West Africa Squadron

West Africa Squadron
HMS Black Joke and prizes (clockwise from top left) Providentia, Vengador, Presidenta, Marianna, El Almirante, and El Hassey
Active	1808 - 1870
Country	United Kingdom
Branch	Royal Navy
Type	Fleet
Role	Suppression of the Slave Trade, from Cape Verde to Beguela

The Royal Navy 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 by patrolling the coast of West Africa. With a home base at Portsmouth, it began with two small ships, the 32-gun fifth-rate frigate HMS Solebay and the Cruizer-class brig-sloop HMS Derwent. At the height of its operations, the squadron employed a sixth of the Royal Navy fleet and marines.

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

On 25 March 1807 Britain formally abolished the Slave Trade, prohibiting British subjects from trading in slaves, crewing slave ships, sponsoring slave ships, or fitting out slave ships. The Act also included a clause allowing the seizure of ships without slave cargoes on board but equipped to trade in slaves. In order to enforce this ruling in 1808 the Admiralty dispatched two vessels to police the African Coast. The small British force was able, due to the ongoing Napoleonic Wars, to stop any ship bearing the flag of an enemy nation, making suppression activities much easier. Portugal, however, was one of the largest slave trading nations and Britain's ally against France. So in February 1810 under diplomatic pressure, it signed a convention that allowed British ships to police Portuguese shipping, meaning Portugal could only trade in slaves from its own African possessions.

Interestingly, the letter of marque Dart, a private vessel chasing slavers to profit from the capture of slave ships and the bounties the British government paid for freed slaves, made the first captures under the 1810 convention. Dart, and in 1813 another letter of marque, (Kitty), were the only two vessels to pursue slavers for profit, and thus augment the efforts of the West Africa Squadron. The lack of private initiatives, and their short duration, suggest that they were not profitable.