HMS Black Joke was perhaps one of the most unusual but aptly named ships in naval history. On Jan. 31, 1829, the Black Joke began chasing the Spanish ship El Almirante. The Black Joke carried 47 men and two guns; El Almirante had 550 men and 14 guns. It did indeed seem like some kind of a “black joke.”

But the men aboard the British ship were deadly serious. Four hundred sixty-six of those on board El Almirante
were slaves. The Black Joke’s sailors may have been massively outgunned and outnumbered 2 to 1—but it was their duty to stop the ship and free the slaves.

When he heard Black Joke was stalking him, the El Almirante’s
captain laughed. He didn’t seek a fight, but from such a tiny foe, he didn’t fear one either. So he continued loading slaves.

Meanwhile, the British waited to catch him in international waters. And on January 31, Black Joke caught sight of the quarry it had been hoping to meet for months.

At that crucial moment, the wind disappeared. It took nine hours of hard rowing for Black Joke to catch up to El Almirante. As soon as it did, the bigger ship immediately opened fire.

With night closing in, it was back to the oars for the Black Joke crew. With no wind, the smaller ship would be an easy target for El Almirante’s big guns. So they stayed just out of range while also not letting the ship slip away in the night.

The next afternoon, the wind picked up, giving Black Joke the opportunity to use its superior maneuverability and accuracy. Having risked annihilation for hours, Black Joke could finally go on the offensive.

For 20 minutes, Black Joke poured shot after shot into El Almirante’s quarter deck. At last, the ship surrendered. When it did, its captain and every officer except the third mate were dead.

Sadly, 11 slaves also died in the fighting. Others died in the cramped conditions while the ship was returned to port. But 416 were freed.

This was just one of many dramatic fights in one of history’s most noble, and most overlooked, fights for freedom. From 1808 to 1860, the Royal Navy’s West Africa Squadron fought to shut down the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

“… I believe that, in a way, the great British Empire gives us good insight into what is about to come on the Earth!” wrote Gerald Flurry in the January-February 2015 Royal Vision. In the November-December 2021 issue, he pointed to the way Britain worked to “regenerate Africa” and wipe out the slave trade.

An empire that strives to end slavery is a powerful picture for Christians today.

Sin Enslaves

Sin enslaves, and God brings freedom. That is a theme found throughout the Bible.

The Apostle Peter spells it out in 2 Peter 2:19: There he warns of evil men who “promise … freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption; for whatever overcomes a man, to that he is enslaved” (Revised Standard Version). God instead wants us to live the way of life outlined in His “perfect law of liberty” (James 1:25).

This lesson is built into God’s holy day plan. The spring holy days revolve around ancient Israel’s slavery in Egypt. Passover reminds us of the price God paid for our liberty. The next night, the Night to Be Much Observed, God has us celebrate our freedom. Throughout the seven days of Unleavened Bread, we remember Israel’s journey out of Egypt.

During the autumn holy days, God returns to this theme. Physically, the Day of Atonement is the opposite of the Night to Be Much Observed: Instead of a celebratory feast, we eat and drink nothing. Yet on that day too, God wants us to commemorate freedom from slavery.

The first judgment God gave Moses in Exodus 21, right after giving the Ten Commandments, regulated the practice of slavery. Slavery of the type the Israelites experienced in Egypt would never again be tolerated. It still existed as a safety net for those who had bankrupted themselves. But unlike anywhere else in the ancient world, it was regulated by law: Masters did not have unlimited power over their slaves. Under most conditions, slaves were freed after a maximum of six years of labor. Even if not, all slaves were released every 50 years, in the year of Jubilee when debts were written off and land returned to its original owners.

God had the trumpet of jubilee sound not on the first day of the sacred year, or on the first of the fall holy days, the Feast of Trumpets, but instead on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 25:9). This “connect[ed] this holy day with a release from bondage,” the Herbert W. Armstrong College Bible Correspondence Course states. “This is typical of man’s future Atonement release from spiritual bondage—release from all spiritual debts and sins—freedom from the temptations and deceptions of Satan and his demons—and of the restoration to each nation of its own God-ordained land …” (Lesson 33).

Atonement reminds us that the entire world is in captivity and enslaved. This day, God reminds us of what must be done to have our sins forgiven, our freedom gained—for us to be made at one with God.

Freedom Fighters

As the saying goes, freedom isn’t free. Or as Thomas Jefferson put it, “We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.” It must be fought for.

The men of the West Africa Squadron took incredible personal risks to fight for freedom. In fact, it was the deadliest posting a sailor could receive.

One of the biggest risks was disease. For most of this period, Europeans in Africa could expect to die in a matter of months. The survivors were the exception. Even sailing near the coast in range of the malaria-carrying mosquitoes could be deadly. With hundreds of men crammed into tiny quarters, slave ships became plague ships, and many British sailors took ill and died while piloting the boats to freedom.

The fighting was up close and personal. Usually the British Navy would pound the hull of an enemy until it either sank or surrendered. But if they poured cannonballs into the hulls of ships packed with slaves, casualties would be horrendous. Instead they aimed to slow the slave ships by firing into their rigging and deck, and then to take slave ships by boarding and engaging in brutal hand-to-hand combat.

The Royal Navy says 17,000 of its sailors died fighting the slave trade. Over 150,000 slaves were freed. That’s a loss of one sailor for every nine slaves. Of course, that doesn’t count the number of slaves who were never captured or shipped thanks to the Royal Navy’s efforts. Still, it was a steep price for freedom.

The monetary cost was also huge. In the 1840s and 1850s, anti-slavery patrols consumed between 1 and 2 percent of government expenditure. Naval captains also took a major financial risk. When they captured a slave ship, the arrested crew would have their day in court—an international court, with judges often hostile to Britain’s anti-slavery efforts. If the court decided there was insufficient evidence to condemn the crew, then the captain—not the British government—was personally liable for damages.

So why do it? Many of these men had a personal, visceral hatred of slavery. Joseph Denman was one of the most successful of the West Africa Squadron leaders. Like many others on the squadron, he had witnessed the horrors of slavery firsthand. When a slave ship was captured in the middle of the Atlantic, the slaves could not be released immediately. They were given food and water if available, but they were still stuck on a cramped ship as they sailed to freedom. Denman had to navigate one such freed ship: Seventy-eight of the 400 slaves died before they found port. Denman said he had “witnessed the most dreadful sufferings that human beings can endure.”

Others had similar experiences. James Bowly said the freed slaves he saw “were in the most dreadful condition that human beings could be in. … I should never have believed that anything could have been so horrible.” Cmdre. John Hayes said he had seen slaves in conditions “too horrible and disgusting to be described.” Sir George Collier, the first commodore of the squadron, said: “The slave trade is more horrible than those who have not had the misfortune to witness it can believe. Indeed no description I could give would convey a true picture of its baseness and atrocity.”

Deceitful Slavery

Such slavery is repulsive. No one would volunteer for it. Sin, however, is a deceitful form of slavery (Hebrews 3:13). It can look appealing. Yet often, when someone recognizes the danger beneath the surface, it is too late: They are addicted and cannot escape from their captivity.

This lesson is also built into the Day of Atonement. Ancient Israel had to set aside two goats, one “for the Lord and the other … for Azazel” (Leviticus 16:8; rsv). As our Bible correspondence course explains, Azazel is another name for Satan. Now, did God have the Israelites choose the most perfect, spotless goat to represent Christ, and the most ugly, misshapen, loathsome goat for the devil? No, God didn’t have man choose at all. The fate of the goats was decided by a lottery. “Although the two goats appeared to be alike, one was to typify Christ. Men were utterly unqualified to determine which goat was suitable. Therefore it was necessary for God to decide” (ibid).

It is a powerful picture! You could have the arch-kidnapper right in front of you and right next to him the Almighty Liberator—and be utterly unable to tell the difference between the two! One leads to slavery and misery; the other to freedom. And we need God to reveal which is which.

Sin is so deceitful that we may at times clearly recognize others suffering in bondage—yet remain oblivious to sins that hold us in captivity.

Once our eyes have been opened, however, the suffering of sin should become clear. “Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy law,” wrote the Prophet Jeremiah. “Horror hath taken hold upon me because of the wicked that forsake thy law” (Psalm 119:136, 53). That language is similar to that used by those outraged British officers. Paul said he had “great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart” because of the spiritual enslavement of his people (Romans 9:2). These men of God were moved by the suffering caused by captivity to sin.

Today, too many people are indifferent to that suffering. Those who aren’t bothered are themselves enslaved. The freer we are from sin, the more it will horrify us. In Ezekiel 9:4, those who are loyal to God are marked out by one characteristic: They “sigh and … cry for all the abominations” done within Israel. The New Living Translation says they “weep and sigh because of the detestable sins being committed in their city.” They see their nations, and even God’s Church, enslaved by sin—and are stirred to action.

Jesus Christ was “moved with compassion” for the enslaved masses around Him (Matthew 9:36; 14:14; Mark 1:41). The Jews of His day thought they were free. Yet Christ told them “most assuredly” that “whoever commits sin is a slave of sin” (John 8:33-34; New King James Version).

Because of their horror over slavery, the men of the West Africa Squadron were quick to act against it. Britain had the legal right to police slavery on the high seas, but international law forbade them from going after slavers within Africa itself. In 1840, Denman was trying to shut down the rampant slave trading at the mouth of the Gallinas River in today’s Sierra Leone. He blockaded the coast, but slave traders simply filled warehouses with captives to wait for the time when the Navy moved on.

Then the locals made a mistake: They captured a woman and her baby who were British citizens. Denman was looking for any legal excuse to go on the offensive. This handed him one. The largest island in the middle of the river had been fortified as a slave headquarters, with ships and watchtowers. Denman brought his three ships into the river, burned the warehouses, and freed 900 slaves. The local king was forced to sign a treaty promising never to permit the slave trade in his territory.

Recognizing sin as slavery will prompt you to take action against it and seek opportunities to take the offensive. If you see it as something forbidden but exciting, you won’t be horrified by it and won’t be so quick to act.

Christ made the ultimate sacrifice to free the world from sin. We should follow His example, being motivated to make sacrifices, even to lay down our lives, to free others from slavery to sin. That is why we were called (1 Peter 2:21; Romans 12:1).

Total Liberation

During Britain’s war on slavery, a staggering 12.5 million human beings were trafficked. The 150,000 who were freed by the Royal Navy were the fortunate few. Sadly, Britain’s war on slavery shared much in common with the modern war on drugs: Crackdowns always struggle as long as demand is great. But had Britain given up on the policing effort, slavery probably would have exploded in the same way drug use has today because authorities have given up the fight.

Killing the demand for slaves required strategies like Denman’s. Over the centuries of the slave trade, Brazil was by far the biggest destination, importing 3.2 million slaves. In 1850, Britain got fed up. Under fire from Brazilian forts, the Royal Navy sailed up Brazil’s river into its harbors and boarded its slave ships. Brazil was forced to renounce the slave trade at cannon-point.

That left the United States as the last big Atlantic market. Although the U.S. had outlawed the Atlantic slave trade in 1807, slaves continued to be imported, largely via Cuba. Once the Civil War broke out and the North’s navy blockaded the southern coast, that trade dried up too. The West Africa Squadron’s job was done. Britain’s attention shifted to East Africa and shutting down the Arab slave trade.

Today, we are also freeing only a tiny percentage of those enslaved. This is not simply because of limited resources, but because of God’s plan. God wants to bring freedom to the whole world. But to do that, men must choose to be free—He will not force them. Mankind chose Satan’s way, and God has allowed them time to go the way of the kidnapper to see where it leads. Then He will step in and free mankind from Satan the devil. He will then let man look back on the horror of his captivity and receive the opportunity to choose freedom.

For now, though, God is freeing only a small number to help Him in His Work today in preparation for freeing the whole world later.

You are being set free for the purpose of freeing others.

In Britain’s anti-slave effort, 17,000 people gave their lives so 150,000 could be freed physically. How much will you sacrifice to help others to receive eternal freedom?

The men of the West Africa Squadron clearly saw the dramatic difference their sacrifices could make for thousands. We should be able to see this spiritually. Jude tells us that we can help free some, “making a difference” (Jude 22-23). Jesus Christ made the supreme sacrifice necessary to free all from sin. But our sacrifices also make a difference. That is a promise from God.

“Your devotion and sacrifice—not just financially but, most importantly, your prayers and obedience—make a massive difference,” wrote Mr. Flurry in a letter to the Church’s members and co-workers. “You truly can make a difference in this Church and this Work! And God promises that the bigger difference you make, the more you will be rewarded” (March 27, 2023).

Today around 50 million people are enslaved—dwarfing the number of slaves in the 19th century. Modern society, for all its “enlightened” talk, is indifferent to slavery. Britain and America would never fight to free slaves in North Korea, China or elsewhere.

The history of Britain’s West Africa Squadron has been deliberately blotted out. It is not taught in British schools. When private individuals raised funds to build a monument to the sailors who died, the city of Portsmouth blocked them from placing it.

Yet those sailors’ passion for freedom puts to shame so many in today’s supposedly more caring world.

What about you? How does your motivation compare to those English sailors? We must allow Christ to lead us farther and farther out of slavery—so we can make a difference in saving others.