THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE LEON
Although slave ships generally had to be burned after a few voyages so that the odors emanating from below deck would not alert government agents the Spanish slaver Leon did not meet her end in this way. The Leon's is probably the strangest story in the history of the slave trade.
The Leon's last voyage in 1819 was among the cruelest of slave passages. On such ships only the smallest slaves could stand erect in the hold. Only once or twice were they hosed down with saltwater. Rations were very small to increase the slaver's profits. The Leon's crew was probably a happy one, anticipating the bonus promised them-until, in midpassage, every person aboard the ship went blind.
The crew's blindness can be discounted, or attributed to diet deficiency or disease, but how can the whole story be explained? The Leon must have passed land time and again in her strange journey, her hardened crew praying for another ship to sight her. The slaver sailed mountainous seas; the pleas of a blind crew were one with those of blind slaves. Gulls cried out, and waves battered the ship. Finally, a voice different than those on board was heard, and the Leon's crew listened intently.
Another slaver had sighted them. Their savior ship approached, and her helmsman hailed them. She was a French ship the Rodeur. The Rodeur got closer. Then she lurched away, her helmsman cursing. He veered the Rodeur toward land, suddenly realizing that the Leon's crew was blind. The men on the Leon soon heard nothing more, and perhaps this was best. For the Rodeur 's helmsman could not possibly have helped them. He had, in fact, been seeking their assistance. Except for himself every member of his crew was totally blind.
Every person aboard the Rodeur, including her slave cargo, had gone blind days before, but the helmsman got his ship to a West Indies port and lived to tell his story. Even with his account, however, the Leon was never found.
The Leon's wooden bones have never floated to shore. Some believe that she remains a ghost ship creaking at the sides and forever bemoaning her horrible fate, that when the ocean ragt;s up asserting her power, even now pleading voices aboard the Leon can be heard, damned men crying out for salvation, the Leon sailing on, crew and slaves forever equal.
