Gorge: An African Seaman and his Flights from ‘Freedom’ back to ‘Slavery’ in the Early Nineteenth Century

This essay uses records from one slave’s testimony before the Mixed Commission in Rio de

Janeiro, along with supporting documents from archives in Lisbon and London, to trace a slave seaman’s Atlantic adventures. Two ships upon which the seaman - Gorge - labored were captured by British anti-slaving squadrons. British officials presented Gorge with

chances to obtain legal ‘freedom’, first in Freetown and then in Rio. Both times he chose to remain a slave in Brazil. Gorge’s choice of slavery reveals much about the limited meanings of slavery and freedom for Africans in Atlantic communities and

about the maritime identities that some slaves forged on ships in the era of Atlantic slavery.