As I continue to work on my book on the British anti-slavery West Africa Squadron, and the role of my fourth great grandfather William Pennell, who spied on the Portuguese and Brazilian slave trade. Inspired by the indigenous people of Canada, I wrote a draft chapter about the Doctrine of Discovery, which authorized European colonialism […]
One mistake, a blunder, can sink an otherwise excellent documentary.The documentary was Athens Birth of Democracy, which I watched the premier when it was broadcast on PBS Nova, on Wednesday, April 29, 2026. ( Video geoblocked on the website) The blunder was this sentence which refers to the Athenian navy and how citizen rowers helped […]
This is an edited excerpt from my current nonfiction book project about the Royal Navy’s West Africa Squadron enforcing the ban on the slave trade between 1819 and 1822, the story of two Black seamen who served on the Squadron’s HMS Pheasant and the role of my fourth great grandfather, William Pennell, British consul in […]
Captain’s log 18191029 It was October, 1819. The Royal Navy sloop HMS Pheasant part of the new anti-slavery West Africa Squadron, was on patrol off Accra in what is today Ghana. For the research and writing on my latests book project, I was reading the log and came across a reference that I had not […]
While researching the work of my fourth great grandfather , William Pennell, while British consul in Bahia, and his vice consul, his nephew, William Follett, the question is what is the Brazilian side of the story? I did find an academic reference that showed the correspondence between the British Consul and the then government of […]
I’ve just completed five days of research for my Pennell Projects at the British National Archives at Kew. (And a couple of weeks earlier I spent the afternoon at the British Library in London). William Pennell was a diplomat and a spy under diplomatic cover from 1814 to 1832. That meant I had a […]
Topsham on the River Exe, in Devon, is the seaport for the larger city of Exeter. In the past week, I have had the chance to explore one of the towns where my roots are, the Pennells, on one main branch of my father’s side of the family. There were villages in the area of […]