The Black Joke: The True Story of One British Ship's Battle Against the Slave Trade

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The admiralty put Dos Amigos up for auction, where the commodore of the British Anti-Slavery Squadron, Jonathan Hayes, bought her and named her Fair Rosamond. So many things about this book have stuck with me: how the "freed" enslaved on the ships were not really freed at all, how ineffective (and rare) anti-slavery legislation was, how unmitigatingly terrible the conditions for the enslaved were on these ships, how sailors could not swim (this was stunning), and so much more- you have to read the book to really understand everything.

I’m fine with scholarly narratives as a rule but for some reason I had trouble getting through the chapters in a sitting. It becomes evident rather quickly that the story of the Black Joke is not nearly substantive enough to fill the pages of an entire book, and so much of the story revolves instead around the work of abolitionists and the minutiae of the West Africa Squadron’s operations. During her service with the Navy, Black Joke 's crew included an assistant surgeon, three midshipmen, thirty seamen, and five marines, as well as a number of Liberian Kroomen for use on detached boat service. Rooks greatly enlarges the context of the Black Joke’s legendary four-year run, delving into the maritime, economic and political issues of the day. The commodore of the capturing ship bought her and added the sleek ship to his fleet in the Royal Navy and this rechristened her Black Joke.

Black Joke', commanded by Lieutenant Henry Downes, was tender to the frigate HMS ‘Sybille’, commanding officer Francis Augustus Collier, to whom the inscription dedicates this plate. In 1913 Cecil Sharp, Herbert MacIlwaine and George Butterworth published "Morris Dance Tunes" set 2, containing the tune Black joke. One could easily be forgiven for forgetting that this process was ostensibly meant to be liberatory.

Logbook kept by E W Petley, midshipman, in HMS RIFLEMAN, China, RODNEY, China, TRAFALGAR, Mediterranean.Rooks's narrative voice, at turns scholarly and sardonic, takes you on a journey through the seas and inlets around West Africa and into one ship's relentless, and often lonely, fight against the slave trade. That the British felt compelled to enforce their superiority may explain the roots of US foreign policy. I learned a lot from this book—I never knew that the British Navy had ships dedicated to intercepting slave ships and liberating the enslaved people on board. Pérez shows how joking practices build community through the legitimization and strengthening of “common sense” notions of race and racism in daily life. And while I was still confused reading this book, due to my own inability to properly imagine what a ship looks like, especially a ship from the 1800s, I was never irritated.

Well, "saved" is probably too generous a term for the countless liberated enslaved who found themselves forced into British citizenship and might even end up in a situation that looks a lot like indentured servitude. Calm seas and light winds gave 'Black Joke' the advantage on the day and this is reflected in the image by Huggins. Enslaved Africans on arrival at Freetown became British, whether they wanted to or not, and were given a number of options.Over the next five years, the vessel liberated more enslaved people than any other in Britain's West Africa Squadron.