Cruising for Slaves and Boating up Rivers

Abstract

At sea, disease was a common adversary to both slave traders and anti–slave trade officers in the various navies involved in the implementation of abolition policies in the Atlantic. Their many challenges are covered in the pages of this chapter, placing special emphasis on the ways in which they dealt with potential epidemics whenever they seized a vessel full of sick enslaved Africans. Other important issues discussed here are the ways in which they interacted among themselves and with coastal enclaves, and also how they often engaged in proto-colonial operations while carrying out their abolitionist work.