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Blind Justice: The United States's Failure to Curb the Illegal Slave Trade

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2017

Randy J. Sparks
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Extract

On March 2, 1807, President Thomas Jefferson signed a bill outlawing the African slave trade. Opponents of the traffic rejoiced that the bill was passed at almost the same time as a similar anti-slave-trade bill in Britain. As one Philadelphia newspaper put it, “Thus, will terminate, on the same day, in two countries of the civilized world, a traffic which has hitherto stained the history of all countries who made it a practice to deal in the barter of human flesh.” Efforts to end the African slave trade in the British colonies of North America dated back to the 1760s, proceeded in fits and starts, and resulted from a wide range of motives. In contrast to Great Britain, the United States 1807 bill was not the result of a long, hard-won, popular abolition campaign. However, despite a series of laws intended to curb the trade, eventually making the United States laws the world's toughest, smugglers continued to bring enslaved Africans into the South after 1808, and, more significantly, American vessels played a crucial role in the massive illegal slave trade to Cuba and Brazil during the nineteenth century. The impact on the United States economy was not inconsequential, but even more important was the trade's impact on the Atlantic economy, fueling the rapid economic growth of Cuba and Brazil in the decades that followed.

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Law and History Review , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , February 2017 , pp. 53 - 79
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Copyright © the American Society for Legal History, Inc. 2017 

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Footnotes

He thanks Ariela Gross, Alejandro de la Fuente, and the anonymous readers for the journal for their insightful questions and comments.

References

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11. For examples see “Congress,” New York Daily Advertiser, January 5, 1818, 2, “Congress,” January 28, 1819, 2, June 2, 1820, 2; “Congress,” American and Commercial Daily Advertiser (Baltimore, MD), January 2, 1818, 2Google Scholar; “Congress,” City Gazette And Daily Advertiser (Charleston, SC), January 10, 1818, 2Google Scholar; “U. S. House of Representatives,” City of Washington Gazette, May 4, 1818, 2; “Subject of Slavery Concluded,” Boston Recorder, June 16, 1818, 2; “Congress,” The American Beacon and Norfolk & Portsmouth Daily Advertiser, March 6, 1819, 2, “Congress,” December 13, 1819, 2, May 15, 1820, 2, “The Slave Trade,” June 22, 1820, 3, “Congressional Proceedings,” July 3, 1820, 2; Lancaster (Penn.) Journal, May 22, 1818, 3; Albany Argus, September 8, 1818, 3; “Slave Trade,” New Bedford Mercury, January 1, 1819, 1; “Slave of African Slaves,” Rhode Island American, and General Advertiser, April 30, 1819, 2, “Circuit Court,” November 16, 1819, 2, “Correspondence,” November 10, 1820, 2, “Circuit Court,” November 16, 1821, 2; “Negotiation Between Great Britain and the United States for the Extinction of the Slave Trade,” Mercantile Advertiser (New York, NY), August 27, 1819, 2Google Scholar; “Cape de Verds,” Portsmouth Oracle, October 16, 1819, 2; “On the Slave Trade and Slavery,” Daily National Intelligencer (Washington, DC), December 4, 1819, 2Google Scholar; “Sixteenth Congress,” Providence (RI) Gazette, January  3, 1820, 2, Another Uniform Republican, “To the Hon. Samuel Eddy in Response to His Address,” August 21, 1820, 1; “Slave Trade in Portugal,” The New York Columbian, February 26, 1820, 2; “From the National Intelligencer,” The American (New York, NY) May 11, 1820, 3; “Mail Briefs, June 2,” Newport Mercury, June 10, 1820, 2; “Congress,” Baltimore Patriot, May 15, 1820, 2; and “U. S. Congress,” Providence (RI)  Patriot, February 17, 1821, 2.

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13. H. T. Kibber and R. F. Jameson to Foreign Office, May 29, 1824, Letters of the Havana Commission, FO 313/9, TNA.

14. Marquese, Rafael, Parron, Tâmis, and Berbel, Márcia, Slavery and Politics: Brazil and Cuba, 1790–1850 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006), 155–56Google Scholar, 240; Martinez, Jenny S., The Slave Trade and the Origins of International Human Rights Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 74, 84, 91–92Google Scholar; Kielstra, Paul Michael, The Politics of Slave Trade Suppression in Britain and France, 1814–48: Diplomacy, Morality and Economics (London: McMillan Press, 2000), 158–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 175–76, 182, 238, 248; Horne, Gerald, Deepest South: The United States, Brazil, and the African Slave Trade (New York: New York University Press, 2007), 23Google Scholar; and “Assessing the Slave Trade: Estimates,” Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database.

15. As one editorial warned, “under the pretext of the search for slaves, American citizens might be impressed, and our merchant vessels be again annoyed, and our citizens insulted, by the insolence … of the British Navy.” Another warned that accepting the Right of Search would demonstrate that “we are reduced to a most humiliating condition … .” Du Bois, Suppression, 133; Canney, Africa Squadron, 24; Wood, Empire of Liberty, 640–41, 659–60; Rappleye, Sons of Providence, 269; “The Convention with Great Britain,” Portland (Maine) Advertiser, June 5, 1824 (first quotation), 2; “Mr. Adams to Mr. Canning,” National Gazette (Philadelphia, PA), April  6, 1824, 2, and “Foreign Politics,” April 26, 1824; “Surrender of the Right of Search, No. 1,” City Gazette (Charleston, SC), June 10, 1824, 2; and L., “For the Patriot,” Providence (R.I.) Patriot, July 3, 1824; Martinez, Jenny S., The Slave Trade, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 44–66Google Scholar.

16. E. W. Schenley to Palmerston, October 25, 1836, Letters of the Havana Commission, TNA.

17. Kennedy to Palmerston, October 27, 1839, Letters of the Havana Commission, TNA.

18. Trist to Kennedy, July 2, 1839, Letters of the Havana Commission, TNA.

19. Horne, Deepest South, 29–31, 57–58, 67–84; Slacum to Webster, May 1, 1842, Congress of the United States, Public Documents Printed by Order of the Senate of the United States, First Session of the Twenty-Eighth Congress, Begun and Held at the City of Washington, December 4, 1843In the Sixty-Eighth Year of the Independence of the United States, 7 vols. (Washington, DC: Gales and Seaton, 1844), IV: 23–25Google Scholar. See also the lengthy correspondence regarding the Brazilian slave trade, 1–30.

20. Buchanan to Paulding, July 3, 1840, Correspondence of the Secretary of the Navy Relating to African Colonization, 1819–1844, RG 45, Reel 1, National Archives, Washington, DC (hereafter National Archives). See, for example, the logs of Enoch Richmond Ware who was supercargo of the brig Robert owned by New York merchants, documenting an extensive trade with the Euro-African slave dealers on the Rio Pongo and the Rio Nunez on several voyages from 1840 to 1847. Bennett, Norman and Brooks, George E. Jr., eds., New England Merchants in Africa: A History Through Documents, 1802 to 1865 (Boston: Boston University Press, 1965), xxxi, 283–339Google Scholar. Zeuske, Amistad, 156. On the Equipment Clause, see Jenny S. Martinez, The Slave Trade, 91–92.

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22. Perry to Foote, March 4, 1844, Letters Received by the Secretary of the Navy from Commanding Officers of Squadrons, National Archives.

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24. Harrison was a merchant in Baltimore with a Counting Room on one of the city's docks. He was an also auctioneer who advertised Cuban goods for sale. “Notice,” Baltimore Patriot, September 1, 1823, 2; “Will Be Sold,” Richmond Enquirer, November 26, 1839, 3; “From Our Correspondent,” The Sun (Baltimore), January 30, 1840, 2. Price owned a shipyard in Baltimore. “Revenue Cutter,” Easton [Maryland] Gazette, December 16, 1837, 3.

25. House of Commons Sessional Papers, Class D. Correspondence with Foreign Powers, Not Parties to Conventions Giving Right of Search of Vessels Suspected of the Slave Trade. From June 1st to December 31, 1839 Inclusive (London: William Clowes and Sons, 1840), 175; House of Commons Sessional Papers, Class A. Correspondence with the British Commissioners at Sierra Leone, the Havana, Rio de Janeiro, and Surinam Relating to the Slave Trade, From June 30th to December 31st, 1839 (London: William Clowes and Sons, 1840), 32–33, 134–35. British officials in Havana notified their government of the Eagle's departure on a slave voyage and identified her as an American vessel. She was one of twenty United States ships leaving the port in that year out of a total of seventy-one. The Clara was also on that list. The largest number of ships, forty-one, were Portuguese. “List of Vessels which Have Sailed to the Coast of Africa during the Year 1838,” Archives of the Havana Slave Commission, FO 313/1, TNA. The same official identified the Wyoming, Catherine, and Butterfly the following year when twenty-three United States slave ships left Havana out of a total of fifty-nine; twenty-six were Portuguese. “List of Vessels Dispatched from the Port of Havana for the Coast of Africa during the year 1839,” Archives of the Havana Slave Commission, FO 313/1, TNA. For further details on the capture of the Eagle and the Clara see George Elliott to Charles Wood, May 30 and June 1, 1839, and the attached documents labeled R113; Admiralty Records, ADM 1/85, TNA. “A Return of Vessels engaged in the Slave Trade searched and detained by HMS Lilly, John Reeve, Esq. Commander between 2nd January and the 2nd February 1839;” ADM 1/85; Elliott to Wood, February 13, 1839, ADM 1/85, TNA.

26. Army and Navy Chronicle, IX, November 21, 1839, 334–35; House of Commons Sessional Papers, Class D. Correspondence with Foreign Powers, Not Parties to Conventions … 1839, 175; House of Commons Sessional Papers, Class A. Correspondence with the British Commissioners at Sierra Leone … 1839, 32–33, 134–35. The slave trade from Lagos was much higher in the period after 1808 than before, and peaked only in the 1840s. Most of those slaves went to Brazil, but trade to Cuba took off after 1830. It was not uncommon to see Cuban slave traders and their agents, such as Andreo, not only ship's captains, in Lagos after that date. Mann, Kristin, Slavery and the Birth of an African City: Lagos, 1760–1900 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007), 61, 99Google Scholar.

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28. “The Slave Trade – Fitting Out Vessels in the Port of New York,” New York Herald, July 14, 1856 (quotation), 4. Lincoln was known for his leniency. He reviewed 456 civil cases and issued 375 pardons. Four of the cases he reviewed were slave trade cases, and he issued a pardon in only one of them. Soodalter, Ron, Hanging Captain Gordon: The Life and Trial of an American Slave Trader (New York: Washington Square Press, 2006), 160Google Scholar; Du Bois, Suppression, 97–102, 125–26; and Howard, American Slavers, 192–205.

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32. The Sun, April 25, 1840; Vermont Phoenix, February 21, 1840 (first quotation); The Telegraph (Gloucester, MA), February 15, March 27, 1840; Southern Patriot (Charleston, SC); March 21, 1840; The Liberator, July 2 (second quotation), December 10, 1841; Wisconsin Democrat (Madison, WI), August 7, 1843 (third quotation); “Consul Trist,” New York Spectator, April 6, 1840, 1; Jackson to Polk, December 10, 1844 in Polk, James Knox, Cutler, Wayne, Hall, Robert G., eds., Correspondence of James K. Polk: September–December 1844 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1993), 418–19Google Scholar. J. Kennedy to Palmerston, January 17, 1839; October 27, 1839; June 15, 1840; Trist to Kennedy, January 8, 1839; FO 313/1, TNA.

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35. “A Treaty,” New York Spectator, August 24, 1842, 3.

36. “Foreign,” New Bedford (Mass.) Register, January 26, 1842, 2; “Lord Ashburton,” Vermont Gazette, March 1, 1842, 2; “Foreign,” New York Spectator, August 24 and “The Treaty,” August 31, 1842, 1; “The Treaty,” The Sun, August 23, 1842 (first and second quotations), 2; “The Slave Trade,” North American (Philadelphia, PA), October 18, 1842, 2Google Scholar; “The Treaty,” Public Ledger (Philadelphia, PA), September 12, 1842Google Scholar (third quotation), 1; and Jones, Howard, To the Webster–Ashburton Treaty: A Study in Anglo-American Relations, 1783–1843 (Chapel Hill:  University of North Carolina Press, 1977)Google Scholar.

37. Reed to Bancroft, September 16, 1846, Letters Received by the Secretary of the Navy from Commanding Officers of Squadrons, 1841–1886, African Squadron, April 10, 1843 to April 29, 1845, National Archives.

38. Mayo to James C. Dobbin, July 24, 1854 (first quotation), September 29, 1854 (second quotation), Letters Received by the Secretary of the Navy from Commanding Officers of Squadrons, 1841–1886, African Squadron, January 4, 1853 to June 4, 1855, National Archives.

39. Grey to Conover, undated, Letters Received by the Secretary of the Navy from Commanding Officers of Squadrons, 1841–1886, African Squadron, May 28, 1859–February 13, 1860, National Archives.

40. Canney, Africa Squadron, 222–27.

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44. Drescher, Seymour, Abolition: A History of Slavery and Antislavery (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 316Google Scholar.

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