By the time Henry Downes took command of the Black Joke, the ship had only been on the waters under that name for just a year. A former slave ship itself, the Black Joke was captured in 1827 by the British Royal Navy’s West Africa Squadron, its incredible speed repurposed for chasing down and capturing slave traders as they attempted to make their way to the Americas.
For five months, Downes, had been on watch for just one ship—the notorious slaver El Almirante, reputed to be back off the coast of Western Africa and known to have already illegally transported thousands of the enslaved to the Americas in its sordid career. In mid-January 1829, the Black Joke, while patrolling near Lagos, came across what appeared to be several Brazilian slavers embarking Africans. Standing off the coast so as not to spook them, rumor reached Downes that one ship was a fancy, familiar Spanish brig nearly ready to set sail—after the waiting and unproductive cruising, El Almirante had, all unexpected, made its appearance.
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On the water, rumors traveled both ways; just as Downes had heard that this was the brig he sought, El Almirante had, in turn, been warned of the appearance of Black Joke. Damaso Forgannes, the recently promoted captain of El Almirante, could not have been less concerned about the prospect of capture. Reputed to have laughed upon hearing the news, Forgannes scoffed publicly at the ludicrous notion of the Black Joke capturing his vessel, continuing to openly purchase enslaved people. The reaction wasn’t entirely unreasonable—El Almirante was an inordinately expensive ship, even for a slaver, purpose-built and equipped with every advance in design its (undoubtedly American) shipwrights could conceive. If making a break for open water was not an option, the slaver crewed upward of 80 men and carried 14 powerful guns.
There was no question that the two-gunned Black Joke, with a crew of 47 plus a temporary supplement of eight men from…
Source : time
