Description:

Ships’ muster rolls from 1783 – 1784; Society of Merchant Venturers’ archive. Muster roll no: 119.

Muster roll for the ship, the Wasp, from Africa and Jamaica, 1783. The Wasp was the last of only eight slaving voyages from Bristol in 1783. The number of slaves bought and sold is not known, but the enslaved Africans rebelled when the ship arrived in the Caribbean. Reports suggest that about 100 slaves died in the fighting.

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: 1783

Copyright: Copyright The Society of Merchant Venturers