Forced Maritime Migrations: Eighteenth-Century Prize Negroes and Kidnapped Seamen

            Many North American slaves considered ocean-going ships “freedom’s swift-winged angels.” During the eighteenth century hundreds of North American fugitive slaves sought berths to carry them to freedom. When these slaves ran away they joined thousands of dark-skinned mariners, both free and enslaved, serving on Atlantic ships. And yet for many runaway slaves flight on “swift-winged angels” did not result in permanent freedom. Instead, scores of these men were captured by enemy ships, forcibly transported to places not of their choosing and condemned as Prize Negroes into re-enslavement.

            Maritime fugitives were hardly the only dark-skinned mariners who found themselves coercively moved and sold against their will. Equiano’s story of his shipmate Joseph Clipson being kidnapped and sold into slavery is not exceptional. The value of dark-skinned men with maritime skills made them targets for unscrupulous men throughout the Atlantic.

            The forced movement of dark-skinned mariners, whether through the prize system or individual kidnappings, can serve as an important window into attitudes about race, freedom and empire, and assist in answering a series of questions concerning liberty in the Atlantic. These questions include, but are not limited to, which captured dark-skinned mariners escaped being sold and why; differences and similarities in attitudes towards Prize Negroes; how did Anglo-American willingness to enslave captured dark-skinned mariners affect the lives of enemy and Anglo-American mariners; how porous was slavery in the Atlantic; and to what degree were dark-skinned mariners involved in the forced migration of other dark-skinned mariners.