• Captain John Matthews (d. 1798). Journal on the African slave trade, 1797–1798.

Curatorial note:

In four handwritten journals Captain John Matthews, recorded his involvement in the African slave trade in Sierra Leone, first as an agent for the African Company of Merchants, 1785–1787, and later as a Royal Navy officer on coastal patrol, 1797–1798. Matthews illustrated this volume (no. 4) with watercolor views of the Sierra Leone coast, showing British colonial trading posts and sailing vessels at anchor. During the last fifteen years of the eighteenth century, trans-Atlantic commerce in African slaves was still at its peak, though British reformers, such as Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce, were working for the abolition of slavery. Matthews is best known for his book, A Voyage to the River Sierra-Leone on the Coast of Africa: Containing an Account of the Trade and Productions of the Country and of the Civil and Religious Customs and Manners of the People (1788).

and

Captain John Matthews Papers (C1575, box 1, folder 4). Manuscripts Division. Purchase, 2017.

Collections:

• Welcome Additions
• Manuscripts (Welcome Additions Exhibition)
• Digitized Manuscripts
• Captain John Matthews Papers C1575

Title:

• "Journal of the Proceedings of HM Ship Maidstone. Commencing Jany. 1st 1797"

Language:

• English

Extent:

• 1 folder

Publisher:

• Matthews, John, lieutenant in the Royal Navy

Created:

• January 1, 1797

Identifier:

• ark:/88435/cc08hk56t

Edm rights:

• No Known Copyright

Scopenote:

• One page of open journal

Range label:

• Logical

View in finding aid:

• https://findingaids.princeton.edu/catalog/C1575_c5

Depositor:

• bwodnick

Date created:

• 1797 January 1-1798 March 16

Portion note:

• One page of open journal

Container:

• Box 1, Folder 4