Rescued Men and Boys, Saved from Slavery and Starvation

Group of Starving African Men and Boys Removed from a Captured Dhow.  Click on the image to expand its view.

While the Royal Navy ship Daphne was patrolling the waters off Africa's east coast, in 1869, she came upon a dhow with slaves aboard.  About 156 men and boys were removed from the slaver.

This engraving is based on a photograph taken by George Sullivan.  The picture appeared in his book (see below) and in The Graphic (in 1873). 

At page 218, of The Graphic article (taken from Sullivan's book), we read the following:

"…on the bottom of the dhow was a pile of stones as ballast, and on these stones, without even a mat, were twenty-three women huddled together, one or two with infants in their arms; these women were literally doubled up, there being no room to sit erect; and on a bamboo deck, about three feet above the keel, were forty-eight men, crowded together in the same way, and on another deck above, there were fifty-three children. Some of the slaves were in the last stages of starvation and dysentery."

While this engraving depicts conditions along Africa's eastern shore, the same situation existed on the Atlantic side.

Credits

From:  George L. Sulivan, Dhow chasing in Zanzibar waters and on the eastern coast of Africa (London, 1873), facing p. 168.  This image was also published in The Graphic (London), vol. 7 (1873), p. 233

The original of the photo on which this engraving is based - taken by Sullivan (the author of Dhow Chasing) in 1869 - is maintained by the Public Record Office/The National Archives, in London (FO 84/1310).

Image, courtesy slaveryimages.org, sponsored by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and the University of Virginia Library.