This is the extraordinary history of a single ship - a Baltimore clipper.

Once she was the Henriqueta, a slave ship; but subsequently she became the Black Joke, a hunter of slave ships.

In her former life she trafficked over 3000 captives across the Atlantic; in her new life she became the scourge of Spanish and Brazilian slavers.

To find out more Dr Sam Willis spoke with the maritime historian Stephen Taylor who has captured and explored this story in his latest excellent book ‘Predator of the Seas’

In the research to illuminate this ship’s curious double life Stephen has explored the lives and experiences of both slavers and abolitionists, captives and crew. We hear about the business of slavery in Africa and Brazil run by the Portuguese; the Royal Navy’s preventative squadron that purchased the ship in 1827 and turned her against her former masters; and about the British seamen and Liberian Kru.

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