Item #56545 One-page document clearing the ship Agent, Benjamin Eddy, master, on a return voyage from Africa, via Charleston, and amending the Agent's manifest. Thomas Peckham, Sr.

A Rhode Island slave trader skirting the law / the customs agent looks the other way

One-page document clearing the ship Agent, Benjamin Eddy, master, on a return voyage from Africa, via Charleston, and amending the Agent's manifest

District and Port of Bristol: Collector's Office, October 8, 1807. Folio (approx. 13" x 7¾"), approx. 18 lines and 160 words, in ink; signed by Thomas Peckham (1747-1825) as customs officer, with his seal affixed; previous folds; very good. "These may certify that the ship Agent of Warren, Benjamin Eddy, master, cleared from this port for Africa ... that in the list of persons who composed the company or crew ... produced by the master to the Collector of this District, is the name of 'Benjamin Barney born in Swansey resident in Warren eighteen years old, five feet, six and one half inches in height of a yellow complexion.' That it appears from proof deposited in this office that the said Benjamin Barney returned in said ship to Charleston, that the register of said ship Agent contained the names of Benjamin Eddy, Ebenzer Cole, and Caleb Eddy as owners thereof ... that the schooner Hannah Bartley, Benjamin Eddy, master, entered at this port the fourth day of May, 1807..." Captain Benjamin Eddy was an owner and captain of at least three slave voyages, on the snow Eliza in 1801 and on the ship Agent in 1806 and 1807. Eddy delivered 139 captives to the Charleston docks in June 1806, and before leaving in September for another journey to Africa. Captain Eddy led the final voyage of the Agent leaving Rhode Island without notice in any newspaper or Customs House registry – a highly unusual practice, except for slaving voyages hoping to skirt the state and federal laws against trading in enslaved Africans, and the soon to be enforced 1808 federal complete ban on the trade. They made their way to Ile do Los, Guinea, and along the west coast of Africa, where he purchased and imprisoned 176 Africans – the largest number ever carried on a Warren slave ship. Nineteen died during the return voyage. When he reached Charleston, South Carolina the remaining 157 people were sold into slavery. At the time, the sale would have returned nearly $33,000. This customs report made in Bristol appears to have been made at the end of Eddy's return voyage from Charleston to Bristol, and his original documents, which are ostensibly amended here, were likely forged as he had no manifest when he left. See: http://slavevoyages.org and https://rishm.org/bristol-county/warren/eddy-cutler-house-2/. Item #56545

Price: $3,500.00

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