The Hannibal was a slave ship, (or Guineaman) hired by the Royal African Company of England. The ship participated in two slave trading voyages, in the Triangular Trade. The wooden sailing ship was 450 tons and mounted with thirty-six guns. The ship is most remembered for her disastrous voyage of 1693–95. Captain Thomas Phillips commanded the Hannibal. He was a Welsh sea captain from Brecon, Wales who was employed by the Sir Jeffrey Jeffreys, and others. who owned the Hannibal and were governors and Assistants in the Royal African Company.[1]
At the age of 28–29, Phillips undertook his first slave-trading expedition, commanding a vessel. Tragically, approximately 328 (47 percent) of the 700 enslaved African women, men, and children aboard, as well as 36 crew members, lost their lives under his direct responsibility. The deaths occurred in harrowing circumstances, marking a significant loss of life.
Seven hundred enslaved Africans were forced into her hold to sail to the slave-market in Barbados. Many slavers rigged shelves in the middle called a "slave deck" so that individuals could not sit upright during the most of the voyage. Letters survive of Phillips writing on 8 September 1693, requesting that ‘the mast-makers of Deptford and Woolwich’ to be ordered to work faster in fitting new platforms and that the blacksmiths to have the same orders for ironwork.[2] The owners of the ship, of which Phillips has a share, were paid a freight fee of £10.50p for every enslaved African they landed at Barbados alive. As a result, the enslaved African captives were fed regularly twice a day consisting mainly of corn, beans and pepper which was believed to prevent the white flux (dysentery). Phillips wrote that he purchased 1,000 oranges and other fruits on the island of São Tomé (St Thomas) for the slaves. The captives received a litre of water per day, and were forced to exercise up on deck for an hour every evening to keep them fit, also known as forced dancing. Despite these efforts, 47 per cent of the enslaved Africans died from dysentery, smallpox, physical injuries, starvation, dehydration and suicide on the Hannibals voyage of 1693–1695.
The voyage began from London on 5 September 1693. The ship arrived in Whydah (Ouidah), an African port located in modern-day Benin. Here 700 enslaved Africans were bartered for with goods carried from England purchased.
Before boarding the ship the enslaved men were put in irons in pairs by their wrists and legs, and branded with a capital "H" on the breast to claim them for the Hannibal. The captives were rowed out the waiting ship a mile and a half off-shore. Only 5–6 persons could be rowed in the local canoes at one time. This meant that boarding 700 people took over a month.[3]
The ship reached Barbados on 25 February 1694 with only 372 traumatised enslaved Africans remaining alive.[4] The enslaved Africans who died while on the voyage were dumped overboard during the voyage with no funeral rites. Some died of small pox but the largest killer was an outbreak of dysentery. Others jumped overboard out of fear. Twelve committed suicide by jumping off the canoes as they were being rowed out to the waiting ship.[5] Phillips writes in his journal that 12 slaves 'willfully drowned themselves' during the voyage, several others persistently refused food starving themselves to death, 'for it is their Belief that when they die they return to their own Country and Friends again.'[6]
Phillips only made one voyage as a slave trader and retired back to Brecon due to illness, probably Lassa Fever. There he lived in a town house known as Harvard House which he had inherited from his father, William Phillips. Phillips died in late 1712 or early 1713 and was buried at St Johns the Evangelist, now Brecon Cathedral.
During 2010 in the town of Brecon, Wales a controversial plaque was erected, by the then town council, at the expense of local tax payers without their consent. The plaque was commissioned to memorialise the life of Captain Thomas Phillips, slave trader and not to remember the 328 enslaved Africans who perished on his ship. During the Black Lives Matter worldwide riots following the murder of George Floyd, the plaque in memory to Captain Phillips was removed by an unknown person and thrown into the nearby river. The Town Council has promised and passed a resolution to display the plaque in context in Brecon Museum.
The Hannibal's next slave-trading voyage (and her last) was undertaken in 1696 under the command of Captain William Hill. This slaving voyage ended in a crew mutiny off the coast of Africa. Before Captain Hill was able to commence trading upon the coast and purchase 700 enslaved Africans at Whydah a crew mutiny occurred onboard the ship, on 1 and 2 January 1697.[7]
Nautical Women. Women sailors and the women of Sailortowns. A forgotten diaspora c.1693–1902. By Rosemary L Caldicott. Bristol. Radical Pamphleteer #43. Published by Bristol Radical History Group, 2019.