let them be never so old we can see no grey hairs in their heads or beards; and then having liquor’d them well and sleek with palm oil, ’tis no easy matter to know an old one from a middle-age one, but by the teeths [sic] decay; but our greatest care of all is to buy none that are pox’d, lest they should infect the rest aboard; for tho’ we separate the men and women aboard by partitions and bulk-heads, to prevent quarrels and wranglings among them, yet do what we can they will come together, and that distemper which they call the yaws,13 is very common here, and discovers itself by almost the same symptoms as the Lues Venerea or clap14 does with us; therefore our surgeon is forc’d to examine the privities of both men and women, with the nicest scrutiny, which is a great slavery,15 but what can’t be omitted: When we had selected from the rest such as we liked, we agreed in what goods to pay for them, the prices being already stated before the king, how much of each sort of merchandize we were to give for a man, woman, and child, which gave us much ease, and saved abundance of disputes and wranglings, and gave the owner a note, signifying our agreement of the sorts of goods; upon delivery of which the next day he receiv’d them; then we mark’d the slaves we had bought in the breast, or shoulder, with a hot iron, having the letter of the ship’s name on it, the place being before anointed with a little palm oil, which caus’d but little pain, the mark being usually well in four or five days, appearing very plain and white after. . . .

<219> When our slaves were come to the seaside, our canoes were ready to carry them off to the longboat, if the sea permitted, and she [the longboat] convey’d them aboard ship, where the men were all put in irons, two and two shackled together, to prevent their mutiny, or swimming ashore.

The negroes are so wilful and loth to leave their own country, that they have often leap’d out of the canoes, boat and ship, into the sea, and kept under water till they were drowned, to avoid being taken up and saved by our boats, which pursued them; they having a more dreadful apprehension of Barbadoes than we can have of hell, tho’ in reality they live much better than in their own country;16 but home is home, &c.: we have likewise seen divers of them eaten by the sharks, of which a prodigious number kept about the ships in this place, and I have been told will follow her hence to Barbadoes, for the dead negroes are thrown over-board in the passage. I am certain in our voyage there we did not want the sight of some every day, but that they were the same I can’t affirm.

We had about 12 negroes did wilfully drown themselves, and others starv’d themselves to death; for ’tis their belief that when they die they return home to their own country and friends again.

Slave-Ship’s Captain Jean-Pierre-Thibault des Marchais (1725): “Journal of the Voyage to Guinea and Cayenne by the Chevalier Des Marchais”

<36r> One can see that it is necessary [on slaving voyages] to have capable surgeons, gentle and even-tempered, because the well-being of the negroes depends on it.17 In order to maintain the [human] cargo, one must therefore not skimp on the wages to have them. . . . Now usually the surgeons taken on board barely know how to let blood and are ignorant even of the formulation of remedies—this [is done] in order to avoid high wages. Yet one cannot pay too much attention to this point, because the lives of the crew and of the blacks will remain in the hands of the ignorant by such thrift, which often costs the ship owners very dearly.

<40v> Xavier [Savi] is the capital city and the residence of the kings; it is here that the directors of the four European nations [i.e., the French, the British, the Dutch, and the Portuguese] stay and where all the trading is done.

<41v> Once the king has been enthroned, he is respected like a deity: no one dares to speak to him unless they are prostrated on the ground, with the face turned to the opposite side. . . . It is in this manner that he gives audience to his subjects and to all the grandees [caboceers]; who care very little to visit him because they are mighty and they do as they please in their provinces: they even wage war against one another without caring if the king finds that good or bad. Even within the city of Xavier this happens sometimes. . . . <42r> When these grandees go to see the king, they have to remove all their ornaments, clothing, and jewelry before entering the palace and cover themselves with a cloth of [woven] grass: as it is not permitted to present themselves to him clothed in silk. The people in their entourage remain in the first courtyard, where they stay prostrate until their master exits. And if they notice that he is much delayed, or that someone has done an injury to their master, they enter by force, [not stopping] until they get to see him. If it would happen that the king had killed this grandee, they would set [the palace] afire and pillage everything. When this grandee leaves the palace, he takes back his clothing and jewelry, and once he is outside the palace gate, he lets the king know of his departure in the same manner in which he has arrived: with the sound of drums, trumpets, and many shots fired [in the air].

<48v> The color of the king’s garments is red. Only he, his wives, and those of his family are permitted to wear this color,18 be it in silk or in another fabric. . . .

<57r> As the principle object of commerce in Juda [Hueda] is the trade in slaves (who are brought to America to cultivate the lands there), here it is convenient to describe the sorts of merchandise [traded] and the prices of the captives.19

Bouges or cowries20 One gives the weight of 180 p[ounds] for a man.

Platilles cloth21 40 to 45 p[ieces] for the same

Brandy, in ankers 4 to 5 for the same

Gunpowder 300 p[ounds] for the same

Ordinary rifles 20 to 25 for the same

Long iron bars 40 to 45 [pieces] for the same

Chittes from Pondichéry22 10 to 12 for the same

Blue Guinee [cloth]23 12 for a man and 10 for a woman

White Guinee [cloth] The same quantity

White Salamporis24 The same quantity

Blue Salamporis The same quantity

Long smoking pipes from Holland 20 big ones for a man

Tapsels25 16 pieces for a man, 10 for a woman

Nicanez26 The same quantity

Baftas27 The same quantity

Limeneas28 The same quantity

Handkerchiefs from Pondichéry 16 for a man, 12 for a woman. . . .

<58r> Generally, the blacks treat the French with all possible kindness and respect. Even among themselves this [deference] is practiced: the inferiors [show respect] to the superiors, from the most great to the least persons.

THE DANISH ISLAND OF ST. THOMAS

On his two voyages to the Caribbean, Oettinger visited only one settlement twice: the tiny Danish-ruled island of St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. Despite its small size St. Thomas was an important transimperial center of trade where Dutch, French, English, Brandenburg, and Danish ships met.

The Kingdom of Denmark entered the early modern world of global maritime trade in the seventeenth century, establishing trading posts at Tranquebar (Tharangambadi) on the Coromandel Coast of India, and later in the Bay of Accra on the Gold Coast of Africa. Denmark then joined the other northern European states expanding into the Caribbean by sending a small party of Danes to settle on St. Thomas in 1666. (Spanish claims to the Virgin Islands were ignored.) But disease and conflict with the English and Dutch already living there led to the failure of this first Danish settlement. Danish engagement with the Caribbean took off after 1671, when the Royal Danish West India and Guinea Company (WIGC) was chartered. Like the Dutch WIC or the English RAC, this company held a national monopoly over trade with West Africa and the Caribbean, as well as other privileges.

In the 1670s and 1680s the Danes settled St. Thomas and built the Christiansfort beside the fine natural harbor on the south side of the island. The port town that developed there was first known as Tap Huis—“Tap House” or “Rum Shop”—but was eventually named Charlotte Amalie, after the wife of King Christian V. Hoping to establish a plantation economy exporting tobacco, sugar, and cotton, the Danish authorities granted land to Europeans of various nations. By 1688 there were about 400 enslaved persons on the island laboring for 175 free adult subjects. About 45 percent of the free population declared themselves to be Dutch, 18 percent English, and 13 percent Danish; Protestants far outnumbered Catholics.

St. Thomas was also the site of the only Caribbean trading post of the BAC/BAAC: a treaty between Denmark and Brandenburg-Prussia, signed in 1685, allowed the BAC to construct a trading post, residences, and warehouses in their chartered district on the west side of Charlotte Amalie. The BAC was also granted land for plantations. On the one hand, the economy of St. Thomas rested on agricultural production by slave labor. On the other, its open port fostered all sorts of transimperial trade and smuggling, foremost trade in slaves and sugar. Oettinger, Delavigne, and Labat each document different aspects of these two sides of life on St. Thomas—the agricultural and the commercial.

Not much is known about Frans (or Frantz) Delavigne, who served as WIGC governor of St. Thomas from 1692 to 1694, the period when the WIGC had leased its operations to Jørgen Thormøhlen, a wealthy Norwegian merchant originally from Holstein. A 1691 document describes Delavigne as a merchant and bookkeeper; another official noted that Delavigne was “reported to have been born in Copenhagen” and that his “stepfather [was] said to be the queen’s master in languages, namely Visconti.”29 He was selected by Thormøhlen to govern St. Thomas as profitably as possible and arrived there in September 1692. In this role Delavigne and an appointed council handled all commercial, criminal, and other public matters on the island. As governor, Delavigne was expected to keep a journal of all significant events—political, commercial, and otherwise—for inspection by the WIGC or by their lessee, Thormøhlen. This “Governor’s Journal” was kept (in German, rather than Danish) during Delavigne’s governorship. When the lease arrangement between Thormøhlen and the directors of the WIGC broke down in 1694, Delavigne was immediately replaced as governor, leaving office in November 1694. Little is known of his life after that.

Jean-Baptiste Labat (1663–1738), on the other hand, is a very well-known figure in Caribbean history. A Paris-born Dominican friar, in 1693 he obtained permission to travel to the French colonies in the Caribbean to serve as a missionary to the Native peoples of the islands; in January 1694 he arrived in Martinique. For the next twelve years Labat filled an extraordinary variety of roles in the Caribbean: he was a parish priest ministering to French and enslaved African Catholics; a missionary; a plantation manager on Martinique who owned—and brutally punished—slaves; and senior administrator of all Dominican convents in the Caribbean islands. His knowledge and experience in building everything from churches and fortresses to sugarcane mills led to his appointment as a French colonial engineer. Travelling as a missionary, Dominican administrator, or engineer, he visited Martinique, Guadeloupe, Dominica, Grenada, Barbados, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Saint-Domingue, St. Thomas (in 1701), and St. Christopher (St. Kitts). As he moved between the French, English, Dutch, Danish, and Spanish empires, he noted the distinctive natural, economic, political, and religious features of each island. Labat criticized the abuse of slaves, but he never questioned the legitimacy of slavery itself.

In 1706 Labat returned to Europe. After several years in Rome, he went back to Paris, where he lived at the renowned Dominican monastery in the Rue Saint-Honoré. There he continued to organize and prepare his extraordinary wealth of experience for publication. This long-planned work, titled Nouveau Voyage aux Isles de l’Amérique (New voyage to the islands of America) appeared in six volumes at Paris in 1722. The work became a best-seller of the eighteenth century, with translations into Dutch and German. The text excerpted below is translated from the 1724 edition.

The agricultural labor of enslaved people was the basis of Caribbean society at this time, and national differences were unimportant when forced labor was harnessed to produce sugar, tobacco, or cotton. The techniques used to produce the crops and control the enslaved differed little from one plantation to another. As Oettinger observed, the “Danes, French, Dutch, Germans, and English” all operated plantations on St. Thomas. The excerpts below from the Danish governor Frans Delavigne and from the Dominican missionary Jean-Baptiste Labat describe attempts to control the enslaved people on these plantations. The two sources go beyond Oettinger’s account to reveal some of the deeper tensions and fears typical of Caribbean slave societies, where social, natural, and supernatural threats could burst forth at any moment. The enslaved might resist by gathering without permission, planning rebellion, or perhaps by using practices familiar from home (understood by Europeans as “sorcery”) to show power, settle personal scores, or threaten their masters. The cautious colonial governor Delavigne and the traveling scholar Labat give us a sense of the violence fundamental to this plantation culture.

But Labat emphasizes the importance of commerce on St. Thomas, especially illicit trade among the English, French, Dutch, and Spanish—and “it is the Dutch,” he explains, “who do all the trade, under the name of the Danes.” The greatest profits on St. Thomas arose from such trade, which reversed the typical Caribbean pattern. Unlike larger islands truly dependent on slave labor and sugar production (such as Barbados or Martinique), in this period slaves were more likely to be exported from St. Thomas (to French or Spanish colonies) and sugar was more likely to be imported to St. Thomas for loading onto ships bound for Europe, such as the Friedrich Wilhelm, on which Oettinger sailed. As table 2 shows, the Danish West Indies imported many more slaves than could possibly be exploited on its plantations. Oettinger’s journal and the reports of Governor Delavigne reveal brisk illegal trade between the Brandenburgers and the French colonies of St. Croix and St. Christopher: slaves were shipped out and sugar brought back to St. Thomas. Even in times of peace, such trade was forbidden to the French by the exclusif, the mercantilist policy that permitted French colonies to trade only with the mother country; no trade with foreigners was allowed. With Brandenburg and France at war, such trade was also illegal for the Brandenburgers themselves. Further, due to the state of war, on the open seas French privateers could seize cargoes from Brandenburg ships—sometimes the very cargoes just loaded in French colonial ports such as St. Croix.

Governor Frans Delavigne (1693): “Governor’s Journal, St. Thomas”

Sunday the 9th of July [1693]. . . .30 A Brandenburg Negro ship called Friedrich Wilhelm, under the command of Captain Jan Lesage, arrived from Guinea.31 The captain has been to the fort and, on account of his [intent to] trade, has shown his pass to the Herr Governor of our Most Gracious King and Lord; the Herr Governor [i.e., Delavigne] has taken a copy of it.

Tuesday the 11th of July. . . . One of the Brandenburg barques has sailed for St. Christopher.32

Sunday the 16th of July. . . . This afternoon it was reported to the Herr Governor that around 200 Negroes held a feast on the east end of the island on the plantation of Lucas Beverhout.33 It was broken up by some planters living there, who chased away [the participants]. For this reason the Herr Governor gave written orders to Lieutenant Eversen that here in the New Quarter the patrol should make an additional round.34

Monday the 17th of July. . . . A Brandenburg barque has sailed to St. Croix. . . . The Herr Governor gave an order (after a Negro belonging to Eversen, who was at the gathering yesterday, was brought as a prisoner into the fort) to also capture a Negro man of Herr Brock who had risen up against the Christians and to bring him to the fort as well.

Wednesday the 19th of the same. The Negro belonging to the planter Lucas Beverhout came into the fort on his own. [He was] the author of the Negro banquet . . . and so was arrested here.

Thursday the 20th of the same. . . . The Brandenburg Director v[an] Bellen reported that he had transported 56 slaves to St Croix.35

Friday the 21st of the same. One of planter Engel Huysing’s Negroes was brought into the fort and arrested after he had been accused of practicing sorcery.

Saturday the 22nd of the same. The Herr Governor had a notice posted that forbade that any inhabitant of this island should deal either directly or indirectly with the slaves.36

Monday the 24th of July. . . . The Herr Governor has gone onto the Sugar Plantation and held an inspection, finding that most of the Negroes . . . escaped into the bush and are runaway as maroons [Maron gelaufen waren], for which reason the Herr Governor had a new notice published.37

Tuesday the 25th of the same. [The governor and council have reached a verdict] regarding the Negro gathering and feast that occurred on the 16th of this [month] on the east end [of the island]. So a sentence has been unanimously decided and passed upon Pieter Brock’s Negro: that he, due to his hostility that he has shown to the Christians, shall be flogged with a sturdy rod and shall lose half his nose. Juer[gen] Jürgensen’s Negro, who was at the same feast and ran around with an uncovered knife in his hand, shall likewise be whipped. Lucas Beverhout’s Negro, who devised the feast, has been sentenced by the designated men [the members of the council] likewise to be punished with a whipping. [In this case the governor did not approve the decision, so the sentence was postponed.] The slave driver [i.e., bomba] of the sugar plantation of Pieter Hansen has been arrested.

Thursday the 27th of the same. [The governor and the council met once again at the fort] and consulted about the case of the author of the Negro feast, the Negro man Tekki [belonging to] Lucas Beverhout.38 The majority of the votes decided on a sentence: that he should be punished with a heavy whipping and sent to the plantation of his master. [The sentence was then carried out.] Engel Huysen’s Negro was questioned and tortured, and then confessed to committing sorcery, but he also implicated the Negro bomba of his master.

Friday the 28th of the same. . . . A Brandenburg barque from St. Croix docked here and reported to the Herr Governor that the large Brandenburg barque, loaded with sugar and 2 pipes of Madeira, had been taken by the French snow and plundered.39

Saturday, the 29th of July. . . . It was reported to the Herr Governor that the maroon slaves who had run away from the Sugar Plantation [of the Danish company] came [back] and were all once again together there.

Wednesday the 9th of August. Through carelessness a fire broke out in the Brandenburgers’ chartered quarter, so that all of their Negro huts burned to the ground.40

Tuesday the 15th of August. [During a meeting of the governor and the council at the Christiansfort] the two Negro men belonging to Engel Huysen were interrogated because of the sorcery practiced and because the one Negro named Anthony disputed the confession he had given on the previous 26th. So he was tortured again; then he confessed publicly to the sorcery he had worked and that among those [actions] he had given the Negress of the late Hindrich Pietersens a piece of bacon to eat, from which she speedily died. The same was confessed by the bomba, and further that the Negro Anthony had done it. The same [Anthony] often practiced such devilish arts on slaves of the Company as well as other residents’ slaves.

Thursday the 17th of August. [The governor and council met at the Christiansfort] and then the sorcery of the Negroes was further investigated and examined, as can be seen in more detail in the minutes [of the meeting]. A final judgement was passed upon the Negro Anthony: that he should be burned alive at the stake. To this purpose, every inhabitant with his Negro men shall be commanded to come with a good load of firewood. And the bomba shall be punished with a severe whipping.

Saturday the 19th of August. After they were condemned, the punishment of the three Negroes took place in the presence of all inhabitants of this land: first, the sorcerer Anthony, after that the Negro A.B., who had his nose half cut away and was whipped; after that, the Negro bomba—because he had made a sign of remorse with his hand—he was [only] beaten harshly with a rod.

Missionary Jean-Baptiste Labat (1701): “New Voyage to the Islands of America”

<2:285> Although this island [of St. Thomas] is quite small, . . . it has two masters.41 That is, the King of Denmark and the Elector of Brandenburg, who is presently the King of Prussia. It is true that the Brandenburgers are there under the protection of the Danish, and to speak more accurately, it is the Dutch who do all the trade, under the name of the Danes. . . .

This trading post [of the Danish WIC in Charlotte Amalie] is large and capacious, and well-constructed. There are many convenient lodgings, and warehouses for the merchandise, and to put up the Negroes that it [the company] receives and that it trades to the Spanish. To the right of the trading post there are two small streets, which are full of French [Protestant] refugees from Europe and the islands. They [the streets] are called the quarter of the Brandenburgers. What is singular about this Island is that one sees there three or four religions, without any of them having a place of worship, almost like on Barbados. . . .

<2:286> To speak more broadly, however, there are just two dominant religions on Saint Thomas (and it seems to me that this is enough, honestly, for such a small place), that is the Lutheran and the Calvinist one. The latter ordinarily had two ministers, a Frenchman and a Dutchman. The former only had one, who spoke Flemish and German. I don’t know if he was of the Augsburg Confession, or some other [kind of] Protestant.

As soon as I set foot on land a French surgeon, who was the only white Roman Catholic on the island, came to see me and told me that, being from the same country and the same religion as me, he was hoping that I would prefer his home to all others. . . .

After dining I went to see M[onsieur] Vambel [i.e., Pieter van Belle], Director of the Danish Company.42 He received me with every form of honor. . . . <2:287> M[onsieur] Vambel had recently married a French woman from Nîmes in Languedoc; the difference of religion and the sorrow for having left her homeland did not hinder her from treating us as friends . . . After dinner, a bell was rung to call all the Christian Negroes to prayer. Madame Vambel went to make sure that no one was absent. Her husband told me that it had been a while since his Christian slaves had done their devotions. He asked me to hear their confessions, and to teach them, and he told me that, despite the fact that they were not of his faith, as a Christian he was persuaded he had to care for their salvation, because he believed that they could be saved in their camp as he could in his. I praised his zeal and exhorted him to continue, assuring him that God would reward him for this good deed and give him the light he needed to ensure his salvation. I was surprised to see that all Negresses who served Madame Vambel had golden crosses on their necks. They told me that their master and their mistress took great care in teaching them, and made them confess whenever any [Catholic] clergyman came to the island. . . .

<2:288> I found many Frenchmen who had been living in the Lesser Antilles [i.e., Guadeloupe and Martinique] and in our parishes in Cabesterre [on Dominica], which they had left after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.43 Although they were doing quite well on St. Thomas, they really missed the Lesser Antilles, because they often experienced the jealousy of the foreigners amongst whom they had moved. The difference of religion did not hinder them from making it appear that their hearts were still French. They offered me their services, and everything they had with them, and even some gifts. . . .

There is a quite considerable amount of trade on this small island, and it is this that has attracted the inhabitants who have peopled it. As the King of Denmark is ordinarily neutral, his port is open to all kinds of nations. In times of peace it serves as an entrepôt for the trade that the French, English, Spanish, and Dutch do not dare to conduct openly on their own islands. And in times of war it is a refuge for merchant vessels that are chased by privateers. It is [also] there they bring their prizes . . . so that the merchants of this island profit from the misfortune of those [whose ships] are taken and share the benefits of victory with the victors. Furthermore, it is from this port that many barques depart to go trading along the coast of the Tierra Firme. . . .44

In the afternoon we went to see the Lutheran minister. He was a skillful man, truly honorable, and of good manners. The French minister had recently died; our compatriots were afflicted by it and told me many good things about him. I offered to preach to them, but they [declined and] thanked me, as their Protestant [faith] could not be sufficiently accommodated with my religion to permit them to listen to my sermon. I did not see the other Calvinist minister; he was in the countryside.

<1:167> A Negro sorcerer burned at the stake at Saint Thomas

The facts I will report I have heard from Monsieur Vanbel, Director of the Danish entrepôt on the island of Saint Thomas . . . , who told me the story when I passed there in the month of March 1701 coming from Saint-Domingue.

In 1694 a Negro who had been convicted of being a sorcerer and of making a little earthen statue speak was condemned by the court of the island to be burned alive. As Monsieur Vanbel happened to find himself on the route of [the condemned man] as he was taken to be executed, he [Monsieur Vanbel] said to him: Well . . . you won’t make your little earthen statue speak again: it has been destroyed. The Negro responded to him: If you would like, Sir, I will make the cane you are holding in your hand speak. This proposal surprised everybody; Monsieur Vanbel asked the judge, who was present, to stay the execution for a moment, to see if the Negro would be able to accomplish what he had promised to do. . . . He gave his cane to the Negro who, after sticking it into the ground and doing some ceremonies around it, asked Monsieur Vanbel what he wanted to know; the latter answered that he wanted to know if a vessel he was expecting had departed, when it would arrive, who was on board, and what had happened to them during the journey. The Negro resumed his ceremonies and, having stepped back, told Monsieur Vanbel to approach his cane. . . . Indeed, when Monsieur Vanbel approached . . . he heard a little voice, clear and distinct, that told him: The vessel you are expecting has left Elseneur [Helsingør] on such-and-such a date, it is commanded by so-and-so, it has such-and-such passengers on board, you will be happy about its cargo, it has suffered a gale by passing the tropic [of Cancer] which broke [the spar of] his small topsail and blew his mizzen staysail away, it will anchor here before three days. The Negro did not avoid being brought to his execution and being put to death. And three days later, the vessel having arrived, the prediction was confirmed to the letter. . . .

It seems to me that . . . there are really persons who traffic with the devil and who rely on him for many things.