Description:

Ships’ muster rolls from 29th Sept 1763 – 29th Sept 1764; Society of Merchant Venturers’ archive. Muster roll no: 52.

Muster roll for the slave ship, Phoenix. The ship left Bristol in November 1762 and arrived in Cape Coast, West Africa, where 307 enslaved Africans were purchased. The ship then sailed to Jamaica in the Caribbean where it arrived with its slaves in good order. The ship later returned to Bristol.

The muster roll is a list of all crew signed on for all or part of a voyage, which was used to calculate the money each man should pay to the Sailors’ Hospital Fund (insurance).

The Society of Merchant Venturers is a Bristol-based organisation, which was formed in 1552 as an elite body of merchants involved in overseas trade. The Society still exists today.

Date: 1762

Copyright: Copyright The Society of Merchant Venturers