The slave ship Jenny
was out-manned and out-gunned. Despite sustained assaults from the fourteen-gun French privateer sloop, the Jenny, with its small crew, ten guns, and cargo of captive Africans, was still afloat in the Atlantic - - for now.
Authorized by warring powers – France, Austria, Spain - to attack foreign shipping in the Atlantic during the Seven Year War, the British-flagged Jenny, sailing to the Americas from Angola, was an easy target.
In anticipation of more lethal attacks, Captain Wilkinson decided to take “an extraordinary means of defense.” He armed 50 of the enslaved men aboard, rather than surrender.
The privateer had maneuvered close enough to the Jenny on the second day of battle to attach and ignite noxious stink pots to the vessel’s jib-boom end. These state-sponsored, French pirates intended the toxic, fiery balls to become explosive weapons, disabling the Jenny by disorienting Captain John Wilkinson, the helmsman, and its remaining 20-member crew, while also suffocating them with an intolerable stench.
In anticipation of more lethal attacks, Captain Wilkinson decided to take “an extraordinary means of defense.” He armed 50 of the enslaved men aboard, rather than surrender.
As the French sloop approached for what was its final assault, the Jenny was prepared for battle with more firepower and a significant increase in fighters. After six and a half hours of combat, “B[b]lood streamed plentifully out of the privateer’s scuppers,” according to The British Tars - 1740-1790
, a resource of maritime culture and history.
What was the fate of the fifty enslaved men who saved the lives and fortunes of the Jenny? Were they rewarded by being set free?
No.
Instead, those who survived the 550-day transatlantic voyage from the port of Cabinda at the mouth of the Congo River (in present-day Angola) were sold into slavery when the Jenny arrived in Annapolis, Maryland on July 15, 1760.
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