Slavery Supplementary Acts in the United States

The Supplementary Acts, 1818–1820 (the Period of Attempted Suppression of Slavery)

In the book “The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America 1638-1870” (1), W. E. B. Du Bois explained the following: To remedy the obvious defects of the Act of 1807 two courses were possible: one, to minimize the crime of transportation, and, by encouraging informers, to concentrate efforts against the buying of smuggled slaves; the other, to make the crime of transportation so great that no slaves would be imported. The Act of 1818 tried the first method; that of 1819, the second.108 The latter was obviously the more upright and logical, and the only method deserving thought even in 1807; but the Act of 1818 was the natural descendant of that series of compromises which began in the Constitutional Convention, and which, instead of postponing the settlement of critical questions to more favorable times, rather aggravated and complicated them.

The immediate cause of the Act of 1818 was the Amelia Island scandal.113 Committees in both Houses reported bills, but that of the Senate finally passed. There does not appear to 122have been very much debate.110 The sale of Africans for the benefit of the informer and of the United States was strongly urged “as the only means of executing the laws against the slave trade as experience had fully demonstrated since the origin of the prohibition.”111 This proposition was naturally opposed as “inconsistent with the principles of our Government, and calculated to throw as wide open the door to the importation of slaves as it was before the existing prohibition.”112The act, which became a law April 20, 1818,109 was a poorly constructed compromise, which virtually acknowledged the failure of efforts to control the trade, and sought to remedy defects by pitting cupidity against cupidity, informer against thief. One-half of all forfeitures and fines were to go to the informer, and penalties for violation were changed as follows:—

For equipping a slaver, instead of a fine of $20,000, a fine of $1000 to $5000 and imprisonment from 3 to 7 years.

For transporting Negroes, instead of a fine of $5000 and forfeiture of ship and Negroes, a fine of $1000 to $5000 and imprisonment from 3 to 7 years.

For actual importation, instead of a fine of $1000 to $10,000 and imprisonment from 5 to 10 years, a fine of $1000 to $10,000, and 123imprisonment from 3 to 7 years.

For knowingly buying illegally imported Negroes, instead of a fine of $800 for each Negro and forfeiture, a fine of $1000 for each Negro.

The burden of proof was laid on the defendant, to the extent that he must prove that the slave in question had been imported at least five years before the prosecution. The slaves were still left to the disposal of the States.

This statute was, of course, a failure from the start,114 and at the very next session Congress took steps to revise it. A bill was reported in the House, January 13, 1819, but it was not discussed till March.115 It finally passed, after “much debate.”116 The Senate dropped its own bill, and, after striking out the provision for the death penalty, passed the bill as it came from the House.117 The House acquiesced, and the bill became a law, March 3, 1819,118 in the midst of the Missouri trouble. This act directed the President to use armed cruisers on the coasts of the United States and Africa to suppress the slave-trade; one-half the proceeds of the condemned ship were to go to the captors as bounty, provided the Africans were safely lodged with a United States marshal and the crew with the civil authorities. These provisions were seriously marred by a proviso which Butler of Louisiana, had inserted, with a “due regard for the interests of the State which he represented,” viz., that a captured slaver must always be returned to the port whence she 124sailed.119 This, of course, secured decided advantages to Southern slave-traders. The most radical provision of the act was that which directed the President to “make such regulations and arrangements as he may deem expedient for the safe keeping, support, and removal beyond the limits of the United States, of all such negroes, mulattoes, or persons of colour, as may be so delivered and brought within their jurisdiction;” and to appoint an agent in Africa to receive such Negroes.120Finally, an appropriation of $100,000 was made to enforce the act.121 This act was in some measure due to the new colonization movement; and the return of Africans recaptured was a distinct recognition of its efforts, and the real foundation of Liberia.

To render this straightforward act effective, it was necessary to add but one measure, and that was a penalty commensurate with the crime of slave stealing. This was accomplished by the Act of May 15, 1820,122 a law which may be regarded as the last of the Missouri Compromise measures. The act originated from the various bills on piracy which were introduced early in the sixteenth Congress. The House bill, in spite of opposition, was amended so as to include slave-trading under piracy, and passed. The Senate agreed without a division. 125This law provided that direct participation in the slave-trade should be piracy, punishable with death.123
br>STATUTES AT LARGE. DATE. AMOUNT
br>APPROPRIATED.

VOL. PAGE
br>III. 533–4 March 3, 1819 $100,000
br>” 764 ” 3, 1823 50,000
br>IIV. 141 ” 14, 1826 32,000
br>” 208 March 2, 1827 36,710
br>20,000
br>” 302 May 24, 1828 30,000
br>” 354 March 2, 1829 16,000
br>” 462 ” 2, 1831 16,000
br>” 615 Feb. 20, 1833 5,000
br>” 67 Jan. 24, 1834 5,000
br>IV. 157–8 March 3, 1837 11,413 .57
br>” 501 Aug. 4, 1842 10,543 .42
br>” 615 March 3, 1843 5,000
br>IIX. 96 Aug. 10, 1846 25,000
br>IXI. 90 ” 18, 1856 8,000
br>” 227 March 3, 1857 8,000
br>” 404 ” 3, 1859 75,000
br>IXII. 21 May 26, 1860 40,000
br>” 132 Feb. 19, 1861 900,000
br>” 219 March 2, 1861 900,000
br>” 639 Feb. 4, 1863 17,000
br>IXIII. 424 Jan. 24, 1865 17,000
br>IXIV. 226 July 25, 1866 17,000
br>” 415 Feb. 28, 1867 17,000
br>IXV. 58 March 30, 1868 12,500
br>” 321 March 3, 1869 12,500
br>Total, 50 years $ 2,386,666.99
br>Minus surpluses re-appropriated (approximate) 48,666.99?
br>$ 2,338,000
br>Cost of squadron, 1843–58, @ $384,500 per year (House Exec. Doc., 31 Cong. 1 sess. IX. No. 73) 5,767,500
br>Returning slaves on “Wildfire” (Statutes at Large, XII. 41) 250,000
br>Approximate cost of squadron, 1858–66, probably not less than $500,000 per year 4,000,000?
br>Approximate money cost of suppressing the slave-trade $ 12,355,500?
br>Cf. Kendall’s Report: Senate Doc., 21 Cong. 2 sess. I. No. 1, pp. 211–8; Amer. State Papers, Naval, III. No. 429 E.; also Reports of the Secretaries of the Navy from 1819 to 1860.

Resources

Notes and References

1. W. E. B. Du Bois, “The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America 1638-1870” (1893), Longmans, Green and Co., London, New York, Bombay and Calcuta.

See Also

Further Reading

• Samuel Greene Arnold. History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. 2 vols. New York, 1859–60. (See Index to Vol. II., “Slave Trade.”)
• John Codman Hurd . The Jamaica Movement, for promoting the Enforcement of the Slave-Trade Treaties, and the Suppression of the Slave-Trade; with statements of Fact, Convention, and Law: prepared at the request of the Kingston Committee. London, 1850.
• Edward E. Dunbar. The Mexican Papers, containing the History of the Rise and Decline of Commercial Slavery in America, with reference to the Future of Mexico. First Series, No. 5. New York, 1861.
• John Ran
  by. Observations on the Evidence given before the Committees of the Privy Council and House of Commons in Support of the Bill for Abolishing the Slave Trade. London, 1791.
• Thomas Clarkson. An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, particularly the African. London and Dublin, 1786.
• George C. Mason. The African Slave Trade in Colonial Times. (In American Historical Record, I. 311, 338.)
• Friends. A View of the Present State of the African Slave Trade. Philadelphia, 1824.
• Jesse Torrey. A Portraiture of Domestic Slavery … and a Project of Colonial Asylum for Free Persons of Colour. Philadelphia, 1817.