The Ten Brothers Controversy
There has been recent speculation that Elijah Cobb was a slave trader, based upon a voyage to the coast of Africa aboard the Ten Brothers in 1819. The stated purpose of the journey was to trade for gold dust and ivory as Cobb had done the year previous. On the ship’s return to Boston, Cobb was accused of slave trading by persons unknown and of knowingly bringing yellow fever into port. An investigation was undertaken by the Boston Board of Health, and Cobb was cleared of both charges.
These are the documented facts we have unearthed to date about the 1819 Ten Brothers journey:
1. In a letter Elijah Cobb wrote to his wife from Prince’s Island, off the coast of Africa, dated 4th Feb. 1819:
My Dear Friend
We are here; & all well, thanks to the controller of every event,, but under circumstances, must remain here two months longer, as we have a considerable part of our cargo still on hand, business is astonishingly altered since last voyage, the coast is crowded with vessels & goods of every description, & the natives have nothing to buy with. This circumstance is owing to the late interior war, which has recently raged with great violence & prevented the natives from procuring Gold dust & Ivory as formally [sic] – my object for waiting is to git clear of the Perishable part of my cargo for coffee, when their Crop comes in, which is now commincing [sic] but will not be at its height until the last of march or first of April – I also calculate to touch at one of the windward W. India Islands (on my passage home) in order to s[ell] my Tobacco, Flour, Tea & salmon; which I cannot sell here for an[ything] – & some Corn, which I shall receive in barter so [that] you need not be antious [sic] if we don’t git home until [the last] of July . . .
Your Affectionate Friend [sic]
Elijah Cobb
-- Elijah Cobb – The Memoirs of a Cape Cod Skipper – Yale University Press, 1925
2. In the summary of the report from the Health Office, Boston, dated Nov. 29th, 1819:
The committee further state, that it appears from unquestionable evidence before them, that the voyage aforesaid of said ship Ten Brothers, although a disastrous one, was perfectly honorable and lawful – and that said ship was not engaged, either directly or indirectly, in the slave trade, nor were any slaves ever on board her.”
-- New England Journal of Medicine Jan. 1820: “Case of the Ship Ten Brothers”
Although no direct evidence has been found that Cobb or other Brewster shipmasters engaged in slave trading, Elijah Cobb and other Cape Cod shipmasters clearly benefited from trade associated with the institution of slavery. Here is one basic example of how the community itself benefited: Alewives from Brewster’s herring run on Stony Brook Road were caught, salted, packed in barrels, shipped to Boston, and on to the West Indies to feed the enslaved on the sugar cane plantations. Consider who benefited financially from this small-scale, peripheral connection to the slave trade: The fishermen who caught the fish, the men who made their nets, the men who delivered the salt to preserve the alewives, the coastal traders who delivered the barrel staves to the local coopers who made the barrels, and last of all the sea captains who delivered the alewives to Boston and then on to the West Indies.
There are other assertions regarding shipmasters around New England, including Elijah Cobb, that involvement in the slave trade was potentially concealed by the courts and various government departments. The Brewster Historical Society firmly believes that our history is our history and that it is part of our mission to educate and inform the public about that history. To that end, the Society supports the pursuit of new factual evidence, which when discovered will be included in our narrative. This story continues to unfold.