Wreck of the Slaver America – Pressed into the Slave Trade.

From the California Digital Newspaper Collection:
Sacramento Daily Union 25 January 1861
https://cdnc.ucr.edu/

Pressed into the Slave Trade.— New York, December 30.—By
the arrival of the steamer Canark, from Nassau, N. P.,
on the 24th, we have accounts of the wreck of the American
ship America, on Cape Lobos, with 500 Africans on board,
destined for Cuba. The ship was commanded by Capt. Charles
Brown, who, with his crew, seized upon the schooner Liby,
of Nassau, and compelled her master to render assistance.

The Captain of the Liby has testified before the police
magistrate as follows: The wreck lay about fourteen miles
from the lighthouse; she was a ship of apparently about
500 or 600 tons, and from her I landed about 500 slaves
on Cape Lobos. The Captain gave me up the wreck, saying
I could do what I liked with it, but gave me no money.

I saved some of the rigging and copper from the ship. He
made me land the slaves and I had no option. I was there
three days after trying to save the rigging. Before I could
save the rigging, the Captain compelled me to take him and
three of his hands to Nuevitas lighthouse, Cuba, where they
landed for about two hours, and returned with me to Cape
Lobos on Wednesday week.

A brig arrived four days afterward from the direction of Cuba,
and took off the slaves immediately; some of them were in a
deplorable condition, and eleven of them died while on the
Cape, although they had plenty of rice, molasses, and water.

The Captain and crew, about thirty-six in number, of the slaver
used no violence toward me, although they were all armed with
six-barreled revolvers and a bowie knife on each side. They
gave me no money. The Guardian says a detachment of sixty soldiers
was dispatched by the Governor to Cape Lobos, on the 19th,
but the slaves had been carried to Cuba, as well as the
officers of the ship, by the brig.