Whaleships Which Became Slaveships

Although uncommon, there are instances of whaleships carrying people living in slavery.

​​Transporting enslaved people offered astronomical profits. 

Even though the transatlantic slave trade was outlawed in the US in 1808, illegal kidnapping and transports of enslaved African people continued. As the whaling industry started to wane, some saw an opportunity to refit the ships into a horrific new role. 

While New York passed an act to gradually abolish slavery starting in 1799, involvement in the slave trade here did not end. Research shows that select whaling ships were refitted locally and used to transport kidnapped African people who were sold into slavery in Central and South America, including Cuba and Brazil. 

In 1854, a whaleship could bring in about $16,000 in annual income; a slaveship carrying 600-800 captured African people could earn $150,000-$200,000 per trip. A captain could earn a salary of $900 by whaling - or $9,000 transporting enslaved people.  

There is a reason why Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address spoke of "American slavery," and not of “Southern slavery."

WHALESHIP transporting enslaved people	DATE	PORT
Laurens	1841	Sag Harbor, NY
Cynosure	1841	Stonington, CT
Fame	1844-47	New London, CT
Herald	1845	Stonington, CT
Brutus	1856	Warren, RI
Margaret Scott	1857	New Bedford, MA (Sunk in 1862 in Charleston harbor as part of the Stone Fleet, where aging ships were deliberately sunk to obstruct Confederate shipping channels) Read more.
Augusta	1857	Sag Harbor, NY (Retrofitted in Greenport for the slave trade)

Even when slavery ended in New York in 1827, New Yorkers continued to support, and profit from, slavery.

• Pre Civil War, 40% of goods shipped out of New York City were southern cotton.
• Major companies such as Aetna, JP Morgan Chase, and New York Life financed plantations and continued to profit from slavery by insuring slaves or accepting slaves as loan collateral.
• Slaveships continued to anchor and restock in New York Harbor.
• New York merchants sold plantation owners their supplies.
• Even New York City’s 1863 mayor, George Opdyke, who ran on anti-slavery platform, made his fortune selling cheap clothing for enslaved people on Southern plantations.
• Newspaper editors fueled white workers' fear that the end of slavery would flood the city with cheap competition for their jobs.
• African Americans continued to face ongoing discrimination and anti-Black violence. The brutal New York Draft Riots in 1863, when Irish American working-class mobs attacked at least 2,000 Black people and killed 120, changed local demographics: the New York Black population decreased ​from 12,472 in 1860 to 9,943 in 1865.