The Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

 established the West Africa Squadron (or Preventative Squadron) at substantial expense in 1808 after Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act of 1807. The squadron's task was to suppress the Atlantic slave trade

Atlantic slave trade

The Atlantic slave trade, also known as the trans-atlantic slave trade, refers to the trade in slaves that took place across the Atlantic ocean from the sixteenth through to the nineteenth centuries...

 by patrolling the coast of West Africa

West Africa

West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...

. With a home base at Portsmouth

Portsmouth

Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...

, it began with two small ships, the 32-gun fifth-rate

Fifth-rate

In Britain's Royal Navy during the classic age of fighting sail, a fifth rate was the penultimate class of warships in a hierarchal system of six "ratings" based on size and firepower.-Rating:...

 frigate HMS Solebay and the HMS Derwent. At the height of its operations, the squadron employed a sixth of the Royal Navy fleet and Marines

Royal Marines

The Corps of Her Majesty's Royal Marines, commonly just referred to as the Royal Marines , are the marine corps and amphibious infantry of the United Kingdom and, along with the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary, form the Naval Service...

.

Commodore Sir George Ralph Collier, with the 36-gun as his flagship, was the first Commodore of the West Africa Squadron. On 19 September 1818, the Navy sent him to the Gulf of Guinea

Gulf of Guinea

The Gulf of Guinea is the northeasternmost part of the tropical Atlantic Ocean between Cape Lopez in Gabon, north and west to Cape Palmas in Liberia. The intersection of the Equator and Prime Meridian is in the gulf....

 with the orders, “You are to use every means in your power to prevent a continuance of the traffic in slaves.” However, he had only six ships with which to patrol over 3000 miles of coast. He served from 1818 to 1821.

In 1819 the Royal Navy created a naval station in West Africa at a captured slaving port that the British renamed Freetown

Freetown

Freetown is the capital and largest city of Sierra Leone, a country in West Africa. It is a major port city on the Atlantic Ocean located in the Western Area of the country, and had a city proper population of 772,873 at the 2004 census. The city is the economic, financial, and cultural center of...

. This would become the capital of the first British colony in West Africa, Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone , officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the north and east, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and southwest. Sierra Leone covers a total area of and has an estimated population between 5.4 and 6.4...

. Most of the slaves the squadron freed would choose to settle in Sierra Leone as they would not have to fear being re-enslaved, a danger in any other part of Africa. From 1821, the squadron also used Ascension Island

Ascension Island

Ascension Island is an isolated volcanic island in the equatorial waters of the South Atlantic Ocean, around from the coast of Africa and from the coast of South America, which is roughly midway between the horn of South America and Africa...

 as a supply depot, before this moved to Cape Town

Cape Town

Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...

 in 1832.

As the Royal Navy began interdicting slave ships, the slavers responded by abandoning their merchant ships in favour of faster ships, particularly Baltimore clipper

Baltimore Clipper

Baltimore Clipper is the colloquial name for fast sailing ships built on the south-eastern seaboard of the United States of America, especially at the port of Baltimore, Maryland...

s. At first, the Royal Navy was often unable to catch these ships, however with the capture of slaver clippers and new faster ships from Britain the Royal Navy regained the upper hand. One of the most successful ships of the West Africa Squadron was one such captured ship, renamed HMS Black Joke

HMS Black Joke (1827)

The third HMS Black Joke was probably built in Baltimore in 1824, becoming the Brazilian slave ship Henriquetta. The Royal Navy captured her in September 1827 and purchased her into the service. The West Africa Squadron employed her to chase down slave ships. Over the course of a five-year career...

. She successfully caught 11 slavers in one year.

Until 1835 the Royal Navy was only allowed to take slavers that actually had slaves aboard. This meant the squadron could not interfere with vessels clearly equipped for the trade but without a cargo. It also gave slavers being pursued an incentive to throw their slaves overboard before capture to avoid the seizure of the vessel.

By the 1840s the West African Squadron had begun receiving paddle steamer

Paddle steamer

A paddle steamer is a steamship or riverboat, powered by a steam engine, using paddle wheels to propel it through the water. In antiquity, Paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, where the first uses were wheelers driven by animals or humans...

s, which proved superior in many ways to the sailing ships they replaced. The steamers were independent of the wind and their shallow draught

Draft (hull)

The draft of a ship's hull is the vertical distance between the waterline and the bottom of the hull , with the thickness of the hull included; in the case of not being included the draft outline would be obtained...

s meant they could patrol the shallow shores and rivers.

The Royal Navy considered the West Africa Station one of the worst postings due to the high levels of tropical disease

Tropical disease

Tropical diseases are diseases that are prevalent in or unique to tropical and subtropical regions. The diseases are less prevalent in temperate climates, due in part to the occurrence of a cold season, which controls the insect population by forcing hibernation. Insects such as mosquitoes and...

. This did however provide Royal Navy surgeon

Ship's doctor

A Ship's doctor or Ship's surgeon is the person responsible for the health of the people aboard a ship whilst at sea. The term "ship's doctor" or "ship's surgeon" appears often in reference to the Age of Sail British Royal Navy's "surgeons." These men, like other physicians, often did not have much...

s with the experience they would use to effectively fight such diseases, but at a huge cost in lives lost.

As the 19th century wore on, the Royal Navy also began interdicting slavery in North Africa, the Middle East

Middle East

The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

, and the Indian Ocean

Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...

.

The United States Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

 assisted the West Africa Squadron, starting in 1820 with USS Cyane

USS Cyane (1796)

Cyane was a Royal Navy sailing Banterer-Class sixth-rate ship of 22 guns, built in 1806 at Topsham, near Exeter, England. She was ordered in January 1805 as HMS Columbine and was renamed Cyane on 6 December of that year....

. Initially the US contribution consisted of a few ships, but eventually the Webster-Ashburton Treaty

Webster-Ashburton Treaty

The Webster–Ashburton Treaty, signed August 9, 1842, was a treaty resolving several border issues between the United States and the British North American colonies...

 of 1842 formalized the US contribution into the Africa Squadron

Africa Squadron

The Africa Squadron was a unit of the United States Navy that operated from 1819 to 1861 to suppress the slave trade along the coast of West Africa...

.

Between 1808 and 1860 the West Africa Squadron captured 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans.