Antebellum America: The Outlawing of the Slave Trade
In the last decade of the 18th century, it is estimated that British ships made about 1,340 voyages across the Atlantic, landing nearly 400,000 enslaved persons. Between 1801 and 1807, they took another 266,000. The slave trade was one of Britain's most profitable businesses, and at the time it was legal under British and American law. But in 1807 all of this changed.
In Britain, a Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was formed in 1787 by a group of Evangelical English Protestants who allied with the Quakers. Their common cause was both opposition to slavery and to the slave trade. The Quakers had always believed slavery to be immoral and sinful. By 1807 the abolitionist groups in Britain had attracted a large number of like-minded individuals, including many members in the British Parliament. At one point they controlled 35–40 seats in Parliament, a sizeable faction, though not a majority. This group was known as the "Saints", and they were led by William Wilberforce, who had become an abolitionist in 1787 after having read the evidence about the evils of the slave trade compiled by Thomas Clarkson. On Sunday, October 28, 1787, Wilberforce wrote in his diary: "God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners."
On April 2, 1792, Wilberforce first sponsored a motion in the House of Commons "that the trade carried on by British subjects, for the purpose of obtaining slaves on the coast of Africa, ought to be abolished." He had introduced a similar motion in 1791, which was soundly defeated by MPs, with a vote of 163 opposed, 88 in favor.
In 1792, another member of the British Parliament, Henry Dundas, tabled a petition from Edinburgh residents who supported the abolition of slavery. But unlike Wilberforce, he favored the "gradual" abolition, and the amended motion was passed with 230 in favor, and 85 opposed. Abolitionists were still skeptical of anything changing because Dundas had insisted that any abolition of the slave trade must be dependent on the support of West Indian colonial legislatures, and Abolitionists believed that West Indian assemblies would never support such measures. To address this concern, three weeks after the vote, Dundas tabled resolutions setting out a plan to implement gradual abolition by the end of 1799. Members of Parliament voted in favor of ending the trade in slaves by the end of 1796, after defeating proposals to end the trade in slaves in 1795 or 1794. The motion and resolutions did not receive consent in the House of Lords, however.
When Lord Grenville became Prime Minister, he himself led the fight to pass the bill in the House of Lords, while in the Commons the bill was led by the Foreign Secretary, Lord Howick (Charles Grey, later Earl Grey). The Acts of Union 1800 had brought 100 Irish MPs into Parliament, most of whom supported abolition. On February 23, 1807, twenty years after Wilberforce first began his crusade, the House agreed to the second reading of the bill to abolish the Atlantic slave trade by an overwhelming 283 votes for to 16. The Bill received Royal Assent on March 25 1807 and took effect on May 1, 1807. The last slave ship, Kitty's Amelia, had received clearance to sail on April 27, before the deadline and became the last legal slave voyage for a British vessel.
In the last months of 1806, Napoleon had won a major victory, crushing the military power of Prussia, entering into its capital Berlin and there issuing the Berlin Decree, bringing into effect the Continental System. In order to weaken the British economy by closing French-controlled territory to its trade, Napoleon reintroduced slavery in the French Colonies. Originally, the French Revolution had abolished slavery.
The actions of the British Parliament were not lost on those in the United States. During the American Revolution all thirteen colonies prohibited their involvement in the international slave trade, but three states later enacted legislation legalizing it once again. Article 1 Section 9 of the United States Constitution protected a state's involvement in the Atlantic slave trade for twenty years from federal prohibition. Article 5 said this clause could not be affected by constitutional amendment. No federal law could abolish the international slave trade in all states, under the Constitution until January 1, 1808, although individual states could ban it at any time, and many had.
Proposals to abolish the slave trade began as early as 1774, when a group in Fairfax County, Virginia, proposed the "Fairfax Resolves" which called for an end to the "wicked, cruel, and unnatural" Atlantic slave trade. During the Revolutionary War, the United Colonies all pledged to ban their involvement in the transatlantic slave trade. But after the American victory in 1783, South Carolina reopened its involvement in the slave trade until prohibiting it again in 1787. The state reopened it again in 1803. North Carolina allowed the trade beginning after the Treaty of Paris until abolishing its involvement in slave trading in 1794. Georgia allowed the slave trade between 1783, until it closed its international trade in 1798. By 1807, only South Carolina allowed the Atlantic slave trade.
On March 22, 1794, Congress passed the Slave Trade Act of 1794, which prohibited "making, loading, outfitting, equipping, or dispatching of any ship" to be used in the trade of slaves. On August 5, 1797, John Brown of Providence, Rhode Island, became the first American to be tried in federal court under the 1794 law. Brown was convicted and was forced to forfeit his ship.
In the 1798 act creating the Mississippi Territory, Congress allowed slaves to be transferred from the rest of the United States to Mississippi Territory, and exempted the territory from the part of the 1787 Northwest Ordinance that abolished slavery in the Northwest Territory after 1800. The same act also abolished the importation of slaves to the Mississippi Territory from other countries. In the Slave Trade Act of 1800, Congress outlawed U.S. citizens' investment in the trade, and the employment of U.S. citizens on ships involved in the trade.
On March 3, 1805, Joseph Bradley Varnum submitted a Massachusetts Proposition to amend the Constitution and Abolish the Slave Trade. This proposition was tabled until 1807. In what was now appears to be a statement of considerable hypocrisy, President Thomas Jefferson addressed the issue in his December 2, 1806 his annual message to Congress. He said:
"I congratulate you, fellow-citizens, on the approach of the period at which you may interpose your authority constitutionally, to withdraw the citizens of the United States from all further participation in those violations of human rights which have been so long continued on the unoffending inhabitants of Africa, and which the morality, the reputation, and the best interests of our country, have long been eager to proscribe."
Despite his acknowledgement of the "violation of human rights" and of the grievous wrong done to the "unoffending inhabitants of Africa," Jefferson continued to be a slaveholder. His remarks on this subject were widely publicized and printed in the newspapers of the day.
With Varnum steering the bill through Congress, it passed both houses on March 2, 1807. The House and Senate agreed on a bill, approved on March 2, 1807, called "An Act to prohibit the importation of slaves into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States, from and after the first day of January, in the year of our Lord, One Thousand Eight Hundred and Eight." Jefferson signed the bill into law on March 2, 1807.
Many in Congress believed the act would bring about an end to slavery in the South. They were wrong.
After the Act took effect, the Navy was expanded and began patrols off the coasts of Cuba and South America. Despite these patrols, some historians estimate that up to 50,000 slaves were illegally imported into the United States after the Act took effect. They arrived mostly through Spanish Florida and Texas, at a time before those states were admitted to the Union. But a defiant South Carolina Governor Henry Middleton estimated in 1819 that 13,000 smuggled African enslaved persons arrived in his state every year.
The act outlawing the slave trade also led to a demand for fast vessels for slave traders, and many of these were built in American ports. One newspapers account from the time reported that as late as 1859 there were seven slaver ships regularly fitted out in New York, and many more in other large ports.
In 1820, slave-trading became a capital offense. A total of 74 cases of slaving were brought in the United States between 1837 and 1860, but few captains were convicted. Those who were received trifling sentences, such as fines, and these they were often able to avoid. The only person who was hanged for this offence was Nathaniel Gordon in 1862.
Even after the 1808 abolition of the slave trade to the United States, many Americans continued to engage in the slave trade by transporting Africans to Cuba. From 1808 to 1860, almost one-third of all slave ships were either owned by American merchants, or were built and outfitted in American ports.
The US Navy did eventually institute anti-slaving patrols off the slave ports of Africa, but it was not until 1820 legislation that authority was given to the President James Monroe to use naval vessels for this task. Even then, enforcement activity was largely ineffective. Many slave ships from other countries falsely flew the American flag to avoid being seized by British anti-slaving patrols, who left these for American ships to capture. The American ships were fewer and easier for the slavers to avoid. The first US warship sent to the African coast to intercept US vessels operating in the illegal trade was the USS Cyane. A total of five US Navy ships were stationed there in 1820 and 1821, arresting 11 American slavers. No further US anti-slaver patrols were carried out until 1842. Political pressure from the slave-owning states impeded this activity.
The cotton economy experienced a boom during the 1850s, and cotton prices increased after a decline in the 1840s. This drove up the price of slave labor, which led to further pressure to re-open the slave trade. Many Southerners saw the re-opening of the trade as a logical extension of the support of slavery. Conventions of Southern planters repeatedly called for the trade to re-open, but this was met with fierce resistance in the north.
The Atlantic slave trade was not ended until the Civil War, when American built and managed ships were prevented from operating.
In Britain, a Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was formed in 1787 by a group of Evangelical English Protestants who allied with the Quakers. Their common cause was both opposition to slavery and to the slave trade. The Quakers had always believed slavery to be immoral and sinful. By 1807 the abolitionist groups in Britain had attracted a large number of like-minded individuals, including many members in the British Parliament. At one point they controlled 35–40 seats in Parliament, a sizeable faction, though not a majority. This group was known as the "Saints", and they were led by William Wilberforce, who had become an abolitionist in 1787 after having read the evidence about the evils of the slave trade compiled by Thomas Clarkson. On Sunday, October 28, 1787, Wilberforce wrote in his diary: "God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners."
On April 2, 1792, Wilberforce first sponsored a motion in the House of Commons "that the trade carried on by British subjects, for the purpose of obtaining slaves on the coast of Africa, ought to be abolished." He had introduced a similar motion in 1791, which was soundly defeated by MPs, with a vote of 163 opposed, 88 in favor.
In 1792, another member of the British Parliament, Henry Dundas, tabled a petition from Edinburgh residents who supported the abolition of slavery. But unlike Wilberforce, he favored the "gradual" abolition, and the amended motion was passed with 230 in favor, and 85 opposed. Abolitionists were still skeptical of anything changing because Dundas had insisted that any abolition of the slave trade must be dependent on the support of West Indian colonial legislatures, and Abolitionists believed that West Indian assemblies would never support such measures. To address this concern, three weeks after the vote, Dundas tabled resolutions setting out a plan to implement gradual abolition by the end of 1799. Members of Parliament voted in favor of ending the trade in slaves by the end of 1796, after defeating proposals to end the trade in slaves in 1795 or 1794. The motion and resolutions did not receive consent in the House of Lords, however.
When Lord Grenville became Prime Minister, he himself led the fight to pass the bill in the House of Lords, while in the Commons the bill was led by the Foreign Secretary, Lord Howick (Charles Grey, later Earl Grey). The Acts of Union 1800 had brought 100 Irish MPs into Parliament, most of whom supported abolition. On February 23, 1807, twenty years after Wilberforce first began his crusade, the House agreed to the second reading of the bill to abolish the Atlantic slave trade by an overwhelming 283 votes for to 16. The Bill received Royal Assent on March 25 1807 and took effect on May 1, 1807. The last slave ship, Kitty's Amelia, had received clearance to sail on April 27, before the deadline and became the last legal slave voyage for a British vessel.
In the last months of 1806, Napoleon had won a major victory, crushing the military power of Prussia, entering into its capital Berlin and there issuing the Berlin Decree, bringing into effect the Continental System. In order to weaken the British economy by closing French-controlled territory to its trade, Napoleon reintroduced slavery in the French Colonies. Originally, the French Revolution had abolished slavery.
The actions of the British Parliament were not lost on those in the United States. During the American Revolution all thirteen colonies prohibited their involvement in the international slave trade, but three states later enacted legislation legalizing it once again. Article 1 Section 9 of the United States Constitution protected a state's involvement in the Atlantic slave trade for twenty years from federal prohibition. Article 5 said this clause could not be affected by constitutional amendment. No federal law could abolish the international slave trade in all states, under the Constitution until January 1, 1808, although individual states could ban it at any time, and many had.
Proposals to abolish the slave trade began as early as 1774, when a group in Fairfax County, Virginia, proposed the "Fairfax Resolves" which called for an end to the "wicked, cruel, and unnatural" Atlantic slave trade. During the Revolutionary War, the United Colonies all pledged to ban their involvement in the transatlantic slave trade. But after the American victory in 1783, South Carolina reopened its involvement in the slave trade until prohibiting it again in 1787. The state reopened it again in 1803. North Carolina allowed the trade beginning after the Treaty of Paris until abolishing its involvement in slave trading in 1794. Georgia allowed the slave trade between 1783, until it closed its international trade in 1798. By 1807, only South Carolina allowed the Atlantic slave trade.
On March 22, 1794, Congress passed the Slave Trade Act of 1794, which prohibited "making, loading, outfitting, equipping, or dispatching of any ship" to be used in the trade of slaves. On August 5, 1797, John Brown of Providence, Rhode Island, became the first American to be tried in federal court under the 1794 law. Brown was convicted and was forced to forfeit his ship.
In the 1798 act creating the Mississippi Territory, Congress allowed slaves to be transferred from the rest of the United States to Mississippi Territory, and exempted the territory from the part of the 1787 Northwest Ordinance that abolished slavery in the Northwest Territory after 1800. The same act also abolished the importation of slaves to the Mississippi Territory from other countries. In the Slave Trade Act of 1800, Congress outlawed U.S. citizens' investment in the trade, and the employment of U.S. citizens on ships involved in the trade.
On March 3, 1805, Joseph Bradley Varnum submitted a Massachusetts Proposition to amend the Constitution and Abolish the Slave Trade. This proposition was tabled until 1807. In what was now appears to be a statement of considerable hypocrisy, President Thomas Jefferson addressed the issue in his December 2, 1806 his annual message to Congress. He said:
"I congratulate you, fellow-citizens, on the approach of the period at which you may interpose your authority constitutionally, to withdraw the citizens of the United States from all further participation in those violations of human rights which have been so long continued on the unoffending inhabitants of Africa, and which the morality, the reputation, and the best interests of our country, have long been eager to proscribe."
Despite his acknowledgement of the "violation of human rights" and of the grievous wrong done to the "unoffending inhabitants of Africa," Jefferson continued to be a slaveholder. His remarks on this subject were widely publicized and printed in the newspapers of the day.
With Varnum steering the bill through Congress, it passed both houses on March 2, 1807. The House and Senate agreed on a bill, approved on March 2, 1807, called "An Act to prohibit the importation of slaves into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States, from and after the first day of January, in the year of our Lord, One Thousand Eight Hundred and Eight." Jefferson signed the bill into law on March 2, 1807.
Many in Congress believed the act would bring about an end to slavery in the South. They were wrong.
After the Act took effect, the Navy was expanded and began patrols off the coasts of Cuba and South America. Despite these patrols, some historians estimate that up to 50,000 slaves were illegally imported into the United States after the Act took effect. They arrived mostly through Spanish Florida and Texas, at a time before those states were admitted to the Union. But a defiant South Carolina Governor Henry Middleton estimated in 1819 that 13,000 smuggled African enslaved persons arrived in his state every year.
The act outlawing the slave trade also led to a demand for fast vessels for slave traders, and many of these were built in American ports. One newspapers account from the time reported that as late as 1859 there were seven slaver ships regularly fitted out in New York, and many more in other large ports.
In 1820, slave-trading became a capital offense. A total of 74 cases of slaving were brought in the United States between 1837 and 1860, but few captains were convicted. Those who were received trifling sentences, such as fines, and these they were often able to avoid. The only person who was hanged for this offence was Nathaniel Gordon in 1862.
Even after the 1808 abolition of the slave trade to the United States, many Americans continued to engage in the slave trade by transporting Africans to Cuba. From 1808 to 1860, almost one-third of all slave ships were either owned by American merchants, or were built and outfitted in American ports.
The US Navy did eventually institute anti-slaving patrols off the slave ports of Africa, but it was not until 1820 legislation that authority was given to the President James Monroe to use naval vessels for this task. Even then, enforcement activity was largely ineffective. Many slave ships from other countries falsely flew the American flag to avoid being seized by British anti-slaving patrols, who left these for American ships to capture. The American ships were fewer and easier for the slavers to avoid. The first US warship sent to the African coast to intercept US vessels operating in the illegal trade was the USS Cyane. A total of five US Navy ships were stationed there in 1820 and 1821, arresting 11 American slavers. No further US anti-slaver patrols were carried out until 1842. Political pressure from the slave-owning states impeded this activity.
The cotton economy experienced a boom during the 1850s, and cotton prices increased after a decline in the 1840s. This drove up the price of slave labor, which led to further pressure to re-open the slave trade. Many Southerners saw the re-opening of the trade as a logical extension of the support of slavery. Conventions of Southern planters repeatedly called for the trade to re-open, but this was met with fierce resistance in the north.
The Atlantic slave trade was not ended until the Civil War, when American built and managed ships were prevented from operating.