Ship Model Dos Amigos

Description:

Dos Amigos was probably built at Portsmouth, Virginia in 1830. It measured 83 feet in length and 172 tons. The brigantine was designed like the swift “Baltimore clipper” schooners, which were popular in the slave trade. The design of such ships was influenced by the shallow conditions of the African slave ports, the illegal aspects of the trade, and the type of cargo. Slave ships were built to be maneuverable in the shallow African ports, and swift to evade arrest and transport their enslaved Africans quickly. They were usually schooners or brigs. Dos Amigos was a slaver, until it was captured by the British ship Black Joke on the coast of Cameroon, an island off the coast of West Africa. It was renamed Fair Rosamond, and placed in dry dock in Britain to have its lines taken off during the summer of 1832. It became a successful slave-catcher in its own right, capturing the slavers La Pantica in 1834 and El Esplorado and La Mariposa in 1836. In 1837, a drawing was made of the original rig of Fair Rosamond before it was altered. It was sold out of the Royal Navy in 1845.