The Failure of the Succès: Anatomy of a Slave Smuggling Voyage

FAIN: FT-291187-23

Susan Lee Peabody
Washington State University (Pullman, WA 99164-0001)

Research and writing leading to a book on the French slave ship, Le Succès, and the clandestine Indian Ocean slave trade.

This historical project uses the maiden voyage of a single French ship, Le Succès – built in Nantes in 1820 for the purpose of smuggling slaves in violation of the French and British trafficking bans – to explore the legacies the clandestine slave trade in several articles and a microhistorical book. The Succès was a failure because it was captured and prosecuted twice on its very first journey: first by French authorities in Île Bourbon (Réunion), where the officers were acquitted, and then, after its second slave run to Zanzibar, by the British Admiralty in Mauritius, when the ship was confiscated and the captain convicted. Through this gripping and well-documented tale, I aim to shed light on the regulation of slave trade and the unintended consequences of the humanitarian anti-slavery policies down to the present day.