The incredible story behind Denmark’s mutiny of freed slaves

When news broke that two shipwrecks off the coast of Costa Rica were Danish slave ships from the 1700s, the team at Kids News was full of questions. What was the transatlantic slave trade*? How was Denmark involved? And why were those two ships, the Fridericus Quartus and the Christianus Quintus, sabotaged and shipwrecked in 1710?

We couldn’t believe what we found out.

A REMARKABLE DISCOVERY
Recently, marine archaeologists from the National Museum of Denmark and the Viking Ship Museum made a startling discovery. What were originally thought to be two pirate ships wrecked off the coast of Costa Rica were instead missing Danish slave ships, the Fridericus Quartus and the Christianus Quintus. Their story has long been considered one of Denmark’s most dramatic shipwrecks, with the Fridericus Quartus set on fire and the Christianus Quintus having its anchor cut. But the real mystery remains the whereabouts of the approximately 600 slaves on board.

So what happened to cause those two ships to sink and about 600 slaves to disappear? To get an understanding of just what led to this unusual turn of events, let’s take a closer look at the slave trade and what life would have been like on board.

THE TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE
National Museum of Denmark’s senior researcher of maritime history Benjamin Asmussen said the Danish slave trade was mostly driven by the demand for sugar.

In the mid 1600s, Denmark and Norway, which were under one realm at the time, started sailing to central Africa to an area known as the Gold Coast, now present day Ghana.

By the 1670s, forts had been erected as places of trade. Before long, the demand for sugar – a very valuable commodity* at the time – led to a demand for manpower. Other coastal powers like Portugal and Spain were already forcing enslaved Africans to work on their sugar plantations and Denmark subsequently joined what was known as the transatlantic slave trade.

“New research has shown that the transatlantic slave trade was the largest (slave trade) ever in human history,” Mr Asmussen said, adding there was also an Arab slave trade and an Asian slave trade.

In the 1670s, Denmark-Norway acquired an island in the Caribbean, the island of St Thomas, where it set up a colony and sugar plantations. The slave trade increased, taking a “triangular trade” route by trading goods from Copenhagen in exchange for slaves in Africa, before taking the slaves to the Caribbean and selling them at public markets. The slaves would work on the plantations to produce the sugar, which would then be taken back to Copenhagen.

Denmark was the first country to ban the transatlantic slave trade in 1792 with a 10 year grace period*.

LIFE AS A SLAVE
The unlucky Africans who were enslaved were often captured by other tribes and brought to the coast where European ships were waiting to do business. Denmark brought goods such as cotton textiles, weapons and alcohol to trade in exchange for enslaved Africans, Mr Asmussen said.

The captives would often wait for months while the Danish converted their cargo ships into slave ships for the next leg of the journey.

“They were built with shelves that people would lie on usually in chains during the two to three months it took for the ships to go from Africa to the Caribbean,” Mr Asmussen said.

There would usually be up to 600 enslaved people forced on-board and there often wouldn’t be enough supplies to go around.

About one in five people died as a result, he said.

Life onshore wasn’t much better. Once the slaves arrived in the Caribbean, they were given about one week to recover before being sold at a public auction. They were then put to work on plantations where they were given limited food. The average life expectancy as a slave was seven years. Families were split up and people were separated by language to prevent them from organising escapes.

THE MYSTERY OF THE MISSING SLAVES
So what happened to the 600 slaves aboard the Fridericus Quartus and the Christianus Quintus? Mr Asmussen said he hopes they found a better ending.

The two ships were meant to land at St Thomas, where the slaves would be sold. But somehow, they veered 2000km off course. They tried to reach a Spanish port instead, but couldn’t find that either and wound up on a deserted coast with very little supplies – not enough to last everyone on board.

The crew decided to mutiny. They set the slaves free on the coast, set fire to one ship and cut the anchor of the other before stealing away with some English fishermen to the Spanish town of Portobello – taking all the gold from the ships with them.

Eventually scouts were sent to recover the slaves again, but only 100 or so were found.

“In some ways it becomes a story of hope,” Mr Asmussen said. “The fact they were freed in the jungle changes the story compared to the many other hundreds of slave voyages where it ends with slaves being sold and working themselves to death in plantations. It’s the glimmer of hope in this story.”

In fact, the Afro-Caribbean population in Costa Rica might even be able to trace their history back much further now that the shipwrecks have been discovered, he said.

WAS THERE SLAVERY IN AUSTRALIA?
While Australia was not involved in the transportation of slaves from Africa, there has been a history of slavery in our country.

Between 1863 and 1904 about 62,000 Melanesian people were brought to Australia and were forced to work in sugar plantations in Queensland.

First Nations Australians have also experienced slavery in different forms, especially in the pearling industry in Western Australia and the Torres Strait.

In the farming industry, Indigenous people were often written into the sale of a property. They were abused by employers, forced to work and had restrictions on what they were allowed to do.

POLL

GLOSSARY

• transatlantic slave trade: part of the global slave movement, where 10 million to 12 million enslaved Africans were transported across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas and forced to work on plantations or as servants in people’s homes from the 16th to the 19th Centuries
• commodity: something very valuable
• grace period: a 10 year period where they could continue trading in slaves before the law came into effect

EXTRA READING
India-Pakistan conflict explained
Shipwreck site could sink claim
“Holy grail” of shipwrecks found

QUICK QUIZ
1. When did the Fridericus Quartus and the Christianus Quintus sink?
2. Why did the crew abandon ship?
3. How long was the journey from Africa to the Caribbean that the slaves had to endure?
4. What sorts of goods did Denmark trade in exchange for slaves?
5. What is an example of slavery in Australia?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Narrative writing
Create a narrative retelling of the story of the Fridericus Quartus and the Christianus Quintus from the point of view of one of the following:

• an African slave who was on-board
• a member of the ships' crew
• the owners of the ships and the slaves on-board

Engage your audience in the story by developing your character and conveying the feelings they may have had as the dramatic events unfolded.

Time: allow 40 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English

2. Extension
Deepen your understanding of the geographical detail of this story by marking the locations and routes on a world map.

Time: allow 20 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English; HASS (Geography)

VCOP ACTIVITY
Read this!
A headline on an article – or a title on your text – should capture the attention of the audience, telling them to read this now. So choosing the perfect words for a headline or title is very important.

Create three new headlines for the events that took place in this article. Remember, what you write and how you write it will set the pace for the whole text, so make sure it matches.

Read out your headlines to a partner and discuss what the article will be about based on the headline you created. Discuss the tone and mood you set in just your few, short words. Does it do the article justice? Will it capture the audience’s attention the way you hoped? Would you want to read more?

Consider how a headline or title is similar to using short, sharp sentences throughout your text. They can be just as important as complex ones. Go through the last text you wrote and highlight any short, sharp sentences that capture the audience.