Hunting Antelope
On March 23, 1820, off Africa’s western coast, Captain Vicente de Llovio of Spanish merchant brig Antelope uneasily watched an unfamiliar vessel enter the Bay of Cabinda. Antelope had been anchored for two weeks in the bay, where the Congo River meets the Atlantic Ocean. De Llovio and his 24-man crew had been sharing the anchorage with an unnamed Portuguese vessel. Both crews had come to trade with a figure the Europeans knew as the Prince of Cabinda. The prince was a mambouk, or local representa-tive of the king of Ngoyo, ruler of an area north of the Congo River.
Business had been going smoothly but now here came trouble. A large ship, also a brig but rigged unusually, with square sails on the foremast and only gaff-rigged—that is, in the shape of a triangle truncated at the top—fore-and-aft sails on the mainmast, a configuration sailors called “hermaphro-dite”—was coming at Antelope.
In his dealings with the prince, de Llovio had been exchanging European trade goods for captive Africans. Whether taken prisoner during tribal wars common in the Congo watershed, kidnapped by brigands, or convicted of criminal or civil infractions, the bartered unfortunates were destined for Havana, Cuba, and its slave markets.
That the newcomer was flying a Spanish flag did not reduce de Llovio’s apprehension, confirmed when at the interloper’s rails appeared several dozen musketeers. Gunners were running out the hermaphrodite brig’s cannons. Hands took down Spain’s flag and raised the ensign of the Republic of Banda Oriental. Now known as Uruguay, Banda Oriental then was a Portuguese colony in South America in revolt against the mother country and also at war with Spain.
Though a merchantman, , in acknowledgment of seagoing reality, mounted on its sides four 8-lb. muzzle-loading cannons to discourage unwanted company. The oncoming vessel, which reflagging instantly identified as either pirate or privateer—the latter could have rotated at anchor and brought its own guns to bear. He had not rigged a spring line, however. His men looked to be outnumbered two to one. With only 12 muskets and 12 cutlasses in his ship’s armory, resistance was futile.
