AboutKeith Patton Expertise I can answer questions regarding fresh and salt water Catamarran Sailing, techniques and equipment. I can also answer questions regarding the repair of decks and the updating and installation of running and standing rigging on mono-hulls
Experience I have sailed catammarans in fresh and salt water for over 16 years.
I currently own and sail a 30 ft monohull out of Kemah on Galveston Bay, on which I carried out a complete refit.
Question One of my relatives, a Jacobite, was transported From Tilbury Fort in Essex, England, to Barbados as an indentured slave in the 'Frere' on 31 March 1747. Can you give me some idea as to the type of ship this would have been and also the living accommodation afforded to prisoners such as he?
Jan
Answer For the time period, it would have most commonly been either a ship (a three masted square rigged ship with a bowsprit), a Barque or Bark ( a three masted ship with square rigged sails on the foremast and main mast, but with a fore aft rigged sail on the mizzen (stern most) mast; or a Barquentine (Barkentine) with only the foremast square rigged and the main and mizzed for aft rigged; a Brig, a two masted ship rigged square on both masts; a Brigantine, two masted with one square rigged and one fore aft rigged masts.
Considering the
I searched the Slatve Trade Database and the Frere is not listed in it, so it was probably a ship that only carried cargo and was not used in the slave trade.
There was an effort to use inentured servants as slave labor but proved unsuccessful. Considering the "prisoner" status of your ancestor, he might have been sent for that purpose.
In that case his crossing would probably have been as a prisoner, shackled or at least confined to the hold, as a sailing ship is not a good place to have an unwilling passenger let loose to wander as they will. They would also probably have been made to carry out some form of labor such as helping to scrub the decks etc if they were able and it would have been done under supervision.
Since they were considered "cargo" they would have been reasonably treated and fed. Considering the crew's food for the time, this would have been slimey water, salt beef or pork, possibly cheese, and wormy bread.
If you have ever been on a historic sailing ship, in your mind, remove all the nice paint and in your mind repaint it black or dark gray, oak turns black when exposed to water. Splash black tar around, as sailors got the sobriquet as old tars because their feet and hands were stained black with tar from the tar painted on the standing rigging to preserve it. Remember lines were made of hemp, and rotted when exposed to water if not covered with a preservative.
The ratlines, the shrouds all the standing rigging that supported the masts fore and aft were tar coated. These were the rigging the sailors climbed on. The running rigging was not tarred.
The yards and masts would be covered by a coating of spar varnish to help preserve it too.
So the ship above deck was functional but bleak. Below decks reeked of rot. Water in the bilge would collect from the seeps through the hull planking and was the home for the ships rats.
Garbage and leavings from former cargoes would undoubtaby litter the holds and be left to rot. It would be dank wet and moulding. Imagine living and sleepin in that for a month or two.
