The Africa Squadron's cruising area eventually ranged from
Cape Frio to the south (about 18 degrees south latitude), to
Madeira in the north. However, the squadron's supply depot was in
Cape Verde archipelago, approximately from the northernmost centers of the slave trade in the Bight of Biafra and southward. The navy department did not move the depot location until 1859, when it was set up at
São Paulo de Luanda, in
Portuguese Angola, about eight degrees south latitude. At the same time the department put Madeira out of bounds for the squadron. The majority of the squadron's cruising in its first decade was along the coast of Western Africa, with particular attention to
Liberian interests. By the 1850s much of the slave trade in this area had been eliminated by the British, based in their colony at
Sierra Leone, as well as the Liberians. This however, did not stop the board of directors of the
American Colonization Society from writing the President of the United States to bolster the Africa Squadron's "fleet" in 1855 in accordance with the
Webster-Ashburton treaty in an attempt to crack down on sailors and slavers use of sea-letters to claim American nationality in their attempt to further the slave trade on the African coast. ==Vessels seized by the Africa Squadron==