"A Slaver's Log Book": The Original 1853 Manuscript by Captain Théophilus Conneau, together with Additional Archival Materials by CONNEAU, Théophilus and Brantz Mayer (Canot) - 1853

1853. Unbound. Near Fine. The complete original manuscript, titled: "A Slaver's Log Book or 15 Years Residence in Africa," consisting of approximately 589 hand numbered pages, and 18 additional inserted pages, written entirely in the legible hand of Conneau, with scattered ink emendations by Brantz Mayer, who first published an expurgated version of the manuscript in 1854. Accompanying the manuscript are 18 letters from Conneau to Mayer from 1853-54, and 11 other related letters from 1854 (including testimonials from leaders of the Maryland Colonization Society); together with miscellaneous manuscript notes, ephemera, and contemporary articles and reviews. A complete descriptive list of this material is available. The manuscript and accompanying archival materials are housed together in a large custom-made clamshell box. When Conneau's manuscript was discovered in the back room of the Washington, DC bookstore Loudermilk's, and later published in an unexpurgated edition in 1976, *The New York Times* described it as "One of the most informative, as well as one of the most fascinating documents illustrative of the final decades of the African slave trade." Historians of the African slave trade had long puzzled over the source of Brantz Mayer's 1854 book, *Captain Canot; Or Twenty Years of an African Slaver* which, according to the title page, was "written out and edited from the Captain's Journals, Memoranda and Conversations." Thus after nearly 125 years the slave trader with whom Mayer had collaborated was positively identified as Captain Théophilus Conneau. Mayer had disguised Conneau's name to avoid embarrassing his brother, who was the chief physician to Napoleon III, and to help Conneau evade prosecution for his involvement in the illegal Transatlantic slave trade. Born in Italy of French parents, Conneau first became involved in the slave trade in 1826. For the next 13 years he operated on the West Coast of Africa at Guinea and Liberia, serving as agent to Cuban slave traders, in charge of their "barracoons," and as commander of vessels that smuggled captive Africans into Cuba. Conneau himself was the owner of a prosperous coastal fort or "factory" where European goods were exchanged for slaves. He survived multiple shipwrecks, captivity by Caribbean pirates, imprisonment by both the English and French (condemned by the French as a slaver in Senegal, his sentence was commuted in 1835). Conneau also tried his hand as an honest African trader, eventually falling on hard times, and wound up in Baltimore in the 1850s. In Baltimore he met James Hall, whom he had known previously in Liberia, when Hall was Governor of the Maryland settlement for freed blacks at Cape Palmas. Concluding that Conneau's story as a slave trader would be of value to the anti-slavery cause and encourage black emigration from the United States to Africa, Hall convinced Conneau to write his memoir and referred him to the Baltimore journalist Brantz Mayer for editorial assistance and to get the memoir published. Although Mayer's version has long been criticized for its florid style and expurgations, the book bore obvious internal evidence of authenticity, and it contained valuable and detailed descriptions of the slave trade, including how slaves were captured and collected in Africa, how they were treated in the barracoons and coastal factories, and how they were shipped to Cuba. Conneau's first person account of the slave trade is nothing less than fascinating, and also valuable for his unconscious account of himself. As also noted in the *Times* review: "Unlike most wrongdoers, he is utterly unrepentant ... But he makes no pious justification of his occupation on grounds of the alleged inferiority of the Africans whom he enslaves. Twenty years on the West African coast leave him convinced that many of the natives have 'superior intellect' ... Candidly he admits that he engaged in the slave trade for the same reason that he is writing his memoirs-'solely for the object of profit.' A man without principles, without morals, without guilt, Conneau was, fortunately for the historian, also a man without reticence. Rarely has there been a villain so perfectly suited to his villainous trade." Included among the 18 loose manuscript sheets is a sketch of Cape Mount, Liberia, showing where Conneau had established a trading and farming settlement under the name of New Florence (later destroyed by the British in 1847, who suspected it to be a slave station). Among the 18 letters from Conneau to Brantz Mayer are several references to the creation of the *Slaver's Log Book* and several detailed descriptions of voyages undertaken by Conneau to London and Paris, and from New York to Valparaíso, Chile. While off the coast of Peru, Conneau advises Mayer in detail about the voyage, as Mayer intends to take the same voyage to California: "My trip from N. York to Valparaiso was performed in 37 days ... The passage all along was excellent, but the treatment on board the Empire City was abominable ... The berths are well enough, but full of insects and vermin. The table is certainly the worst served I have ever seen on board of any packets. The servants (Black Devils) are the greatest sauciest rascals in creation ... Should you undertake your trip to California, pack your luggage in your worst trunks (valuable ones would be ruined) ... You must not place confidence in the promises of the Steam Company clerks, as the number of your berth cannot be secured on the Pacific side ... Never engage your passage across the Isthmus from the Express, you are liable to be left behind as I was ... Once in Panama your Spanish language will carry you through ... ." Accompanying the manuscript and archival materials are near fine copies of the first two published versions of the manuscript: *Captain Canot; Or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver* (1854), and: *Adventures of an African Slaver* (1928); and the first published edition of the original manuscript: *A Slaver's Log Book or 20 Years' Residence in Africa* (1976), which includes 13 of Conneau's letters to Mayer in an appendix. A remarkable and historically important manuscript, together with several important letters and notes that further illuminate its creation and initial publication. Manuscripts of this age, importance, and completeness, with thorough, contemporary, and informative supporting material rarely come to market. Likely the most important slave trader memoir in existence. A complete descriptive inventory is available.