761 Sheet – American State Trials 1918 Volume X Leo Frank Document

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Reading Time: 4 minutes [575 words]

Here is the translated text as follows:

PEDRO GIBERT AND OTHERS

The English crew was not called up to take their share of any money. Captain Gibert went ashore when the Panda reached Nazareth and came back after two months. He was sick on board for five days. Once he recovered, he went ashore again and did not return to the ship. I think the captain went on board once after that.

Anastasio Sivera, 23 years of age, shipped on board the Panda on the 8th of February, 1833. [The witness identified Captain Gibert, the mate, and the rest of the prisoners.] We first went to Cape Lopez and then to Nazareth. They ran her ashore at Cape Lopez, intending to burn her—on which occasion they put me and three other Portuguese on shore. The vessel was later refloated and went up the river. I belonged to her for four months after that, during which time she lay in the river. After she had been there for some time, Captain Gibert came to Cape Lopez and sent me and others on board again. The captain and mate lived on shore, as did part of the crew—only eight or nine remained on board. I did not see the cargo she brought from Havana, but I know she took in slaves because I saw them.

When the English boats came up the river on the 4th of June, 1833, the carpenter told everyone to get into the boat and go ashore, as he was about to set fire to the schooner. The carpenter was the last man to leave the schooner. I went to the barracoon where the captain was and stayed there for one day. The captain turned me and the rest of the Portuguese off, saying he could not support us.

When I was on shore, the Panda had nothing on board when taken except provisions and water; she had no straw mats or palm oil. There were plenty of muskets and pistols on board, as well as rice, flour, four or five barrels of rum, and some bread. I do not know how many flags there were on board.

On November 16, I went to a negro hut and stayed there for nine or ten days. The schooner was taken out of the river but returned at the end of twelve or fifteen days. There was a Portuguese schooner lying there; I went on board and asked the captain to give me passage to Prince's Island. The captain said he would. Captain Trotter was on board at the time; he was taken prisoner and ordered to be put on board the schooner Panda. Captain Trotter came there shortly afterward himself and commenced firing on the town. At the second gun, the schooner blew up. We were then put on board a small Portuguese sloop that lay nearby, and from there, we were transferred to the Curlew.

I shipped on board the Panda for the voyage out and back to Havana and was to receive one hundred and twenty dollars. I don't know what the other Portuguese shipped for, but one of them was to have received the same as myself. The Panda was a two-top-sail schooner, long and slim; she had a brass pivot gun abaft the mainmast and two iron carronades. She had no swivel on board; she had no regular head, but a sort of billet-head. It was a long slim piece of wood, turned up at the end.