Introduction

Hitherto neglected sources for the study of African history during the late eighteenth century are contained in the Sessional Papers of the British House of Commons, particularly in materials that were assembled during the period when the abolition of the British slave trade came under discussion and was the subject of political debate.^{Footnote 1} Especially relevant are materials that have been published by Sheila Lambert in her monumental collection, in 147 volumes, House of Commons Sessional Papers of the Eighteenth Century, covering the period 1715-1800.^{Footnote 2} Eight volumes directly relate to Africa, the slave trade and slavery in the Americas. Indeed, the relevant materials are not only essential in the analysis of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and those parts of Africa involved in the trade, but also they are invaluable in an examination of slavery and the plantation system of the British Caribbean during the period before 1790. There is the written submission of Gustavus Vassa, alias Olaudah Equiano, the detailed reports of captains of slave ships and naval vessels, and descriptions of surgeons on board slave ships. Colonial laws relating to slavery are included. References to mulatto families that dominated trade on the Upper Guinea coast, as well as the education of Africans in Britain during the 1770s and 1780s, are included. Several reports document what was known in official British circles of North Africa and the Ottoman provinces. There is important information on French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Danish matters, including slavery in their colonial possessions, various laws and decrees, and details on the slave trade. Moreover, there is detailed statistical information on all aspects of British commerce and the demography of the trade and British possessions in the Caribbean. There is also information on slave ships, as well as ship captains, surgeons and some crew members. There is surprisingly little information on North America, probably because North American independence aborted any need to survey information on that sector of the British Atlantic world.

Despite their importance, the materials contained in the Sessional Papers have only been occasionally referred to in the historical literature, whether in respect to the slave trade itself, slavery in the Americas, or the African historical component that is integrally part of the Sessional Papers. These materials are inevitably part of the historiography of western Africa, the Atlantic slave trade, and slavery in the Americas, as well as abolition, economic history, and demography. Consequently, the attached index has been assembled for purposes of accessing these rich materials. The introduction provides background to the Sessional Papers. The index includes most of the names of individuals mentioned in the documents, except those included in tables, and places that are mentioned. In addition, there is list of the many tables that are included in the collection. While there may well be omissions in the index, the accompanying index does enable easier access to the collection.

In 1975, Sheila Lambert published her 147 volume collection, in which there are eight volumes of materials that informed the Parliamentary enquiry into the slave trade or recorded proceedings of the Committee that underlay the abolitionist campaign led by William Wilberforce and also incorporated extensive commentary and material by those who supported a continuation of the slave trade. The first two volumes in the 147 volumes of the Lambert edition list the contents of the series, divided between 1715-1760 and 1761-1800. The materials are usually cited as: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. House of Commons Sessional Papers of the Eighteenth Century (1715/29-1799/1800), 147 volumes.^{Footnote 3} The collection derives in large part from the work of Charles Abbot, Speaker of the House of Commons in 1802. Abbot oversaw the organization of the Parliamentary materials, which Lambert re-organized, along with a large number of documents that had not been previously collected. Until the nineteenth century there was no systematic collection of sets of printed sessional papers. After becoming Speaker in 1802, Abbot asked Luke Hansard to organize a compilation of eighteenth century papers. At lEast seven sets of what are known as the Abbot Collection were compiled, one of which was lost in the destruction of the Palace of Westminster in 1834, and as Lambert has noted: “The early nineteenth-century indexes to the sessional papers of the house of commons were mainly the work of Luke and Luke Graves Hansard.”^{Footnote 4} These consisted of thirty volumes of Bills (most from after 1750), twenty-eight volumes of Reports from Committees (most from after 1771), and fifty-two volumes of Accounts and Papers (most from after 1780). The Hansard Catalogue of Parliamentary Reports, and a Breviate of their Contents: Arranged under Heads According to the Subjects, 1696-1834 appeared in 1834,^{Footnote 5} which P. and G. Ford reproduced in 1953.^{Footnote 6} As Bellot has noted, the original Catalogue “relates to one category of papers only, to those only from 1696, and then not even to all reports of committees during this period.”^{Footnote 7} Specifically, Hansard’s Catalogue does not include information in the Sessional Papers discussed here.

Lambert organized her collection by sovereign, then by session, and hence the materials of relevance here recognize King George III, specifically volumes 67-73 and 83. Within each session, Lambert subdivided documents into three types:

1. 1. Bills. Very few bills were actually ordered to be printed. Hence, the set provides a comprehensive list of bills, but actually reproduces very few. Bills appear in chronological order by the date of first reading.

2. 2. Committee Reports. Excludes committees relating to the introduction or progress of bills. Reports are listed in chronological order by appointment date.

3. 3. Accounts and Papers. Lists all accounts and papers, regardless of whether a copy was actually found. Items are listed in chronological order by request date.

Volumes 1 and 2 provide an introduction and list, based on the chronological division, volume 1, 1715-1760 and volume 2, 1761-1800. The “Introduction and List” provide a chronological index to the Sessional Papers. Items actually ordered to be printed are indicated with a “+” (i.e. items available). Materials can be found in actual volumes that documents appear by locating an item in the chronological list, noting the date the document was ordered to be printed (the “Return” date for Accounts and Papers, the “Report” date for Committee Reports, and the first Reading date for Bills), and then the date can be checked against the “Numerical Checklist of Papers Ordered to be Printed” at the back of the “Introductions and List” volume where the sessional paper number is listed in the first column and the volume in which the document is reproduced appearing in the last column. The “Introduction and List” volumes also include an alphabetical index of titles of Printed Papers. Each entry therefore provides the volume, page and sessional paper number.

Lambert collated papers from all extant sets of the Abbot Collection, as well as other sources; however, she excluded papers printed in full in the Journals of the House of Commons. In 1975 Lambert published her collection with Scholarly Resources Inc. of Wilmington, Delaware. There is a parallel set of papers, although not as numerous, of the House of Lords Sessional Papers 1714-1805. This collection is digitized from the reprint set of House of Lords papers edited by F.W. Torrington and published by Oceana in 1972-1978.^{Footnote 8} Torrington compiled the set based on the holdings of numerous archives and libraries in Europe and North America. As well as Bills, Reports of Committees, Reports of Commissioners, and Accounts and Papers, the Lords Sessional Papers also include Humble Addresses to and messages from the sovereign, papers communicated from the Commons, reports of the trials of peers, reports of the impeachment of officials, and reports of peerage claims.

The concern here is with eight volumes of the Lambert collection that relate to materials on slavery and the slave trade, viz. volumes 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, and 82. The materials include a wealth of information based on the testimony of individuals who had been or were involved in the slave trade, except for volume 67. In addition, volume 67 contains numerous statistics, reports, texts of laws and regulations. There are also statistics in the other volumes, as well as other materials that were submitted to the House committee on the economics and operation of the slave trade, specifically, but also on the practice of slavery in the British Caribbean colonies. They contain many reports from ship captains and surgeons who were involved in the slave trade, which can be checked against the work of Stephen Behrendt, who provides an overview of ship captains from 1785 to 1807.^{Footnote 9} The Merseyside Maritime Museum in Liverpool contains the original printed volume of the Report of the Lords Committee of Council appointed for the Consideration of all Matters relating to Trade and Foreign Plantations, collected in consequence of the Order in Council of 11 February 1788, which is the same as volume 69 in the Lambert collection and which is accessible in the Gale Digital Collection.^{Footnote 10} The Merseyside manuscript, which was bound by R. Hayward, has as an inscription “Ann Hunt Jany 21 1812” in the front cover. As is stated in the Lambert republication, this volume was “Printed for presentation to both Houses of Parliament,” and the Merseyside text is clearly of this vintage.

While the Lambert materials have been used by some historians, of course, their actual use has been remarkably less than might appear obvious. Since 1975, the documents have been readily available, but relatively few scholars actually have used them, based on a study of references in books and articles relating to the abolition movement or to an analysis of the slave trade and its operation in the second half of the nineteenth century, or to an understanding of coastal West African history in the same period. It may be that the materials have been used more extensively in the analysis of slavery in the Caribbean and North America, but the focus of this analysis is on the relevance for African history and the study of the slave trade itself. In this regard, this index is intended to address the underrepresentation of these materials in historical scholarship on Africa. Several historians have used the materials themselves; Porter before Lambert published her collection and therefore based on original uncatalogued materials, and Porter in his study of the poor “Blacks” of London and Braidwood’s study of the first Sierra Leone settlement scheme, and then only in relation to that project rather than larger issues of African history and the study of the slave trade.^{Footnote 11} In addition, Suzanne Schwarz used the ZHC series at Kew in her study of Captain James Irving, as well as the Lambert collection that draws on this series.^{Footnote 12} In the context of African history, David Richardson and myself have drawn on the materials in the study of the slave trade, pawnship, and agency in the Bight of Biafra and to a lesser extent elsewhere in Africa, while Richardson, David Eltis, and Stephen Behrendt have used the materials with respect to the construction of the slave voyage database and the analysis of shipping and the role of specific ship captains and surgeons in the operation of the slave trade.^{Footnote 13} Notably absent from use of the materials are most scholars who have studied the abolition movement and the key figures associated with that movement.^{Footnote 14}

There are over seventy ship captains who provided testimony or about whom there is considerable information, including James Penny of Liverpool, James Fraser of Bristol, Ambrose Lace of Liverpool, Archibald Dalziel, who also served as governor at Ouidah. Surgeons such as Isaac Wilson, Alexander Falconbridge, Ecroyde Claxton, and Dalziel. There is also information on individuals who were active in the slave trade in West Africa, such as the John and James Cleveland of the Banana Islands, Charles Corker of Sherbro Island, Prince George of Sierra Leone, Richard Brew of the Gold Coast, and Dick Ebro and Archibald Robin John of Old Calabar. There are the testimonies and submissions of such abolitionists as Thomas Clarkson, James Ramsay, Granville Sharp, Gustavus Vassa (Olaudah Equiano), and Rev. John Newton, who was also a former slave trader before he became an evangelical preacher. Among the West Indian planters are Edward Long, John Wedderburn, and George and Robert Hibbert of Jamaica, as well as various governors and other colonial officials. The accounts of Alexander Falconbridge, Archibald Dalziel, James Fraser, Isaac Parker of Liverpool, and Charles Berns Wadstrom of Sweden stand out as particularly informative of the African coast and its ports. The amount of information on Senegal, the Gambia River and the fort at James Island, the Upper Guinea coast from Rio Pongo and Iles de Los southward to Sierra Leone, the Banana Islands and Sherbro is extensive, and there is information on Bunce Island in particular. Similarly, the information on Cape Coast, Anombu, Ouidah, Bonny, Old Calabar, Cameroon and Gabon is considerable, and there is some information on Angola.

In addition to the Lambert materials, there are other materials from the House of Commons and House of Lords that are relevant to the study of slavery and the slave trade that unexplainably have been neglected, despite their relative ease of access. These include the papers of the House of Lords that Torrington published as a parallel, although not as extensive by any means, of reports on the slave trade that were undertaken in the Lords or the various reports that are now accessible on line via various digital publishing sources such as Adam Matthew and Cengage.^{Footnote 15} These materials, too, have been used only sparingly, which suggests that the interpretation of slavery and the slave trade in the era of British abolition is due for considerable re-examination. It is too soon to tell with what results. Specifically, the 890 page “Report of the Lords of the Committee of Council appointed for the Consideration of all Matters relating to Trade and Foreign Plantations,” which includes evidence and information gathered as a result of an Order of Council, 11 February 1788, concerning the current state of trade to Africa, and particularly the trade in slaves, as well as the effects and consequences of the slave trade in Africa and the Caribbean.^{Footnote 16} From the perspective of African historical analysis, however, it is clear that these sources of information on the second half of the eighteenth century, when the slave trade, especially the British trade, was at its height, have been neglected. Far more commonly used by historians are the four volumes of documents published by Elizabeth Donnan between 1930 and 1935 as Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America, including volumes on the period 1441-1700, the eighteenth century, New England and the middle colonies, and finally the border colonies and the southern colonies.^{Footnote 17} Marion Johnson also amassed extensive statistical evidence on the British trade with Africa for the eighteenth century, but the materials that she assembled drew on English customs records now housed in the National Archives at Kew under CUST3 and CUST17 and subsequently edited and tabulated in Anglo-African Trade in the Eighteenth Century, edited by Lindblad and Ross. Johnson did not draw on the statistical data contained in the Lambert Sessional papers.^{Footnote 18} The considerable statistical data contained in the Lambert series clearly can be used to supplement Johnson’s pioneering work.