PORCELAIN PLATE COMMEMORATING THE ANTI-SLAVERY U.S. NAVY SCHOONER ALLIGATOR

Porcelain, transfer-printed in black, enriched with polychrome enamels and gilding. Likely English or European, ca.1821–1835. The reverse plain-glazed and unmarked, with shallow foot-ring and red-painted inventory number “6500 B.” The plate’s cavetto is painted with three asymmetrically arranged floral sprays of peony and rose blossoms in iron red and pink enamels with green foliage and fine black outlining. These are framed by a broad cobalt blue border enriched with an iron red chain motif and burnished gilt detailing, the edge highlighted in gold. At the center is a finely executed circular transfer printed roundel inscribed “ALLIGATOR / SCHOONER,” enclosing a naturalistic profile of an alligator and flanked by star devices.

The United States Navy vessel USS Alligator (commissioned March 1821) was one of the early Republic’s purpose-built schooners tasked with enforcing federal authority on distant waters. Small, swift, and shallow-drafted, Alligator was deployed first to the West African coast and later to the West Indies, participating in the nascent United States campaign against the transatlantic slave trade and Caribbean piracy.

Under Lieutenant Robert F. Stockton, the vessel carried Dr. Eli Ayres of the American Colonization Society to West Africa in 1821. Their negotiations at Cape Mesurado proved foundational to the establishment of what would become Liberia. During her brief but active service, Alligator seized slaving vessels and engaged in anti-piracy operations.

The Alligator's career was cut short in November 1822 when she ran aground in Hawk Channel off the Florida Keys, near the reef that would thereafter bear her name, Alligator Reef. The Alligator was ultimately destroyed after unsuccessful attempts to refloat her.

Though in commission for scarcely two years, the schooner’s service intersected with two defining early nineteenth-century American concerns: suppression of the slave trade and assertion of naval power in contested Atlantic waters.

 [African Americana, African American History, Black History, Slavery, Enslavement, Abolition, Emancipation] [Navy, Naval History, Brown Water Navy, David Glasgow Farragut, David Dixon Porter, Battle of Mobile Bay, Battle of New Orleans, Blockade, Confederate Blockade] [Porcelain, Decorative Art, Ceramics]