Dark Voyage: An American Privateer's War on Britain's African Slave Trade

Praise for Dark Voyage: An American Privateer's War on Britain's African Slave Trade

“Over the last decade, historian Christian McBurney has authored a number of important books about Rhode Island and the American Revolution . . . McBurney’s latest effort, Dark Voyage, is without question his best and is a must-read for students of the state’s history. McBurney’s deep engagement with archives on both sides of the Atlantic, along with sources detailing the history of the slave trade in Africa and the role of local African leaders, helps to shed light on an often overlooked aspect of the Revolution. At the heart of Dark Voyage is a complex tale of slave trading off the African coast and the injustice and horrors it generated, along with the greed, callousness and inhumanity of those who engaged in human trafficking.”—Providence Journal
 
“By telling the story of a single Revolutionary War privateer, Christian McBurney makes a compelling argument about the effect of American privateering on the British slave trade. . . . The most impressive aspect of the book is McBurney’s objective analysis of complexity at the core of the Marlborough’s story. By making a prize of a slave ship, the crew of the Marlborough were not freeing slaves, but taking part in the slave trade themselves. A less serious historian could have whitewashed Marlborough’s participation in the slave trade and made the crew out to be unsung heroes of the American Revolution. Or the Marlborough could have been raked over the coals for profiting on slavery while dismissing the privateers’ effect on the British economy and war effort. Instead, McBurney makes it clear the Marlborough’s owner and crew were not heroes, but that their deeds are worthy of research. Dark Voyage sheds light on a previously overlooked series of events during the American Revolution and reveals their hidden complexity. McBurney’s work makes for an engaging read that can add a greater understanding of American privateering in the Revolutionary War and the British slave trade.”—Naval History

“Privateers are often likened to the militia at sea. Although focused on the singularly important and remarkable voyage of the Rhode Island privateer Marlborough to Africa, Christian McBurney gives the first systematic account of the impact American privateers had on the British slave trade, providing further evidence of the effectiveness of the privateers as a tool of war against the British. His book also is an excellent vehicle for exploring both American privateering and the British slave trade.”—Andrew J. O'Shaughnessy, author of The Men Who Lost America, British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire
 

“Dark Voyage is an important and welcome contribution to the literature. By detailing the significant impact that American privateers during the War for Independence had on Great Britain’s African slave trade, mainly through the extraordinary story of an American privateer’s voyage to Africa, McBurney highlights an overlooked, but critical part of not only the Revolutionary War story, but also the story of slavery writ large.”—Eric Jay Dolin, author Rebels at Sea: Privateering in the American Revolution

“Historians have not adequately explained the slave trade’s spectacular collapse during the American Revolutionary War. Through his focus on the Marlborough, an American privateer that wreaked havoc on Britain’s slave trade in Africa, Christian McBurney illuminates in precise detail how the war shattered the business. He also reveals the remarkable array of people engaged in slaving across the Atlantic World, and the terrible consequences of their decisions for the enslaved. Dark Voyage thus sheds important new light on the slave trade’s history and the American Revolution War’s truly global impact.”—Nicholas Radburn, Lecturer at Lancaster University and co-editor of SlaveVoyages.org