4/11/2023 0 Comments The wanderer charlestonThe prestige of the New York Yacht Club banner that continued to fly from Wanderer’s main mast, however, shrouded its odious mission for hidden from view were supplies that Wanderer took on in Charleston-chains, handcuffs and enough Georgia pine to build a secret slave deck.Īs soon as the British departed, the Americans resumed their vile-and illegal-work building pens in which to squirrel away human cargo. The British officers laughed at what seemed a preposterous idea for surely no vessel that extravagant would be used in the slave trade. Toward the end of the evening, Farnum jokingly asked his guests if they wished to inspect the yacht to ensure it wasn’t a slave ship. At the invitation of the Americans, British officers dined on fine damask linens in the salon and sipped champagne and smoked cigars on the deck as Captain John Egbert Farnum regaled them with tales of his adventures in the Mexican-American War and serving as a guerrilla fighter in Nicaragua and Cuba. On patrol along the African coastline in search of illegal slave ships, Bowden boarded Wanderer and was struck by its opulence-gilded mirrors, rosewood furniture, satinwood cupboards, ornamental brasswork and “all that could be desired for comfort and luxury,” as the New York Times reported. Instead, on a day when the United States celebrated its independence, the Wanderer was off on a voyage across the Atlantic Ocean to deprive hundreds of their freedom.Ī little more than two months later, William Bowden, commander of the British warship HMS Medusa, peered through his spyglass and spotted the sleek American yacht in the mouth of the Congo River. In spite of the send-off, the speedy schooner wasn’t destined for another regatta. Crowds along the waterfront waved flags and handkerchiefs as Wanderer slipped away from the shore with the triangular pennant of the prestigious New York Yacht Club flapping proudly in the breeze. On July 4, 1858, one of America’s fastest racing yachts departed Charleston, South Carolina, to a chorus of saluting cannons. Although tales of subsequent importations of slaves exist, the voyage of Wanderer is the last documented case of a slave ship landing in the United States. From Jekyll Island, many were sold to South Carolina.Ī half-century after Congress banned the slave trade-and less than three years before the start of the Civil War-a converted racing yacht defied American law and smuggled hundreds of African slaves into the country. The captives aboard the slave ship Wanderer, which landed on the south end of Jekyll Island, Georgia in 1858, were one of the last known groups of enslaved Africans sold into captivity in America. This picture was taken after they were freed. From left to right: Romeo, Ward Lee, Tucker Henderson, were captured and brought to America on the Wanderer.
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