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[CHAPTER 2]
[Page 1]
SLAVE BUYING, SELLING, AND STEALING
In 1718 the Company of the West gave instructions to Captain Du Coulombier of the St. Louis, and Captain Herpin of the Aurore, to go to the Coast of Guinea and engage in the African slave trade. The latter vessel was large enough to carry 400 Negroes, and the former between 450 and 500. Both were directed “to trade for only well-made and healthy Negroes…not more than 30 nor less than 8 years of age.”1 Captain Herpin was particularly instructed to trade for three or four hogsheads of rice for planting and a few Negroes who knew how to cultivate it. He was ordered to deliver his cargo to the directors of the Company upon his return. Many instructions were also given pertaining to the health and morals of the slaves he was expected to bring back.
Concerning the first arrivals from these two ships, Martin says:
Experience had shown the great fertility of the land in Louisiana, especially on the banks of the Mississippi, and its aptitude to the culture of tobacco, indigo, cotton and rice; but the laborers were very few, and many of the newcomers had fallen victims to the climate. The survivors found it impossible to work in the field during the great heats of summer, protracted through a part of the autumn. The necessity of obtaining cultivators from Africa, was apparent; the company yielding thereto, sent two of its ships to the coast of Africa, from whence they brought five hundred negroes, who were landed at Pensacola.2
The Aurore and the St. Louis landed at Pensacola between May and August of 1719 with the first consignment of 500 African slaves to reach Louisiana. The Company now began to turn most of its attention towards the slave trade, and attempted a
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