Parr (1797 ship)

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History
Great Britain
NameParr
OwnerThomas Parr[1]
BuilderJohn Wright, Liverpool[2]
Launched1797
FateBurnt 1798
General characteristics
TypeShip
Tons burthen450,[3] or 566[4][1] (bm)
PropulsionSail
Complement80,[4] or 97[1]
Armament32 × 18-pounder guns[4]

Parr was launched in 1797 at Liverpool as a slave ship. She was lost on her first voyage.

Origins[]

Parr was built in Liverpool and named for owners Thomas and John Parr, members of an eminent local slave-trading family. She was built to accommodate seven hundred slaves. Parr was not only the largest Liverpool slaver, but at 566 tons (bm), the largest vessel in the entire British trans-Atlantic slave trade.[2]

Voyage and loss[]

Lloyd's Register for 1797 had a Parr, 450 tons (bm), of Liverpool, Christian, master.[3]

Captain David Christian acquired a letter of marque on 5 December 1797,[4] and sailed for the Bight of Biafra and Gulf of Guinea Islands on 5 February 1798; he gathered his slaves at Bonny Island.[1]

Lloyd's List reported that Parr, Christian, master, caught fire and blew up in 1798, off the coast of Africa as she was sailing from there for the West Indies. Twenty-nine of her crew and some 300 slaves were saved.[5] Christian apparently died.[6] (Two or three years earlier he had been master of Othello when she too had caught fire while gathering slaves.) Other records indicate that Parr had a crew of 97 men and had embarked some 200 slaves. The surviving slaves were shipped on other vessels.[1]

Citations and references[]

Citations

  1. ^ a b c d e "Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade - Database". www.slavevoyages.org.
  2. ^ a b Rediker (2007), Chapter 2.
  3. ^ a b "Lloyd's register of British and foreign shipping. 1797". HathiTrust.
  4. ^ a b c d "Letter of Marque, p.80 - accessed 25 July 2017" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 October 2016. Retrieved 27 October 2018.
  5. ^ "Lloyd's list. 1797-1798". HathiTrust.
  6. ^ Transactions (1991), p.110.

References

  • Transactions of the Historic society of Lancashire and Chester. (1991). Vol. 140. (Alan Sutton). ISSN 0140-332X
  • Inikori, Joseph E. (1996). "Measuring the unmeasured hazards of the Atlantic slave trade: documents relating to the British trade". Revue française d'histoire d'outre-mer. 83 (№312): 53–92.
  • Rediker, Marcus (2007). The Slave Ship: A Human History. U.K.: Viking. ISBN 978-0-670-01823-9.
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