While I was recently in Mackay for work, I passed some of the time by reading Flash for Freedom! (a most enjoyable read), which deals with Flash’s adventures whilst caught up in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade of late 1840s.
Britain had deployed the Royal Navy off the coast of Western Africa and elsewhere to try and combat the slave trade by intercepting ships transporting slaves, and treating the vessels and crew as Pirates.
This made me wonder- as it wasn’t covered in the story- what happened to slaves rescued from slave ships? It’s a given that they were released, of course, but were they taken back to Africa, or taken to America/elsewhere in the Caribbean and released as free people?
I think it depends on where the ship was intercepted. I believe most of the piracy patrols were relatively close to the African coast, so they would probably have been set ashore at the nearest settlement which was controlled by Britain or by a native power which was at least nominally on board with the ‘slavery is bad’ concept. The numbers weren’t huge and spread over a long period (about 150,000 over half a century or so), which probably meant quite a variety of outcomes. However I doubt many of the poor sods ever made it back to their original homes and families.
Not quite the same, I know, but the *Amistad *slaves were returned to their homelands. According to the film version, at least one of them found his family missing, probably taken by slavers.