The Reality of Travelling the African Coast: Midshipman Binstead on chasing slavers along the coast of West Africa

Article by Steven Burke. Edited by Cathy Humphreys. Additional Research by Emily Spencer.

In the 1820s Britain’s position as a world power was unique, loaded with potential and ambition. Victorious in war against the French, reigning supreme on the seas, with an industrial base and unprecedented growth to come, British adventurers went forth with all their ambitions, principles and prejudices into almost every corner of the known world, and much of the unknown. Coming from a social background that encouraged ambition and aspiration, young and well supported men of the time would become the vanguard of much of British expansion through the Victorian era. The Royal Navy gave the opportunity for many of them to push the boundaries of travel and adventure in the name of King, Queen, country, science and discovery.

In the shadow of great naval heroes, the last campaign of the navy of Rodney and Nelson took on the moral issue of the day; the suppression of the slave trade. In doing so, they took many ambitious youngsters to the frontier of exploration and the toughest environment to be found for Western Europeans to survive. Posted to the West Africa Squadron in 1823, aboard HMS Owen Glendower, the young and inexperienced Midshipman Cheeseman Henry Binstead kept an evocative account of his experiences abroad in this most alien of environments.

Binstead’s diaries present an upbeat but candid account of his experiences patrolling the African coast. Encounters with indigenous populations and European slavers were eye-opening experiences for the impressionable young men in the squadron. He describes the extraordinary tedium and insufferable humidity encountered in exploring the rivers and inlets of nearly a thousand miles of coastline month after month for evidence of illegal slave ships, taking care to avoid any great deal of self pity, even under the ‘dreadfully oppressive’ heat of the sun. He had a keen eye for the suffering of the men accompanying him though. Being ‘knocked up after a pull of 70 miles,’ in a state of constant readiness against the discovery of slavers, they were glad of a rest. The ‘dreadful annoyance of mosquitoes and sand flies’ swarming all over them and causing ‘great pain and misery’ precluded any chance of meaningful recuperation. Binstead described the men scratching their swollen bites so badly that ‘they were perfectly unable to move or see.’

The subsequent days were spent exploring the coast of the region in much the same manner, wondering at the strange creatures they saw and encountering native tribes. One tribe they encountered had never seen a white man before and reacted first with curiosity, gathering round them, then with fear. Running into the bush, they returned armed and inspired the sailors to beat a hasty retreat. It was common practice for divisions of the crew to roam long distances along the coast in the ship’s boats, or up rivers and creeks for over a hundred miles searching for slave factories, slave vessels and news of slavers operating in the area. The two divisions that March, 1823, proceeded some four hundred miles down the coast through a storm that lasted two days, and after having lost their way on several occasions, made it to Sierra Leone, rejoining the Owen Glendower. Neither of them arrived with anything to show for their pains. The young midshipman’s next experience of searching the coast for illegal slavers was to bring him into contact with a few of the more disturbing aspects of the job.

Near Malambo, at the mouth of the Congo River, the Owen Glendower’s boats boarded a Portuguese brig and discovered three hundred and twenty slaves aboard. They could not seize the brig because they were south of the equator and in a region considered to be under Portuguese rule. Binstead described what the boarding party encountered: ‘I never witnessed a more horrid description than my messmates gave me of the wretched state they were in on board actually dying 10 to 12 a say owing to the confinement below. All the men are in irons and women confined under them by a small partition.’ The local king enquired whether they wished to buy any slaves and they told him they only wanted the slave ships themselves, not the answer his highness had hoped for. A detachment of the ship’s boats soon encountered a Spanish schooner (a fast sailing, small and modern design of ship) and gave chase. They were fired upon by the Spanish and failed to catch the fast sailing vessel. Encountering another schooner at the Bonny River in July, in the process of trading for slaves but with only a few aboard when they inspected her, they captured the schooner and demanded the local chief hand over the rest of the crew. Encountering his reluctance to do so, Commodore Mends ‘anchored off the town and threatened to blow it down if the slaves were not immediately sent off.’ Some 180 slaves already sold to the master of the Spanish schooner were soon handed over. Several more captures in the area followed, experiences filled with the nervous tension of duty on the coast in the ship’s boats. The most ominous of Binstead’s experiences were however still to come.

On Sunday 13th July Binstead noted the condition of the Owen Glendower, it’s liberated slave passengers, and the crew, as they prepared to depart the Bight of Biafra: ‘Many large whales and sharks about us, owing to the number of fellows that have lately been thrown overboard- the ship is now truly miserable. Many of our own crew very sick and the decks crowded with black slaves who are lying in all directions.’ They committed to the deep a female slave the following morning and ‘made all sail’ in torrential rain, concerned that the fever must be contagious. A catalogue of dead slaves and shipmates follow in the subsequent pages of the diary, as the crew were forced onto a quarter allowance of food and resorted to ‘breakfast of bad oatmeal boiled.’ They proceeded toward Ascension Island, attempting to find some respite for the sick before beating northwest towards Sierra Leone. On the evening of 2nd September, ‘the ship truly miserable and nothing but deaths daily occurring,’ they stood in to shore to seek medical assistance for the now gravely ill Mends. Two days later, Binstead reported in his diary ‘at six o’clock this morning departed this life Commodore Sir Robert Mends, which has caused a great change in affairs and a most distressing sight for his two sons.’

The example of Midshipman Binstead’s diaries serves to highlight the main features that were the daily experiences of the officers and men serving with the Preventative Squadron on the West African coast. The daily toil of shipboard life and the gruelling regime of detached service on the coast in the ship’s boats were performed under the constant threat of painful death by horrific disease, by the extremes of weather that baked them in equatorial heat and lashed them with tropical storms, and the intermittent dangers of confronting armed slavers conducting an illegal trade and preparing to fight to retain possession of their vessel and human cargo. The experience of catching, boarding, seizing and delivering slavers to Sierra Leone in the hope of their condemnation at the Courts was the most immediate and striking of a whole range of dangers and challenges making the task of suppression a very difficult one. Travelling and exploring along the coast of Africa had, in the experiences of many, none of the romance of rumour and legend back home. The draw of travel and adventure in West Africa regularly meant disease and death for those who ventured there.

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Binstead was one of the few original members of the crew of Glendower who survived until she returned to England.

In 1807 Britain banned slave trading which was followed by a ban on the importation of slaves by the United States in 1808.

By the 1850s, 25 British vessels manned by 2,000 men were stationed along the west coast of Africa to prevent the removal of men and women from Africa as slaves. C. 1600 ships were stopped, with 150,000 Africans taken in British and American custody.

It wasn’t until 1833 that the Slavery Abolition Act was passed, attempting to end not just the trade but the practice of slavery itself.

Historians estimate that between 9.4 and 12 million slaves were transported to America during the life of the slave trade, though it is believed the number captured and intended to be transported was much higher.

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Further Reading

Royal Naval Museum, 2005.76/1 Manuscript Collection, Cheeseman Henry Binstead, Memorandum of Remarks on Board HM Ship Owen Glendower Commodore Robert Mends from England and along the West Coast of Africa 1823

W.E.F. Ward, The Royal Navy and the Slavers (London, 1969)

Sian Rees, Sweet Water and Bitter; The ships that stopped the slave trade (London, 2009)

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