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The Venus was one of three slave ships owned by a Virginia planter named Melton Fancher. By the mid-1700s he was the largest landowner in the state with several tobacco plantations and hundreds of slaves. Most of the early slave trade was controlled by the Portuguese, Dutch, and British, but Mr. Fancher wanted into the business. He needed more labor for his tobacco farms and he could get it cheaper if he had his own ships. He loaded them with tobacco and whiskey and sent them to Africa to trade for slaves.

His slave ships were built in the shipyards at Norfolk, where hundreds were employed. They were financed and insured by banks and companies in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. Since the slaves were considered to be nothing but chattel, same as livestock, they were insured too.

The slave trade was big business. Everybody made money. Except, of course, the slaves.

Since they were so valuable, careful records were kept by the trading companies. From 1737 to 1771, Mr. Fancher’s three ships made 228 voyages across the Atlantic and delivered about 110,000 kidnapped slaves to American markets, primarily Norfolk, Charleston, Savannah. He was considered to be the largest American slave trader and became very rich.

Conditions aboard his ships were awful, like all slave ships. The suffering Nalla endured, described below, was common. It was standard procedure in those terrible days for other ships, small boats, fishermen, and dockworkers to clear the harbor when a slave ship approached port. The stench was toxic, nauseating, and carried for miles. It was said you could smell one coming before you saw the top of its sails.