Introduction

The Last Slave Ships

Key West was never a slave trading port - a place where people were imported to be bought and sold - but because of its unusual geography it was often affected by the Transatlantic Slave Trade. A remote outpost, poised along the maritime highway of the Gulf Stream current and very close to the plantations of Cuba, the small island saw a number of slave ships sail through, wreck in, or be forcibly brought to her waters.

In the Spring of 1860, three slave ships intercepted by the US Navy in its efforts to stop the illegal trade in humans, were brought to Key West. These American-owned ships were bound for Cuba, where their human cargo was to be sold to the thriving sugar plantations. A total of 1,432 Africans arrived from these ships, and they came with nothing. The 3,000 citizens of the island, led by United States Marshal Fernando Moreno, came together and built housing, donated clothing, and provided food and medical attention for them during their stay.

For eighty-five days the newly liberated refugees found shelter at Key West. But because of the horrific conditions they suffered aboard the slave ships, many of the Africans were quite ill, and 295 of them died. They were buried in shallow sand graves on the southern shore of the island.

Eventually it was decided they would be sent to Liberia, a country on the West African coast established as a home for liberated American slaves. Ships were chartered by the United States through the American Colonization Society for yet another voyage across the Atlantic. Three months after they had first arrived, all the Africans left Key West and were on their way to a new life. 

This remarkable incident speaks to the pivotal nature of the times. Slavery was the leading topic of political discussion, and its polarizing effects were about to tear the United States in two. The confused character of the American, and even global, mindset is expressed in so many ways when looking at the microcosm of events that occurred here in 1860. A few corrupt African kings resisted development of stable industries in favor of quick profit, and continued to sell their rivals to American ships, while hastening their own economic demise. The American military was combating the maritime traffic in slaves, while millions were still held in bondage on U.S. soil. As for the African refugees, there was never a question of their plight, or their freedom, yet no one suggested they stay. At Key West, men who were slave owners, and soon to be supporters of the Confederacy, devoted many of their personal resources to ensure the welfare of the Africans, and some, without irony, employed their own slaves to give them aid. In the courts, only the ships were found guilty of participation in the slave trade, not the crews. And at one point, the U.S. Marshal was compelled to consider the use of deadly force against a group intending to steal the Africans – nearly bringing Americans to blows with Americans in what could have easily been the catalyst of the Civil War. And across the Atlantic, the development and support of what was supposed to be an African “paradise” was only sowing the seeds of misery.

Despite all the missteps and contradictions, this was adding up to a tremendous shift in the social and political mindset from even a few years before. As difficult and messy as abolition might be, slavery, and the support for it, was rapidly collapsing. With the interrupted missions of the Wildfire, the William and the Bogota – among the last slave ships to touch on American shores – an institution nearly four centuries old was coming to a close.  

View Last Slave Ships Video

Listen to The Florida Humanities Council's Radio Story on 
The Last Slave Ships Exhibition
(click on Cut 4: The Last Slavers)