A new book called The Two Princes of Mpfumo tells the fascinating story of a pair of royals from Mozambique in southern Africa whose lives were thrown into chaos by the transatlantic slave trade. We asked historian Lindsay O'Neill three questions about her book.
Prince James and Prince John came from Mpfumo, one kingdom among many that dotted the shores of modern day Maputo Bay, where the capital of Mozambique now stands. Here, in the 1700s, no Europeans held sway. African kingdoms did, and those kingdoms fought constantly.
Mpfumo had once been a power player, but it had lost one war too many and its power was slipping. One way to regain control was to become allies with the Europeans whose ships occasionally came looking for ivory – trading beads, cloth and manufactured goods like mirrors in exchange.
The Portuguese used to come every year, but their visits were becoming infrequent. Dutch and English ships sometimes sailed into the bay, but not often. So, in 1716, when the princes saw that an English ship, with coveted trade goods, had laid anchor nearby they saw an opportunity.
With the blessing of the king, they decided to sail with the captain to England and establish a relationship with English traders. It was rare, but not unheard of, for captains to take high ranking Africans on board ships to travel to Europe. However, it was more likely to happen on the west coast of Africa where the slave trade was more established and relations between African rulers and European traders were strong.
The ship’s first stop was the city of Morondava on the island of Madagascar, 1,000km to the north-east. Madagascar was where Europeans came for enslaved labour in the Indian Ocean. The captain purchased enslaved Malagasy and then headed for Jamaica, a Caribbean island where rich plantation owners wanted enslaved labour.
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Here the captain decided that the princes were worth more to him as slaves than as allied traders. He sold them. The two men did not go quietly. They insisted they had been wrongfully enslaved. For two years no one listened, until a lawyer was convinced, purchased them, and freed them. He planned to take them to London.
The journey would take longer than expected. The ship they boarded was wrecked in a hurricane off the coast of Cuba. The princes survived, but the lawyer did not.
They eventually made it to London with a new patron. They became minor celebrities in the city. They were guests of honour at a duke’s estate and had plays put on for their enjoyment. Eventually their supporters organised a voyage home for the princes.
It was at this point that things began to fall apart for Prince James. He fought with his younger brother and threatened to cut his own throat, stating “he was full of pain & no body wou’d cure him”.
More hardship followed. The ship hit bad weather near the English coastal town of Exmouth and was damaged going into port. During their stay there Prince James deteriorated further.
Finally, one night, he fled his lodgings after a fight with his brother and the ship’s captain. He tried to find refuge among friends. No one took him in. For reasons only known to Prince James he committed suicide that night. He was buried in Exmouth, thousands of kilometres from home.
His brother, Prince John, finally arrived home in January 1723. But Mpfumo had changed.
The Dutch had established a trading post and power dynamics were complex. At first, Prince John used his sway to establish trade with the English. However, relations soon soured, violence erupted, and the English fled. Prince John remained.
A few years later the Dutch tried to convince the Mpfumans to join in the slave trade. They resisted, saying they believed the Dutch ate their slaves. To show that they treated their slaves well, the Dutch took three high ranking men to the Cape. Among them was Prince John.
The slave trade never flourished during his lifetime. The Dutch abandoned their fort in 1730. The Portuguese established one in 1787, but it struggled and a trade in slaves did not pick up until the 1820s.
One wonders if Prince John had pushed against engaging in the slave trade one hundred years before. He knew that the Europeans did not literally eat their slaves, but he knew that they figuratively did.
Uncovering the story of these two men was a historical treasure hunt. I first learned of their existence in the letters of an English supporter of their cause when researching another project.
Then I considered what other people they might have encountered, which led me to the papers of European trading companies and religious societies. I also plumbed books, newspapers and records from the period for crumbs of information. When all of these pieces were put together the outline of their story appeared.
It should be noted, though, that these are all European sources. The only written words left behind by the princes are two formulaic letters of thanks, copied in a British lord’s letter book. I only know the names given to them by the English, not those they embraced themselves. I had to approach these documents carefully with an eye open for biases while seeking whispers from the princes themselves.
This story shows us the true geographic reach of the transatlantic slave trade. European slavers focused on the west coast of Africa, but their tentacles stretched eastward and brought locations like Mpfumo into their orbit.
Furthermore, individual stories of those who experienced slavery matter. When thinking about the evils of the slave trade and slavery itself we often think in numerical terms and are overwhelmed by the size of the tragedy.
But men like the princes were more than numbers; they were individuals who existed within a terrible system and who struggled to define their own lives. We can then take such stories and weave them into history.
Their story shows that many individual Africans and their kingdoms were not powerless when dealing with Europeans. They could push back and succeed. The Mpfumans were able to rid themselves of the English and the Dutch when they desired.
However, we must also remember the dark side of the story. Even elite men like the princes were viewed more as commodities than allies. They both might have regained their freedom, but only one made it home.
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And murmuring in the background of their story are the tales of those enslaved in Madagascar and forced aboard the ship, those who lived and died while enslaved on sugar plantations in Jamaica, and those who toiled in slavery in London. The princes’ story is but one of many and one of the few where an African made it home.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Lindsay O'Neill, University of Southern California
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Lindsay O'Neill received funding from the USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute, the Huntington Library, and the USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture. 
