Forts & factories · 18th–19th centuries
The barracoon
The stockaded holding pens of the slaving lagoons — the physical infrastructure of the illegal post-abolition trade.
Biography
A barracoon was a long thatched shed inside a palisade, sited on a creek or island where a slaver could load fast and a cruiser could not follow. Gallinas, the Sherbro and the Cestos each held clusters of them.
Their scale grew after 1808 precisely because the trade was now illegal: cargoes had to be assembled in advance and shipped in a single night. The mortality of the barracoon — from dysentery, from confinement, from waiting — is under-recorded and enormous.
Historical significance
Abolition without enforcement made the trade more concentrated and more lethal; the barracoon is the evidence.
Timeline
- 18th c.Holding pens in use at coastal factories
- 1808British and American abolition drives the trade into hiding
- 1840/1849British squadron destroys the Gallinas establishments
Related entries
References
- Jones, Adam (1983). From Slaves to Palm Kernels.
- Eltis, David & Richardson, David (2010). Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
Suggested reading
- Eltis & Richardson (2010).