HMS Black Joke

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 12.9K Ratings

🗓️ 16 May 2022

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Please note that this episode contains mentions of racial trauma, slavery and violence.

The most feared ship in Britain’s West Africa Squadron, His Majesty’s Black Joke was one of a handful of ships tasked with patrolling the western coast of Africa in an effort to end hundreds of years of global slave trading. Once a slaving vessel itself, only a lucky capture in 1827 allowed it to be repurposed by the Royal Navy to catch its former compatriots.

A.E. Rooks is an expert in this little-discussed facet of the transatlantic slave trade. Rooks joins Dan on the podcast to chronicle this history of the daring feats of a single ship - whose crew and commanders would capture more ships and liberate more enslaved people than any other in the Squadron.

Produced by Hannah Ward

Mixed and Mastered by Dougal Patmore

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode is sponsored by Audible, where you can now stream the new series of that brilliant Stephen Fry's
0:06.7	Secrets of podcast. It peaks behind the curtain of the 1920s this time. The life and times of the flappers,
0:14.1	police women, radio, the movies, jazz, the British sense of humour,
0:20.3	censorship and the secrets and lies, the financial crash. This is another installment of Stephen Fry that listeners love.
0:27.7	There are some brilliant stories in here, all told in a very Stephen Fry type of way. You're going to love it.
0:32.7	Listen now, subscription required, see audible.co.uk for terms.
0:38.7	Hey everyone, welcome to Dance in those history. This is a great story in the podcast.
0:41.7	It's a story of one ship's battle against the slave trade, the British West African squadron, the Royal Navy,
0:48.7	deploying to try and interdict the flow of enslaved African people across the Atlantic to the plantations of the new world.
0:57.7	One ship called the Black Joke in just two years,
1:02.7	accounted for 11 slave ships captured. In all that time, the British only intercepted 13 slave ships and she
1:09.7	accounted for 11 of them. She was a weapon, a fast sailor, manned by a highly professional crew.
1:16.7	It was a great backstory. She was built in the US super fast, a blockade runner. She was then employed by Brazilian owners to bring Africans to Brazil.
1:26.7	She was then captured by the Royal Navy and the poacher became the gamekeeper and did a pretty impressive job.
1:33.7	This is a great story. It's been searched, it's been shared, it's been written up by AE Rooks.
1:39.7	She says story in writer from the US and as you'll hear, she's absolutely brilliant.
1:43.7	She's written a book called the Black Joke which I urge you all to read.
1:48.7	Before we hear from Rooks, don't forget you can go and check out all of our other podcasts.
1:52.7	We've got lots of podcasts about the Atlantic world, about the slave trade, about all the things you'll hear mentioned in today's episode,
1:58.7	all of the other podcasts and lots of the TV shows all dealing with that over at History Hit TV.
2:03.7	History Hit TV is our digital history channel. It's like Netflix just for history. We've got audio on there as well.
2:08.7	We've got documentaries. It's a safe place for utter history geeks. There's 10,000 of people like you out there that are now subscribing.
	...

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