Hannibal (slave ship)

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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 Hannibal's voyage of 1693–1695.