Engrossing ship history of a slave transporter-turned-liberator

A ship biography like no other, Predator of the Seas has a fascinating subject – the Black Joke, which surely stands out as one of the most remarkable vessels of all time.

The Baltimore clipper was named the Henriqueta under Portuguese ownership, and it trafficked more than 3,000 captives to Brazilian plantations. These vessels were the racehorses of the sea, and were prized by slave traders for their speed, ease of manoeuvre and relatively shallow draft – qualities that allowed them to navigate close to the African coast while bringing slaves onboard, and to outrun British ships.

Henriqueta was later captured by the Royal Navy's Preventative Squadron, which was tasked with suppressing the slave trade following its abolition by the British government in 1807. The vessel was renamed and re-crewed by Royal Navy seafarers and West African Kru people who served ably alongside their British counterparts and were also able to withstand the tropical diseases that killed Europeans by the score.

The Black Joke's swiftness proved a decisive advantage compared with the more cumbersome RN vessels, and it freed 3,692 captive Africans during its second career.

Not only that, the ship became an icon in the fight against the slave trade and a favourite with the public.

Much ink has been expended during recent years on the subject of slavery, but this book is something rather special. The double career of Henriqueta/Black Joke as slave ship and enforcement vessel allows the author to explore this dark subject in all its complexity and ambiguity, as well as its brutality.

This is also an extremely well-written book, a historical page-turner with engaging accounts of naval battles that also leaves you with a broad understanding of the subject. The author presents a wide range of perspectives, from the slaveowners of Brazil and the captains and crew that supplied them, through to the slaves themselves, the Dahomey elites of West Africa who captured them for sale to the Europeans, the veterans of the Napoleonic wars who tried to prevent the trade, and the Africans who served onboard the Black Joke.

As Stephen Taylor writes in his introduction, in telling this story 'the life of a single vessel that occupied both these worlds evolved into a metaphor for the paradoxes of humanity'.

Predator of the Seas
By Stephen Taylor
Yale University Press, £25
ISBN: 978 03002 63992