Jump to content Main menu Main menu move to sidebar hide Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Special pages Search Search Appearance Donate Create account Log in Personal tools Donate Create account Log in Contents move to sidebar hide (Top) 1 History 2 Impact Toggle Impact subsection 2.1 Liberated slaves 3 Criticism Toggle Criticism subsection 3.1 Working conditions 4 Senior Officer, West Africa Squadron (1808–1815) 5 In command of West Coast of Africa Station Toggle In command of West Coast of Africa Station subsection 5.1 Commodore, West Coast of Africa Station (1818–1832) 5.2 Commodore/Senior Officer, on the West Coast of Africa Station (1841–1867) 6 In popular culture 7 See also 8 References 9 Further reading Toggle the table of contents West Africa Squadron 10 languages العربية Deutsch Français Hausa עברית Bahasa Indonesia Norsk bokmål Português Svenska Setswana Edit links Article Talk English Read Edit View history Tools Tools move to sidebar hide Actions Read Edit View history General What links here Related changes Upload file Permanent link Page information Cite this page Get shortened URL Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikidata item Appearance move to sidebar hide From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Unit of the British Royal Navy This article is about the period from 1808–1856, 1866. For the succeeding article Cape of Good Hope and West Africa Station (1857–1865, 1867–1920), see Cape of Good Hope Station. For the succeeding article (1942–1945), see Flag Officer, West Africa. Further information on diplomatic efforts by the United Kingdom to end the slave trade: Blockade of Africa West Africa Squadron HMS Black Joke and prizes (clockwise from top left) Providentia, Vengador, Presidenta, Marianna, El Almirante, and El Hassey Active1808–1867 Country United Kingdom Branch Royal Navy RoleSuppression of the slave trade, from Cape Verde to Benguela SizeSquadron Military unit v t e Slave trade suppression Abolitionism Firman of 1830 Suppression of the slave trade in the Persian Gulf Firman of 1854 Firman of 1857 Anglo-Egyptian Slave Trade Convention Anglo-Ottoman Convention of 1880 Blockade of Africa Kanunname of 1889 Brussels Anti-Slavery Conference 1889–90 Brussels Conference Act of 1890 West Africa Squadron (UK) African Slave Trade Patrol (US) Africa Squadron (US) Brazil Squadron (US) Eastern Naval Division (Brazil) Slave Trade Acts Capture of the Providentia Capture of the Presidente Capture of the El Almirante Capture of the Marinerito Capture of the Veloz Passagera Capture of the Brillante Convention of Saint-Germain-en-Laye 1919 Creole case La Amistad Incident Capture of the Emanuela Bombardment of Johanna Mary Carver Affair Edward Barley Incident Battle of Little Bereby Hamerton Treaty Frere Treaty Treaty of Jeddah (1927) Moresby Treaty Temporary Slavery Commission 1926 Slavery Convention Advisory Committee of Experts on Slavery Ad Hoc Committee on Slavery Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery Part of a series on Forced labour and slavery Contemporary Child labour Child soldiers Conscription CSEC Debt bondage India Forced marriage Bride buying Child marriage Wife selling Forced prostitution Human trafficking Child China Cybersex Europe Fraud factory India United States Involuntary servitude ... in 21st-century jihadism ... in Africa Peonage Penal labour United States Sex trafficking China Europe United States Sexual slavery Wage slavery Historical Antiquity Babylonia Egypt Greece Rome Medieval Europe Ancillae Black Sea slave trade Byzantine Empire Genoese slave trade Kholop Prague slave trade Serfs History In Russia Emancipation Thrall Venetian slave trade Balkan slave trade Muslim world Baqt Barbary Coast slave trade pirates Sack of Baltimore Slave raid of Suðuroy Turkish Abductions Bukhara slave trade Concubinage history Ma malakat aymanukum Avret Pazarları Harem Abbasid harem Ottoman Imperial Harem Safavid imperial harem Qajar harem Jarya/Cariye Odalisque Qiyan Umm al-walad Circassian slave trade Contract of manumission Crimean slave trade Kafala system Kazakh raids into Russia Khazar slave trade Khivan slave trade Ottoman Empire Avret Pazarları Saqaliba Slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate Slavery in al-Andalus Slavery in the Rashidun Caliphate Slavery in the Umayyad Caliphate Slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate Volga Bulgarian slave trade 21st century Atlantic slave trade Brazil Bristol Database Dutch Middle Passage Nantes New France Panyarring Spanish Empire Slave Coast Thirteen colonies Topics and practice Blackbirding Child soldiers Conscription Devshirme Ghilman Mamluk Coolie Corvée labour Drapetomania Dysaesthesia aethiopica Field slaves in the United States Treatment Gladiator Gladiatrix House slaves Planter class Proslavery thought Saqaliba Seasoning Slave market Slave Power Slave raiding Slavocracy Voluntary slavery White slavery Naval Galley slave Impressment Pirates Shanghaiing Slave ship By country or region Sub-Saharan Africa Contemporary Africa Trans-Saharan slave trade Red Sea slave trade Indian Ocean slave trade Zanzibar slave trade Angola Chad Comoros Ethiopia Mali Mauritania Niger Nigeria Seychelles Somalia Somali slave trade South Africa Sudan Zanzibar North and South America Pre-Columbian America Aztec Americas Indigenous U.S. Natives United States field slaves female contemporary maps partus prison labour slave codes treatment interregional proslavery sexual slavery The Bahamas Canada Caribbean Barbados British Virgin Islands Trinidad Code Noir Latin America Brazil Lei Áurea Colombia Cuba Haiti revolt Restavek (Encomienda) Puerto Rico East, Southeast, and South Asia Haruwa-charuwa Human trafficking in Southeast Asia Bhutan Brunei China Booi Aha Eunuchs Laogai penal system India Debt bondage Chukri System Bawi system Indonesia Japan comfort women Karayuki-san Korea Kwalliso Nobi Malaysia Maldives Slavery in the Mongol Empire Thailand Yankee princess Vietnam Australia and Oceania Australia Human trafficking Blackbirding Slave raiding in Easter Island Human trafficking in Papua New Guinea Blackbirding in Polynesia Europe and North Asia Sex trafficking in Europe United Kingdom Penal Labour Slavery Albania Bulgaria Denmark Dutch Republic Finland France Georgia Germany in World War II Hungary Malta Norway Poland Portugal Romania Russia Serbia Spain Sweden Switzerland North Africa and West Asia Afghanistan Bacha bazi Algeria Bahrain Egypt Human trafficking in the Middle East Iran Iraq Jordan Kuwait Lebanon Libya Morocco Oman Palestine Saudi Arabia Syria Tunisia Qatar Yemen United Arab Emirates Religion Bible Christianity Catholicism Mormonism Islam Judaism Baháʼí Faith Opposition and resistance Abolitionism U.K. U.S. Brussels Anti-Slavery Conference 1889–90 Temporary Slavery Commission 1926 Slavery Convention Committee of Experts on Slavery Advisory Committee of Experts on Slavery Ad Hoc Committee on Slavery Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery Abolitionists Anglo-Egyptian Slave Trade Convention Anti-Slavery International Blockade of Africa U.K. U.S. Colonization Liberia Sierra Leone Compensated emancipation Freedman Manumission Freedom suit Slave Power Underground Railroad songs Slave rebellion Slave Trade Acts International law Third Servile War 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution Timeline of abolition of slavery and serfdom Abolition of slave trade in Persian gulf [fa] Related Black triangle (badge) Common law Critique of political economy Critique of work Extermination through labour Forced labour Forced Labour Convention Fugitive slaves laws convention Great Dismal Swamp maroons Indentured servitude Infinite workday List of slaves owners last survivors of American slavery List of slavery-related memorials and museums Refusal of work Right to rest and leisure Slave catcher Slave marriages in the United States Slave narrative films songs Slave name Slave patrol Slave Route Project breeding court cases Washington Jefferson J.Q. Adams Lincoln Emancipation Proclamation 40 acres Freedmen's Bureau Iron bit Emancipation Day v t e The West Africa Squadron, also known as the Preventive Squadron,[1] was a squadron of the Royal Navy whose goal was to suppress the Atlantic slave trade by patrolling the coast of West Africa.[2] Formed in 1808 after the British Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act 1807 and based out of Portsmouth, England,[3] it remained an independent command until 1856 and then again from 1866 to 1867. The impact of the Squadron has been debated, with some arguing it played a significant or even decisive role in the extermination of the transatlantic slave trade and others arguing it was poorly resourced, hamstrung in the performance of its enforcement duties, plagued by corruption, and not chiefly responsible for the decline and end of the trade. Sailors in the Royal Navy considered it to be one of the worst postings because of the extremely high levels of tropical disease to which its members were exposed. Over the course of its operations, it managed to capture about 6% of the transatlantic slave ships and freed about 150,000 Africans.[4][2] Between 1830 and 1865, almost 1,600 sailors died during duty with the Squadron, principally of disease.[5] History [edit] On 25 March 1807, Britain formally abolished the slave trade and prohibited British subjects from trading in slaves and from crewing, sponsoring, and fitting out any slave ships. The Act also included a clause allowing the seizure of ships without slave cargoes on board but equipped to trade in slaves. The practical implementation of the part of the Act aiming to eliminate the trade as a whole proved an enormous challenge from the start, especially against non-British vessels. The small British force was empowered, in the context of the ongoing Napoleonic Wars, to stop any ship bearing the flag of an enemy nation, making suppression activities temporarily much easier. Being one of the largest slave-trading powers at the time and Britain's close ally against France, however, Portugal in particular managed to evade most of the Act's enforcement for its ships, until February 1810, when, under intense diplomatic pressure from London, the Portuguese government signed a convention that allowed British ships to police Portuguese traffic, meaning Portugal could only trade in slaves from its own African possessions. To boost enforcement, the Admiralty dispatched two further vessels in 1818 to police the African coast. The privateer (a private vessel operating under a letter of marque) Dart, chasing slavers to profit from the bounties set by the British government, made the first captures of Portuguese slave ships under the 1810 convention. Dart, and in 1813 another privateer, Kitty, were the only two vessels to pursue slavers for profit and thus augment the efforts of the West Africa Squadron. The fact that few, if any, other privateers acted on the side of the Squadron, together with the short duration of the involvement of these two vessels, suggests that private participation did not turn out to be particularly profitable and that the bounties were not set high enough to justify the efforts and risks in the minds of privateers. With the Napoleonic Wars now over and with victorious Britain in a strong position to shape the post-war settlement, Viscount Castlereagh worked hard to ensure that a declaration against slavery appeared in the text of the Congress of Vienna, along with a commitment by all the signatories to the eventual abolition of the trade. Under sustained British pressure, France had already agreed to cease trading in 1814, and Spain in 1817 agreed to cease all its trade north of the equator. Nevertheless, these early agreements against slave trading that Britain struck with foreign powers were often very weak in practice. For example, until 1835 the Squadron seized foreign vessels only if slaves were found on board. It did not interfere with foreign vessels clearly equipped for the slave trade but with no slaves on board, despite the clause of the Act that officially authorised the Squadron to do just that in the case of British vessels.[6] If slaves were found on board foreign ships, a daunting fine of £100 for each individual slave would be levied. To reduce the total penalty, some slaver captains in danger of being caught started having their captives thrown overboard.[7] In order to prosecute captured vessels and thereby allow the Navy to claim its prizes, a series of courts were established along the African coast. In 1807, a Vice Admiralty Court was established in Freetown (which became the capital of British Sierra Leone the following year). In 1817, several Mixed Commission Courts were established, replacing the Vice Admiralty Court in Freetown. These Mixed Commission Courts had officials from both Britain and foreign powers, with Anglo-Portuguese, Anglo-Spanish, and Anglo-Dutch courts being established in Sierra Leone. Unlike the Pax Britannica form of policing that would come into force in the 1840s and 1850s, these earlier efforts to suppress the slave trade sometimes suffered from Britain's countervailing desire, within the context of the newborn Concert of Europe, to keep on reasonably good terms with other European powers and to avert conflicts that could have been provoked by more aggressive enforcement. The actions of the West Africa Squadron were "strictly Governed"[8] by the treaties, and officers could be punished quite severely for overstepping their authority. This tended to make the officers substantially more risk-averse than they would later become in the mid century when Britain could afford to toughen the enforcement without fear of diplomatic disadvantages and when the demand for slaves was shrinking rapidly and the trade was becoming less important to the economies of Western Europe and North America anyway. Sometimes orders to officers to step up enforcement vastly overestimated the resources provided to the Squadron to carry them out, especially in the years immediately following the passage of the Act and the promulgation of the Congress of Vienna. For example, Commodore Sir George Ralph Collier, with the 36-gun HMS Creole as his flagship, was made the first Commodore of the West Africa Squadron. On 19 September 1818, the Navy sent him to the Gulf of Guinea with the following orders: "You are to use every means in your power to prevent a continuance of the traffic in slaves."[9] He had only six ships, however, with which to patrol more than 5,000 kilometres (3,000 mi) of coast and so could barely dent the traffic in slaves along it, still less prevent its continuance. In 1819, the Royal Navy created a naval station at Freetown, the coastal capital city of Sierra Leone, Britain's first colony in West Africa. By the end of the 18th century, the city had already become famous as a settlement and a safe haven for freed and escaped African slaves trafficked by all the different slave-trading powers, including not merely those who had previously been put to work in the Americas and Europe but also, notably, those who had managed to evade or foil their abductions. It also earned a reputation as a model city and a stronghold of the world abolitionist movement, which, in fact, tended to admire Sierra Leone as a whole for its early and defiant rejection and eradication of slavery within the borders of the newfound British colony. The Squadron began de facto to base itself at and to coordinate its activities from this station. Most of the Africans rescued by the Squadron chose to settle in Sierra Leone, often in or close to Freetown, for fear of being re-enslaved if they strayed too far from the centre of British authority in West Africa or were simply dropped off elsewhere on the coast amid strangers and without the same degree and proximity of British protection and the eponymous recognition of Freetown as, ab initio, a completely and specifically slavery-free jurisdiction.[2] From 1821, the Squadron also used Ascension Island as a supply depot,[10] before this was moved to Cape Town in 1832.[11] In the early years, determined traders often responded to the Squadron's slowly expanding activities by switching to faster and stealthier ships, particularly Baltimore clippers. At first, British patrollers failed to catch most of these ships, but once the Royal Navy started to use captured slaver clippers themselves, as well as new and improved ships manufactured in Britain, they regained the upper hand. One of the most successful ships of the West Africa Squadron was just such a repurposed Baltimore clipper, HMS Black Joke, which Britain had captured from Brazil in September 1827. Under the Squadron's control, she caught 11 slavers in one year. By the 1840s, the West Africa Squadron had begun receiving paddle steamers such as HMS Hydra, which proved superior in many ways to the sailing ships they replaced. The steamers were independent of the wind, and their shallow draught allowed them to patrol the shallow shores and rivers. In the middle of the 19th century, there were roughly 25 vessels and 2,000 personnel with a further 1,000 local sailors involved in the enforcement effort.[12] Britain continued to press other nations into sterner and sterner anti-slaving treaties that gave the Royal Navy increasing authority to search their ships for captive Africans.[13][14] As the 19th century wore on, the Royal Navy also began interdicting slave trading in North Africa, the Middle East, and the Indian Ocean. The United States Navy assisted the West Africa Squadron in the slave blockade, at first minimally but later consequentially. Joint operations began in 1820 with the dispatch to the West African coast of the USS Cyane, which the United States had, ironically, captured from the Royal Navy in February 1815 in a dramatic 40-minute engagement in the middle of the night off the coast of Portugal, one of the very last incidents of combat in the War of 1812. The US contribution amounted to no more than a few ships, which made up what came to be known simply as the Africa Squadron, until the conclusion of the Webster-Ashburton Treaty in 1842, whereupon the contingent grew and strengthened considerably. This treaty and the increase in the size and scope of the US Africa Squadron that followed can be owed largely to the cooling off of relations between the two countries at the time, the ironic alignment in political and other terms of the then interests and initiatives of the Northern urban American Whigs and the rural British Tories (both in central government at the time of the signature of the treaty), and shifts in the balance of international relationships that made cooperation temporarily more beneficial to both parties. Anglo-American cooperation in the suppression of the slave trade in this period drew bitter protest from the pro-free trade Democrat slave-owning planter elite in the southern United States and from the equally pro-free trade British industrialists, generally supportive of Britain's own Whigs and the succeeding Liberals, who relied heavily on the import of cheap raw materials from the slave South for their swift-advancing industrial production and often went on to favour the Confederate side in the American Civil War. The latter did this despite being, by then, predominantly opposed to slavery in their own empire and notionally opposed to slavery and to the economic, social, and political primacy of agriculture as a whole.[15][16] In 1867, the Cape of Good Hope Station absorbed the West Coast of Africa Station.[17] Incidentally, in 1942, to facilitate the Royal Navy's efforts in the Second World War, the West Africa Station was revived as an independent command but was not maintained after the end of the war in 1945. Impact [edit] The West Africa Squadron seized approximately 1,600 ships involved in the slave trade and freed 150,000 slaves who were on board between 1807 and 1860.[18] Robert Pape and Chaim Kaufmann have described the Squadron as the most expensive international humanitarian intervention in modern history.[19] Liberated slaves [edit] Slaves rescued by the Squadron were returned to the African mainland, but those who came from more inland regions were usually left to find their own way back to their homes. They often got lost and endured appalling conditions and reverses on their return journeys or had to wait for local courts to resolve the legal complications arising from their emancipation and repatriation, sometimes for inordinately long periods of time.[20] It is estimated that up to a quarter of those rescuees who could not remain or did not wish to remain in Freetown but who could not easily return to their places of origin (a substantial minority out of all the rescuees) died before being fully released from the legal and practical liabilities and entanglements of their past thrall and consequent dislocation.[21] As an alternative to this, many slaves freed by the Squadron, especially the younger among those who hailed from more inland regions, opted to join the Royal Navy or the West India Regiments, typically with the expectation of much faster restoration of their full freedoms in exchange for the near certainty of never being able to get back to their native homes. As another alternative, some (about 35,850, it is estimated) accepted special offers from private British recruiters to work as apprentices in the West Indies.[21] Criticism [edit] Journalist Howard W. French has argued that the impact of the Squadron has been overstated, calling it a "central prop" in encouraging a positive image of British history instead of "remorse or even meaningful dialogue about their slave-trading and plantation-operating past."[22] A 2021 paper in the International Journal of Maritime History argued that, despite the enthusiasm of some individual commanders, "the Royal Navy was not wholly committed to ending the slave trade," stating that the Squadron "accounted for less than five per cent of the Royal Navy's warships, comprising a flotilla that was unfit and inadequate given the vast area under patrol."[23] Mary Wills of the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation, noted that the Squadron was "bound to ideas of humanitarianism but also increasing desires for expansion and intervention," and noted that it "depended on Africans for the day to day operation of their activities," notably the Kru people.[24] John Rankin of East Tennessee State University has stated that "African and diaspora sailors made up one-fifth of shipboard personnel" and that Kru sailors "were self-organized into collectives, serving on board individual vessels under a single headman who functioned as an intermediary between the British naval and petty officers and his 'Kroo.'"[25] Working conditions [edit] James Watt has written that crews of the Squadron "were exhausted by heavy rowing under extreme tropical conditions and exposed to fevers with sequelae from which they seldom recovered," and that it had significantly higher sickness and mortality rates than the rest of the Royal Navy.[26] Senior Officer, West Africa Squadron (1808–1815) [edit] Post holders included:[27] Rank Flag Name Term Senior Officer, West Africa Squadron 1 Commodore Edward H. Columbine 1808–1811 2 Captain Hon. Frederick Paul Irby 1811–1813 3 Commodore Thomas Browne 1814–1815 In command of West Coast of Africa Station [edit] Commodore, West Coast of Africa Station (1818–1832) [edit] Post holders included:[27] Rank Flag Name Term Commodore, West Coast of Africa Station 1 Commodore Sir George Collier 1818–1821[28] 2 Commodore Sir Robert Mends 1822–1823 3 Commodore Sir Charles Bullen 1823–1827 4 Commodore Francis Augustus Collier 1826–1830 5 Commodore John Hayes 1830–1832 The West Coast of Africa Station was merged with the Cape of Good Hope Station, 1832–1841 and 1857–60 (Lloyd, p. 68). Commodore/Senior Officer, on the West Coast of Africa Station (1841–1867) [edit] Post holders included:[27] Rank Flag Name Term Commodore/Senior Officer, on the West Coast of Africa Station 1 Commodore William Tucker 1841–1842 2 Captain John Foote 1842–1844 3 Captain William Jones 1844–1846 (promoted to Commodore during post) 4 Commodore Charles Hotham 1846–1849 5 Commodore Arthur Fanshawe 1850–1851 6 Commodore Henry William Bruce 1851–1854 7 Commodore John Adams 1854–1856 8 Commodore Charles Wise 1857–1859 9 Commodore William Edmonstone 1860–1862 10 Commodore A. P. Eardley Wilmot 1862–1865[29] 11 Commodore Geoffrey Thomas Phipps Hornby 1866–1867 From 1867, the commodore's post on the West Coast of Africa was abolished, and its functions absorbed by the senior officer at the Cape of Good Hope. In popular culture [edit] The West African Squadron is featured in Lona Manning's historical novels A Contrary Wind (2017) and A Marriage of Attachment (2018). Patrick O'Brian centres the plot of his 1994 novel The Commodore, the seventeenth instalment in his Aubrey–Maturin series, on his Royal Navy captain, Jack Aubrey, being given command of a squadron to suppress the slave trade off the coast of West Africa near the end of the War of the Sixth Coalition. Though the squadron is never explicitly named the "West Africa Squadron", it fulfills the known roles of the Squadron at the time, and makes reference to the Slave Trade Act 1807. William Joseph Cosens Lancaster, writing as Harry Collingwood, wrote four novels about the same squadron: The Congo Rovers; a Story of the Slave Squadron at Project Gutenberg (1885) The Pirate Slaver; a story of the West African Coast at Project Gutenberg (1895) A Middy in Command; a tale of the Slave Squadron at Project Gutenberg (1909) A Middy of the Slave Squadron at Project Gutenberg (1911) Captain Charles Fitzgerald is a supporting character in the movie Amistad (1997), giving testimony in support of the Africans' story of enslavement and, at the end, commanding the destruction of the slave fortress of Lomboko. See also [edit] Le Louis Abolition of slavery timeline § 1800–1849 African Slave Trade Patrol (United States Navy) Black and British: A Forgotten History#3: Moral Mission, a TV series covering the Squadron Blockade of Africa Category:Ships of the West Africa Squadron Mary Faber (slave trader) Freetown, Sierra Leone, a town established for the settlement of freed slaves Zanzibar slave trade Comoros slave trade Libyan slave trade Trans-Saharan slave trade Indian Ocean slave trade Red Sea slave trade References [edit] ^ Lewis-Jones, Huw (17 February 2011). "BBC - History - British History in depth: The Royal Navy and the Battle to End Slavery". BBC History. BBC. Retrieved 21 March 2018. ^ a b c "Chasing Freedom Information Sheet". Royal Naval Museum. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 2 April 2007. ^ "From slave trade to humanitarian aid". BBC News. 19 March 2007. Retrieved 2 April 2007. ^ David Olusoga. "Black and British: A Forgotten History Part 3". Google Arts and Culture. BBC/Black Cultural Archives. Retrieved 7 June 2021. ^ "Chasing Freedom Information Sheet". National Museum of the Royal Navy. Archived from the original on 27 January 2022. Retrieved 9 July 2021. ^ Lloyd (1949), The Navy and the Slave Trade, p. 46. ^ "Suppressing the trade". The Abolition Project. 2009. Archived from the original on 11 July 2021. Retrieved 10 December 2017. ^ TNA ADM 2/1328 Standing Orders to Commanders-in-Chief 1818-1823. p. 274. ^ Lloyd, Christopher (1968). The Navy and the Slave Trade. Routledge. p. 67. ISBN 978-0-7146-1894-4. ^ "Green Mountain". Peter Davis. Retrieved 2 April 2007. ^ "West Africa". Peter Davis. Retrieved 2 April 2007. ^ Lewis-Jones, Huw, "The Royal Navy and the Battle to End Slavery", BBC History, 17 February 2011. ^ Falola, Toyin; Warnock, Amanda (2007). Encyclopedia of the middle passage. Greenwood Press. pp. xxi, xxxiii–xxxiv. ISBN 9780313334801. ^ "The legal and diplomatic background to the seizure of foreign vessels by the Royal Navy". Peter Davis. ^ Falola, Toyin; Amanda Warnock (2007). Encyclopedia of the Middle Passage. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 113. ISBN 978-0-313-33480-1. ^ Lovejoy, Paul E. (2000). Transformations in slavery. Cambridge University Press. p. 292. ISBN 978-0-521-78430-6. ^ "West Africa Squadron". William Loney. Retrieved 28 December 2014. ^ "Chasing Freedom: The Royal Navy and the suppression of the transatlantic slave trade". 1807 Commemorated. ^ Kaufmann, Chaim D.; Pape, Robert A. (Autumn 1999). "Explaining Costly International Moral Action: Britain's Sixty-Year Campaign against the Atlantic Slave Trade". International Organization. 53 (4). MIT Press: 631–668. doi:10.1162/002081899551020. JSTOR 2601305. S2CID 143757085. ^ "Royal Navy sailors were appalled by conditions on slave ships, but those they 'rescued' rarely experienced true freedom". 6 March 2020. ^ a b Costello (2012), pp. 36–37. ^ French, Howard W. (7 April 2022). "Slavery, Empire, Memory". The New York Review. Retrieved 31 March 2022. ^ Earle, Thomas Blake (2021). "'A sufficient and adequate squadron': The navy, the transatlantic slave trade, and the American commercial empire". International Journal of Maritime History. 33 (3): 509–524. doi:10.1177/08438714211037680. S2CID 243353110. ^ Willis, Mary (2019). "The key role of African seamen in the Royal Navy's anti-slavery campaign". The National Royal Navy Museum. Retrieved 31 March 2022. ^ Rankin, John (2014). "Nineteenth-Century Royal Navy Sailors from Africa and the African Diaspora: Research Methodology". African Diaspora. 6 (2): 179–195. doi:10.1163/18725457-12341246. S2CID 144527405. ^ Watt, James (2002). "The Health of Seamen in Anti-Slavery Squadrons". The Mariner's Mirror. 88 (1): 69–78. doi:10.1080/00253359.2002.10656829. PMID 21038710. S2CID 6627764. ^ a b c Lloyd, Christopher (1968). Navy and the Slave Trade. [S.l.]: F. Cass. ISBN 9780714618944. ^ Lloyd, pp. 67–68. ^ Archives, The National. "Commodore A. P. Eardley Wilmot CB Commanding West Coast of Africa". discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk. The National Archives, 1862 - 1865, ADM 50/294. Retrieved 11 June 2018. Further reading [edit] Costello, Ray (2012). Black Salt: Seafarers of African Descent on British Ships. Liverpool University Press. ISBN 978-1-84631-818-4.*Olusoga, David (2016). Black and British: a forgotten history. London. ISBN 978-1447299738.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) Olusoga, David (23 November 2016). Black and British: A Forgotten History, Part 3: Moral Mission. BBC TV. b083rb2v. Access from UK with TV licence. Chasing Freedom: The Royal Navy and the Suppression of the Transatlantic Slave Trade The West African Squadron and slave trade BBC News – "10 things about British slavery" Hochschild, Adam. Bury the Chains: The British Struggle to Abolish Slavery. (London: Macmillan, 2005), ISBN 0-333-90491-5 Lloyd, Christopher. The Navy and the Slave Trade: The Suppression of the African Slave Trade in the Nineteenth Century. (Cass library of African studies, no. 4. London: Cass, 1968), OCLC: 177145 Rees, Siân (2009). Sweet Water and Bitter: The Ships that Stopped the Slave Trade. London: Chatto & Windus. ISBN 9780701181598. 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Programmes and Planning Department of Superintendent of de-magnetisation Department of the Admiral of the Training Service Department of the Chief Inspector of Naval Ordnance Department of the Chief of Naval Information Department of the Chief Scientist Department of the Civil Engineer-in-Chief Department of the Comptroller of Steam Machinery Department of the Comptroller of Victualling and Transport Services Department of the Controller of the Navy Department of the Controller-General of Merchant Shipbuilding Department of the Controller for Navy Pay Department of the Deputy Controller for Auxiliary Shipbuilding Department of the Deputy Controller for Dockyards and Shipbuilding Department of the Director Contract-Built Ships Department of the Director-General Aircraft Department of the Director-General of Manpower Department of the Director-General, Supply and Secretariat Branch Department of the Director of Aircraft Maintenance and Repair Department of the Director of Contract Labour Department of the Director of Dockyards Department of the Director of Electrical Engineering Department of the Director of Manning Department of the Director of Merchant Shipbuilding Department of the Director of Merchant Shipbuilding and Repairs Department of the Director of Merchant Ship Repairs Department of the Director of Naval Construction Department of the Director of Naval Equipment Department of the Director of Naval Recruiting Department of the Director of Naval Weather Service Department of the Director of Personal Services Department of the Director of Physical Training and Sports Department of the Director of Torpedoes and Mining Department of the Director of Transports Department of the Director of Underwater Weapons Department of the Director of Underwater Weapons Materials Department of the Director of Unexploded Bombs Department of the Director of Warship Production Department of the Director of Welfare and Service Conditions Department of the Director of Wreck Dispersal Department of the Flag Officer Sea Training Department of the Engineer in Chief Department of the Paymaster Director-General Department of the Inspector of Anti-Aircraft Weapons Department of the Inspector of Dockyard Expense Accounts Department of the Inspector-General of Naval Hospitals and Fleets Department of the Medical Director-General of the Navy Department of the Physician of the Navy Department of the Physician General of the Navy Department of the Storekeeper-General of the Navy Department of the Surveyor of Buildings Department of the Surveyor of Dockyards Directorate-General, (Naval Manpower and Training) Directorate General Training Dockyards and Fleet Maintenance Department Dockyards Branch Dockyard Expense Accounts Department Dockyard Schools Electrical Engineering Department Engineer Branch Engineering Department Experimental Department Fire Control Group Greenwich Hospital Department Inspector of Telegraphs Inspector of Repairs Joint Warfare Establishment Medical Consultative Board Medical Examining Board Historical Section Hydrographic Department Marine Department Marine Pay Department Materials and Priority Department Medical Consultative Board Medical Department Medical Examining Board Movements Department Nautical Almanac Office Naval Artillery and Torpedo Department Naval Engineering College Naval Equipment Department Naval Historical Branch Naval Construction Department Naval Intelligence Department Naval Medical Service Naval Law Division Naval Manpower Department Naval Mobilisation Department Naval Ordnance Department Naval Ordnance Inspection Department Naval Ordnance Stores Department Naval Personnel Services and Officer Appointments Department Naval Publicity Department Naval Regional Offices Naval Reserve Department Naval Security Department Naval Stores Department Naval Training Department Naval Works Department Navy, Army and Air Force Institute Navy and Army Canteen Board Navy Works Department Navigation Department Observatory at the Cape of Good Hope Office of the Admiral Commanding Coast Guard and Reserves Office of the Admiral Commanding, Reserves Office of the Admiralty Chemist Office of the Adviser on the Naval Construction to the Board of Admiralty Office of the Assistant Controller Office of the Assistant Controller Research and Development Office of the Clerk of the Journals Office of the Chief Polaris Executive Office of the Deputy Controller of Navy Office of the Deputy Controller Production Office of Extra Naval Assistant to Second Sea Lord Office of the Inspector Gun Mountings Office of the Keeper of Records Office of the Senior Psychologist (Naval) Office of the Senior Psychologist of the Navy Office of the Translator of French and Spanish Languages Office of the Vice Controller Air Office of the Vice Controller of the Navy Organisation and Methods Department Packet Service Regional Organisation for Merchant Shipbuilding and Repairs Royal Corps of Naval Constructors Royal Flying Corps Royal Marine Police Royal Marines Office Office of the Chaplain of the Fleet Royal Naval Academy Royal Naval Aircraft Workshops Royal Naval Air Service Royal Naval Air Stations Royal Naval Armaments Depot Royal Naval Auxiliary Service Royal Naval Cordite Factories Royal Naval Propellant Factory Royal Naval College Royal Naval College and the School for Naval Architecture Royal Naval College, Dartmouth Royal Naval College, Greenwich Royal Naval College, Keyham Royal Naval College, Osborne Royal Naval Engineering College Royal Naval Film Corporation Royal Naval Hospital Royal Naval Medical Depot Royal Naval Minewatching Service Royal Naval Mine Depot Royal Naval Patrol Service Royal Naval Scientific Service Royal Naval Sick Quarters Royal Naval Torpedo Depot Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve Royal Naval War College Royal Naval War College, Portsmouth Royal Navy Dockyard Royal Navy Medical Service Royal Navy Shore Signal Service Royal Observatory, Greenwich Royal School of Naval Architecture Salvage Department School of Mathematics and Naval Construction Scientific Research and Experiment Department Sea Transport Branch Sea Transport Department Sea Transport Division Ship Department Ship Design Department Signal Department Signal School Sixpenny Office Statistics Department Steam Department Superintendent of De-magnetisation Torpedo Experimental Establishment Transport Department Undersurface Warfare Department Victualling Department Volunteer Boys and Cadet Corps Weapons Department Weapons Department (Naval) Women's Royal Naval Service Wireless Telegraphy Board Direction/Command of the Fleet Office of the Permanent Secretary to the Admiralty Office of the First Naval Lord Office of the First Sea Lord Admiralty Naval Staff Naval formations after 1707 1st Fleet 2nd Fleet 3rd Fleet Commander-in-Chief, Africa Atlantic Fleet Commodore, Arabian Seas and Persian Gulf Australia Station Cape of Good Hope Station Cape and West Africa Station Battle Cruiser Fleet Battle Cruiser Force Caspian Flotilla Channel Fleet Channel Squadron Commander-in-Chief, Coast of Ireland Cork Station Coast of Scotland Commander-in-Chief, China Commander-in-Chief, Dover Flag Officer, East Africa East Indies Station East Indies and China Station Eastern Fleet Far East Fleet English Channel Grand Fleet Flag Officer Gibraltar Harwich Force Home Fleet Jamaica Station Leith Station Commander-in-Chief, Levant Levant and East Mediterranean Commander-in-Chief, Leeward Islands Mediterranean Fleet Medway Newfoundland Station New Zealand Division New Zealand Naval Forces Nore North America and West Indies Station Commander-in-Chief, North Sea Admiral Commanding, Orkneys and Shetlands Pacific Fleet Pacific Station Admiral of Patrols Commander-in-Chief, Plymouth Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth Queenstown Station Royal East African Navy Royal Indian Navy Flag Officer Submarines Commander-in-Chief, Rosyth Reserve Fleet Scotland and Northern Ireland Commander-in-Chief, South Atlantic South East Coast of America Station Commander-in-Chief, Thames and Medway West Africa Squadron Flag Officer, West Africa Commander-in-Chief, Western Approaches Naval formations before 1707 Lisbon Station West Indies Station Western Squadron Thames, Medway and Nore Commander-in-Chief, Thames Narrow Seas Downs Station Direction of Naval Finance Department of the Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty Departments under the Parliamentary and Financial Secretary Department of the Civil Lord of the Admiralty Accountant-General's Department Comptroller of the Navy Department of the Surveyor of the Navy Direction of Naval Administration and the Admiralty Secretariat Department of the Permanent Secretary Branches and offices under the Permanent Secretary Admiralty Central Copying Branch Admiralty Central Registry Branch Admiralty Record Office Admiralty Library Admiralty Secretariat Air Branch Civil Branch Legal Branch Military Branch Naval Branch Ship Branch Civil Administration Department of the Civil Lord of the Admiralty, Department of the Additional Civil Lord of the Admiralty Departments under the Civil Lords Accountant-General's Department Contract and Purchase Department Department of the Director of Contract Labour Department of the Surveyor of Buildings Department of the Director of Works Greenwich Hospital Department Works Loan Department Legal Admiralty Judicial Department Admiralty court High Court of Admiralty Office of the Judge of the High Court of Admiralty High Court of Justice Office of the Judge Advocate of the Fleet Office of the Marshall High Court of the Admiralty Office of the Admiralty Advocate Office of the Admiralty Proctor Office of the Chief Naval Judge Advocate Office of the Counsel for the Affairs of the Admiralty and Navy Office of the Counsel to the Admiralty Office of the Deputy Judge Advocate of the Fleet Office of the Receiver of Droits High Court of Admiralty Office of the Registrar High Court of the Admiralty Office of the Solicitor for the Affairs of the Admiralty Office of the Solicitor to the Admiralty and Navy Office of the Solicitor to the Admiralty Office of the Counsel to the Admiralty Court of Admiralty for the Cinque Ports King's Bench Division (Admiralty) Queens's Bench Division (Admiralty) Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division Vice Admiralty courts Colonial Courts of Admiralty v t e Historic fleets and naval commands of the Royal Navy North and Irish Seas and English Channel First Fleet Second Fleet Third Fleet Atlantic Fleet Battle Cruiser Fleet Channel Fleet Channel Squadron Coast of Ireland Coast of Scotland Devonport Dover Commander-in-Chief Fleet Grand Fleet British Naval Forces Germany Humber Home Fleet Irish Squadron Leith Nore North Sea Squadron Orkneys and Shetlands Plymouth Portsmouth Rosyth Reserve Fleet Western Approaches Western Naval Home Command Eastern English Channel Downs Channel Squadron (Navy Royal) Narrow Seas North North and West Western Squadron North Sea Fleet South West and Irish Sea West Yarmouth Atlantic Ocean Atlantic Fleet Barbadoes and Leeward Islands Good Hope Jamaica Division (1838-1905) Jamaica Station (to 1830) Leeward Islands Lisbon Newfoundland North America North America and West Indies North Atlantic Portugal South America Station South Atlantic and South America South Atlantic South East Coast of America West Africa Squadron Flag Officer, West Africa Senior Naval Officer, West Indies Baltic, Black, Caspian, and Mediterranean Seas Adriatic Aegean Baltic Fleet Black Sea and Caspian Caspian Coast of Spain Eastern Mediterranean Egypt and Red Sea British Naval Forces Germany Gibraltar Levant Levant and East Mediterranean Malta Mediterranean Fleet Portugal Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean, Pacific Ocean Commodore, Arabian Seas and Persian Gulf Commander-in-Chief, Australia Commander-in-Chief, China East Indies East Indies and China East Indies Fleet Eastern Fleet Far East Fleet Egypt and Red Sea Senior British Naval Officer, Suez Canal Area Middle East New Zealand New Zealand Naval Forces Pacific Fleet Pacific Station Red Sea and Canal Area/Red Sea South America Station Persian Gulf v t e Named squadrons of the Royal Navy Australian Squadron British Adriatic Squadron British Aegean Squadron Black Sea and Caspian Squadron British North Russia Squadron Channel Squadron Channel Force Eastern Squadron Eastern Mediterranean Squadron Experimental Squadron Flying Squadron Overseas Patrol Squadron Gibraltar Squadron Irish Squadron Narrow Seas Squadron Northern Ireland Squadron Particular Service Squadron Persian Gulf Squadron Preventative Squadron Royal Navy Cyprus Squadron Royal Squadron Training Squadron West Africa Squadron Western Squadron Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=West_Africa_Squadron&oldid=1332247139" Categories: West Africa Squadron Military units and formations established in 1808 Atlantic slave trade 19th century in the United Kingdom Royal Navy squadrons British West Africa 19th-century history of the Royal Navy Slavery in the British Empire Anti-slavery military operations Military units and formations disestablished in 1867 Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description is different from Wikidata Use dmy dates from August 2025 Use British English from August 2025 All Wikipedia articles written in British English Short description matches Wikidata Articles with Project Gutenberg links CS1 maint: location missing publisher This page was last edited on 10 January 2026, at 19:39 (UTC). 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