The Enduring Simond Legacy part 4: Simond as a slave trader, 1776-1779
- Rachel Lang
- Aug 4
- 6 min read
Updated: Aug 9
Simond and Hankey’s ship, named the Simond, made three triangular slaving voyages between 1776 and 1779, transporting an estimated 802 trafficked people across the Atlantic. An estimated 40 of these people died on the crossing. The ship was captained on each voyage by William McIntosh[1] and was well-armed, with 16 naval canons.[2]
The Simond first left London on 5 December 1775 and stopped to purchase enslaved people at St Louis, a French island off the coast of present day Senegal.[3] According to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, 201 enslaved people embarked on the trans-Atlantic crossing and 184 of these people were still alive for disembarkation in Grenada. The ship arrived back in London 20 July 1776. Nothing further is currently known of this voyage, although the short duration suggests quick turnarounds and a relatively smooth passage.[4]
The ship set sail from London on 24 February 1777 and purchased enslaved people on the Gold Coast of present day Ghana. Again the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database states 201 enslaved people embarked the ship and 184 arrived in Grenada. The ship’s voyage ended in London on 2 August 1777.[5]
On its final slaving voyage, the Simond left London in March 1778 and arrived at either Cape Coast Castle or Anomabo Castle on 3 June 1778 (the list of arrivals doesn’t differentiate between the two places). Both were British slave forts on the Gold Coast, about 10 miles apart, and are now UNESCO World Heritage Sites. There is additional information about the ship’s cargo in documents created by Richard Miles, Governor of Cape Coast Castle, and held at the National Archives, Kew. Miles described the Simond as a storeship, meaning it carried supplies for employees of the African Company of Merchants rather than simply bringing goods to exchange for enslaved people on behalf of Simond and Hankey.[6]
Richard Miles wrote three sets of accounts concerning the cargo of the Simond. Firstly, he listed the ‘Division of Goods per the Simond’ giving the distribution, by volume or weight, of brandy, pewter basins, brass pans, birding guns, gunpowder and iron bars, as well as a large number of different Indian and European textiles (chintz, cottons, half cottons, chelloes, cotton romauls, guinea stuffs, bajatepauts, neganpauts, half ells, sastracundees, silesias and half says). These were desirable products to exchange with local African traders for enslaved people. The goods were divided amongst 15 individuals and ‘Balances per Garrison Ledger’. The list of individuals reads as a Who’s Who of white merchants on the Gold Coast in the late 1770s: Richard Miles, Thomas Westgate, Robert Collins, Lionel Abson, Martin Walls, John Dixon, Jerome Bernard Weuves, Charles Graves, Sandys Deakin, Stuart Beard, George Ogilvie, James Mourgue, Charles Bell and ‘the Estates of Thomas Tinder and Robert Belson’.[7]
A second document, ‘Delivered Richard Miles in the Year 1778, on Account of his Advancements for the Public Service the following Supplies being part of the Cargo received of the Simond Captain Mackintosh’ lists metals and textiles for trading, but also supplies to be consumed by employees at the fort – linen, madeira wine, mustard, ketchup, beef, pork, cheese, butter, shoes, stockings, ham, flour, shoe brushes, soap, candles, white bread, wine glasses and other products.[8]
A third document, ‘Balances due the Committees Servants Ultimo 1777’, ties these transactions together. The set of accounts divides up the ship’s cargo according to the amount in pounds, shillings and pence of salaries and advancements owing to each employee of the African Company of Merchants, the amount of ‘goods in salaries and advancements for 1777’ and the amount of ‘provisions and other necessaries of the Simond’s cargo delivered above for 1777’. The Company was paying its employees’ salaries and clearing balances owed to them in goods rather than in cash or bills of exchange. The ship supplied goods to barter for enslaved people and goods for consumption by white slave traders. In total, the Simond delivered £14,472 1s 11d of goods for African Merchant Company employees.[9]
Miles records the Simond leaving Cape Coast Castle or Amonabo on 17 July 1778, carrying 340 enslaved people. The ship Constantine left on the same day, with 430 enslaved people. Whether these people were purchased with more goods from the Simond or advancements from the white traders is unclear; most likely it was a combination of the two. Richard Miles’s notebook, ‘Slave Barters at Annamaboe’ details his purchases of 17 men, five women and 3 boys between 21st March and 17th July 1778.[10] He exchanged goods to the value of £8 15s for each man and £6 15s for each woman. The purchase of the final eleven people in the week before the Simond sailed represented a particularly busy time: ‘Paid for the following slaves at diff[eren]t times since the 10th Inst. But being hurried had no time before to Enter them.’ Miles’ notebook lists the items for which each enslaved person was exchanged: for these 11 people he exchanged 11 says, 22 romauls, 22 chelloes, 22 cottons, 44 pans, 22 ankers, 11 oz powder, 11 guns, 11 chelloes, 44 silesias, 33cw pewter, 11 guinea stuffs, 11 beq, 1 mine[?] romaul and 2 ½ cottons. Miles reckoned the value of these items as £89 5s. He bought the enslaved people from three different Fante traders: Bolty, Aggumanon and Long John. It is possible that the ship’s captain, William McIntosh, purchased enslaved people by bartering with African traders directly as well as through white traders.
As well as cargo, the Simond left behind in Anomabo a fifteen year old boy who featured as a postscript in a letter Miles wrote to another merchant: ‘PS Capt. McIntosh has left in my Care a Youth about 15, a namesake of his; who he wishes to provide for: he intends mak[in]g application to get him on your Establishment, as a Writer and has begged me to use my Influence, I therefore take the Liberty of mentioning it to you, and to acquaint you that he will in the mean Time be under my own immediate Care.’[11]
According to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, 400 enslaved people and 49 crew embarked on the Simond before it began its Atlantic crossing. The ship is recorded as stopping at São Tomé before crossing the Atlantic; an additional 60 enslaved people may have been purchased in São Tomé. The database records the ship arriving in Grenada in October 1779 with 394 of the 400 enslaved people still alive, but this is given as an imputed figure, calculated by an algorithm. It’s not clear from other sources how many of the 340 people from Cape Coast Castle or Anomabu survived the journey. The ship was bound for Grenada so may have transported enslaved people for the many estates in the possession of Simond and Hankey on the island. In the late 1770s, during the American War of Independence, British ships faced direct threats from French and American vessels, limiting the supply of enslaved people and increasing their value.
[1] Likely identification of McIntosh, https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146665033.
[2] The ship’s owners, tonnage and captain are listed in Lloyd’s Register of Shipping (1778), https://archive.org/details/HECROS1778/page/n261/mode/2up.
[3] For more on St Louis Island, see https://www.slavevoyages.org/resources/images/category/Places/9#
[4] Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database. Accessed April 2, 2025. https://www.slavevoyages.org/voyage/76175 . Note this number of enslaved people may be an estimation based on the ship’s tonnage.
[5] Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database. Accessed April 2, 2025. https://www.slavevoyages.org/voyage/24822
[6] The National Archives, Kew (TNA) T70/1535/14, ‘List of ships arriving at and departing from Cape Coast and Annamaboe in 1778’.
[7] TNA T70/1535/15 and T70/1535/16, ‘Division of goods per the Simond – Mackintosh’. For an account of the different items commonly traded on the Gold Coast, see George Metcalf, ‘Gold, assortment and the trade ounce: Fante merchants and the problem of supply and demand in the 1770s’, Journal of African History, 28 (1987), pp. 27-41.
[8] TNA T70/1492, ‘R. Miles: Supplies advanced by and delivered to’, unpaginated.
[9] TNA T70/1535/6, ‘Balance due the Committee’s servants Ultimo 1777’.
[10] TNA T70/1265, ‘Slave barters by R. Miles at Annamaboe’.
[11] TNA T70/1482, ‘Letters from Richard Miles,’ p. 112.
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