African Slave Trade Patrol
The Africa Squadron's cruising area eventually ranged from Cape Frio to the south (about 18 degrees south latitude), to Madeira in the north. However, the squadron's supply depot was in Cape Verde Island, approximately 2500 miles from the northern-most centers of the slave trade in the Bight of Biafra and southward. The Navy department did not move the depot location until 1859, when it was set up at St. Paul de Luanda, in present-day Angola, about 8 degrees south latitude. At the same time the department put Madeira out of bounds for the squadron.
The majority of the squadron's cruising in its first decade was along the coast of Western Africa, with particular attention to Liberian interests. By the 1850s much of the slave trade in this area had been eliminated by the British, based in their colony at Sierra Leone, as well as the Liberians.
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