Hanging Captain Gordon The Life And Trial of an American Slave Trader

Chapter One: Lucky Nat Early in 1860, a young sea captain from Portland, Maine, sailed south to Havana, Cuba, leaving behind a two-year-old son and a pretty young wife. The fourth in as many generations to bear the name, Nathaniel Gordon was a short -- five-foot-five -- and muscular man with a ruddy complexion, a dark beard, and small piercing eyes. Gordon was not a handsome man; a reporter once described him as "repulsive" in appearance. His demeanor reflected a quiet intensity and a confidence found in one used to giving orders. He was a slave trader -- a "blackbirder" in the slang of the time -- and upon arriving in Cuba, he would take command of a full-rigged ship and provision her for a voyage to the Congo River, on the west coast of Africa. It would be his fourth slaving expedition. Nathaniel Gordon's early life is sketchy, where information exists at all. Large numbers of personal records were destroyed in major fires in Portland in 1866 and 1908. Gordon was born on February 6, 1826, almost certainly in Portland. (His attorney would later claim that he was born in British waters, under the British flag, on one of his father's voyages, and was consequently not an American citizen.) Gordon's father was a merchant captain, and his mother would sometimes accompany her husband on board ship. In addition to Nathaniel, she would bear two girls: Dorcas Ellen was four years older than her brother; Mary, named for her mother, was almost exactly eight years younger. The Gordons were an old New England family; Nathaniel's earliest American ancestor arrived at Plymouth nine generations earlier, in 1621, aboard the Fortune. On February 22, 1862, the day after Gordon's death, the New York Times published an extensive article about his life. In all likelihood, it represents an amalgam of recollections by the clergymen, doctors, and jailers who knew him briefly, and were retelling Gordon's own accounts of his life. And the writer, presenting the second- or thirdhand story, added the expected Victorian embellishments, to provide both a history and a morality lesson. Thirty-five years ago, in the City of Portland, a well-to-do couple were gladdened by the birth of a son. [In fact, Gordon had died just fifteen days past his thirty-sixth birthday.] The boy, who was delicately made, grew rapidly, and in his earliest years, developed unusual vigor of mind, which gave promise of a useful and honorable manhood. At the age of fifteen he manifested suddenly a desire to go to sea. His parents, who had fondly watched his rapid progress at school, demurred, but the boy, already the ruler of the domestic circle, was determined, and to sea he went. His father, Capt. Gordon, had been a seafaring man for years, and soon recovered from the disappointment which, to the mother, has been a source of life-long grief, and which was the means by which the son NATHANIEL GORDON attained [his] disgraceful end. The writer describes an admirable young Gordon who avidly pursues a sailor's life, and whose skill, loyalty, and abstinence from "vicious habits" win him friends and impress his employers. When, at 20, he is offered a captaincy, he continues to work with zeal, and impresses the citizens of Portland with his "ability, energy, and good reputation." His enthusiasm takes a dark turn, however, as he is consumed with a craving for riches, according to the Times account. Gordon has property worth thousands of dollars, the article continues, and is part owner of a "fine ship" by the time he is 25, but he sells everything, resigns his command, and travels to California in search of greater riches. The writer has Gordon falling in with "certain moneyed parties" on the return trip, who lure the young captain into the slave trade, tempting him with "enormous profits, little risk of detection and certain immunity from punishmenSoodalter, Ron is the author of 'Hanging Captain Gordon The Life And Trial of an American Slave Trader', published 2006 under ISBN 9780743267274 and ISBN 0743267273.