Brooks (1781 ship)

Brooks
Brookes slave ship plan
History
Great BritainUnited Kingdom
NameBrooks
Launched1781
FateCondemned and sold 1809
General characteristics
TypeSlave ship
Tons burthen297, or 300, or 319, or 352, or 353 (bm)
Length30 metres (98 ft)
Beam8.2 metres (27 ft)
Complement
  • 1794: 15
  • 1799: 25
  • 1804: 50
Armament
  • 1781: 18 × 9 & 6-pounder guns
  • 1794: 12 × 6-pounder guns
  • 1799: 18 × 9-pounder guns
  • 1800: 18 × 9-pounder guns + 2 × 18-pounder carronades
  • 1804: 18 × 9-pounder guns + 2 × 18-pounder carronades

Brooks (or Brook, Brookes) was a British slave ship launched at Liverpool in 1781. She became infamous after prints of her were published in 1788. Between 1782 and 1804, she made 11 voyages from Liverpool in the triangular slave trade in enslaved people (for the Brooks, England, to Africa, to the Caribbean, and back to England). During this period she spent some years as a West Indiaman. She also recaptured a British merchantman and captured a French merchantman. Brooks's last voyage shipping enslaved people was to Montevideo in the South Atlantic where she was condemned as unseaworthy in November 1804.