dispatched from Welsh ports. Yet, this is because Wales did not have the capital to invest in slaving voyages, not because it was morally superior. 61 Regardless,
the copper smelted in Swansea formed part of the cargoes exported by Bristol
merchants such as Thomas Coster. While the Coster family were establishing the
White Rock copperworks, they also distributed their wealth into various slaving
expeditions; namely, the Amoretta shipped 1,539 captive Africans from the Bight
of Biafra to South Carolina between 1732 and 1738, but such deplorable conditions on the ship meant that 389 slaves died before arrival. 62 Coster also co-owned the Mary and the Squirrel, which shipped slaves to Jamaica and the Carolina Lowcountry respectively. 63 More notable, however, was the Bristol agent of the Llangyfelach copperworks, James Laroche, who was a prominent slave trader. 64 In 1738, for example, Laroche & Co. executed five slaving expeditions that transported manacled Africans to the West Indies and South Carolina. 65 Although the slave ports that Laroche & Co. despatched cargoes to
were seldom documented, it is known that the Levant left Bristol to collect slaves
from Bonny, a trading centre in Nigeria that acquired copper rods as currency,
and it would be remarkable given Laroche’s links if Swansea copper was not aboard the vessel. 66
Yet, Africa was not the only market for copper, nor the largest. This is
indicated in the early accounts of the Llangyfelach partnership, as Morris only
shipped 22 tons to his buyers in Bristol in 1730 whereas Lockwood & Co. of
London were supplied with 265 tons, thus suggesting that, in terms of tonnage
61 Chris Evans q uoted in Ryan O’Neill, ‘Slavery and Wales’, WalesOnline, 21 June 2020. NexisUk <http://www.nexis.com>. 62 Evans, Slave Wales, p. 28. 63 Ibid. , pp. 27-8. 64 Madge Dresser, Slavery Obscured: The Social History of the Slave Trade in an English Provincial Port (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018), pp. 106-7. 65 Evans, Slave Wales, p. 28. 66 Ibid.
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