Fredensborg (ship)

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Model of Fredensborg, ivory from the shipwreck in the background. In the exhibition at Aust-Agder Kulturhistoriske senter in Arendal in Norway.

The Fredensborg was a frigate of the Danish West India Company ( Vestindisk-Guineisk Kompagni ). The ship was built in Copenhagen in 1752 or 1753 and initially put into service under the name "Cron Prindz Christian" and used in the transatlantic triangular trade .

In 1756 the ship was renamed “Fredensborg” and came under the command of Captain Espen Kiønigs.

The ship set sail from Copenhagen in June 1767 for another voyage on the transatlantic triangular route . The ship had a crew of 40 on this voyage, including the ship's assistant Christian Andreas Hoffman as the company's accounting officer and Joch Christopher Sixtus as the ship's doctor. The ship was equipped with ten 4-pounders and various small-caliber firearms. In the hold there were 40 more boxes with handguns, 32,000 flints, iron bars, shoes, textiles, necklaces studded with Caribbean coral , and large quantities of spirits, wine and gunpowder.

The journey first led to Christiansborg (Accra) on the Danish Gold Coast . The ship lay in the roadstead off Accra for seven months , with several crew members dying of tropical fever or in connection with accidents, including Captain Kiønig and his first officer. The helmsman Johan Frantzen Ferentz then took over command of the ship. On April 23, 1768, the anchor was lifted again and set sail towards Saint Croix ( Danish West Indies ). In addition to gold and ivory, there were now 265 slaves on board. The crew had been severely decimated by deaths. To ensure safe navigation, some slaves had also been taken over as deck slaves. The ship also had a few passengers on board, including a woman.

They first drove in an easterly direction and then sailed from São Tomé to the north and west, taking advantage of the equatorial ocean currents. On July 17 or 18, 1768, they were in Christiansted on St. Croix, where all slaves were sold.

On the return voyage to Europe, however, the "Fredensborg" ran aground on December 1, 1768 off the southern Norwegian coast near Tromøya near Arendal and sank. The cargo at the time of the sinking consisted mainly of ivory and tropical wood ( Brazil wood and other precious woods).

The shipwreck of the "Fredensborg" was discovered by divers in September 1974. There is an exhibition about the last voyage of the "Fredensborg" in the cultural historical center of Aust-Agder (Aust-Agder cultural history center) in Arendal, but also the National Museum of Ghana and the Museum of St. Croix remind of the "Fredensborg" in their exhibitions .

literature

  • Erik Gøbel: Danish Trade to the West Indies and Guinea, 1671–1754. In: The Scandinavian Economic History Review. Vol. 31, No. 1, 1983, ISSN  0358-5522 , pp. 21-49.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ named after the later King Christian VII of Denmark and Norway
  2. ↑ named after Fort Fredensborg (Ningo, also Groß-Ningo) on the Gold Coast, built by Danes in 1734–1741
  3. ^ The eastern part of the coast of today's Ghana
  4. ↑ today US Virgin Islands
  5. ↑ For example, B. the plantation owner Heinrich Carl von Schimmelmann on the first day, July 18, 1768, 16 men and 2 boys.

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