African Slave Trade Patrol
The Africa Squadron's cruising area eventually ranged from Cape Frio to the south (about 18 degrees south latitude), to Madeira in the north. However, the squadron's supply depot was in Cape Verde Island, approximately 2500 miles from the northern-most centers of the slave trade in the Bight of Biafra and southward. The Navy department did not move the depot location until 1859, when it was set up at St. Paul de Luanda, in present-day Angola, about 8 degrees south latitude. At the same time the department put Madeira out of bounds for the squadron.
The majority of the squadron's cruising in its first decade was along the coast of Western Africa, with particular attention to Liberian interests. By the 1850s much of the slave trade in this area had been eliminated by the British, based in their colony at Sierra Leone, as well as the Liberians.
Read more about this topic: Africa Squadron
Famous quotes containing the words african, slave and/or trade:
“The fact that white people readily and proudly call themselves “white,” glorify all that is white, and whitewash all that is glorified, becomes unnatural and bigoted in its intent only when these same whites deny persons of African heritage who are Black the natural and inalienable right to readily—proudly—call themselves “black,” glorify all that is black, and blackwash all that is glorified.”
—Abbey Lincoln (b. 1930)
“It’s not the suffering of birth, death, love that the young reject, but the suffering of endless labor without dream, eating the spare bread in bitterness, being a slave without the security of a slave.”
—Meridel Le Sueur (b. 1900)
“Experience has shown that the trade of the East is the key to national wealth and influence.”
—Chester A. Arthur (1829–1886)