Provisions for a slave voyage

Invoice of sundries on board the brig Ann & Hope, George Luther, Master, bound for Trade Town

[Bristol?]: November 16, 1806. Folio (approx. 12½" x 7½"), browned, previous folds, some splitting, the central fold with neat professional repair on the verso, some fading; good. The Ann and Hope, a brig of 114 tons, owned by Joseph Smith, Jr. of Bristol and George Luther of Warren, sailed from Warren to an unidentified port in Africa, according to slavevoyages.org, but according to this invoice, the port was Trade Town on the west coast of Africa. The return voyage was to Havana where in April the following year the ship offloaded 140 Africans. According to slavevoyages.com the Ann and Hope sailed in August, 1806, but this invoice is dated 3 months later. This manuscript invoice shows a basic provisioning of pork, beef, butter, wine, flour, etc. - provisions which would feed the crew; but the invoice also shows what would likely have been traded for the African slaves, notably 2,470 gallons of N.E. rum, 950 pounds of sugar, 400 pounds of coffee, and 9 hogshead of tobacco, the equivalent of 9,000 pounds! Other commodities on the invoice include handkerchiefs, candles, powder (presumably gunpowder), hats, etc. all valued at almost $9,500. On the verso are many numbers written in pencil - for what purpose is not evident. About 100 miles southeast of Monrovia, Trade Town, in what is now Liberia, by the 1820s had become the most notorious slave mart on the west African coast. (See, The Political and Legislative History of Liberia, pp. 348-49). Item #55213

Price: $3,000.00