Our island[65] was
visited almost weekly, by agents from Cuba, New York, Baltimore,
Philadelphia, Boston, and New Orleans.... The seasoned and instructed
slaves were taken to Texas, or Florida, overland, and to Cuba, in
sailing-boats. As no squad contained more than half a dozen, no
difficulty was found in posting them to the United States, without
discovery, and generally without suspicion.... The Bay Island plantation
sent ventures weekly to the Florida Keys. Slaves were taken into the
great American swamps, and there kept till wanted for the market.
Hundreds were sold as captured runaways from the Florida wilderness. We
had agents in every slave State; and our coasters were built in Maine,
and came out with lumber. I could tell curious stories ... of this
business of smuggling Bozal negroes into the United States. It is
growing more profitable every year, and if you should hang all the
Yankee merchants engaged in it, hundreds would fill their places."[66]
Inherent probability and concurrent testimony confirm the substantial
truth of such confessions. For instance, one traveller discovers on a
Southern plantation Negroes who can speak no English.[67] The careful
reports of the Quakers "apprehend that many [slaves] are also introduced
into the United States."[68] Governor Mathew of the Bahama Islands
reports that "in more than one instance, Bahama vessels with coloured
crews have been purposely wrecked on the coast of Florida, and the crews
forcibly sold.
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