Evidence of the Slave-Trade in the United States
Evidence of the Continuance of the Trade (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: Undoubtedly, the Act of 1807 came very near being a dead letter. The testimony supporting this view is voluminous. It consists of presidential messages, reports of cabinet officers, letters of collectors of revenue, letters of district attorneys, reports of committees of Congress, reports of naval commanders, statements made on the floor of Congress, the testimony of eye-witnesses, and the complaints of home and foreign anti-slavery societies.
“When I was young,” writes Mr. Fowler of Connecticut, “the slave-trade was still carried on, by Connecticut shipmasters and Merchant adventurers, for the supply of southern ports. This trade was carried on by the consent o113f the Southern States, under the provisions of the Federal Constitution, until 1808, and, after that time, clandestinely. There was a good deal of conversation on the subject, in private circles.” Other States were said to be even more involved than Connecticut.69 The African Society of London estimated that, down to 1816, fifteen of the sixty thousand slaves annually taken from Africa were shipped by Americans. “Notwithstanding the prohibitory act of America, which was passed in 1807, ships bearing the American flag continued to trade for slaves until 1809, when, in consequence of a decision in the English prize appeal courts, which rendered American slave ships liable to capture and condemnation, that flag suddenly disappeared from the coast. Its place was almost instantaneously supplied by the Spanish flag, which, with one or two exceptions, was now seen for the first time on the African coast, engaged in covering the slave trade. This sudden substitution of the Spanish for the American flag seemed to confirm what was established in a variety of instances by more direct testimony, that the slave trade, which now, for the first time, assumed a Spanish dress, was in reality only the trade of other nations in disguise.”70
So notorious did the participation of Americans in the traffic become, that President Madison informed Congress in his message, December 5, 1810, that “it appears that American citizens are instrumental in carrying on a traffic in enslaved Africans, equally in violation of the laws of humanity, and in defiance of those of their own country. The same just and benevolent motives which produced the interdiction in force against this criminal conduct, will doubtless be felt by Congress, in devising further means of suppressing the evil.”71 The Secretary of the Navy wrote the same year to Charleston, South Carolina: “I hear, not without great concern, that the law prohibiting the importation of slaves has been violated in frequent instances, near St. Mary’s.”72 Testimony as to violations of the law and 114suggestions for improving it also came in from district attorneys.73
The method of introducing Negroes was simple. A slave smuggler says: “After resting a few days at St. Augustine, … I agreed to accompany Diego on a land trip through the United States, where a kaffle of negroes was to precede us, for whose disposal the shrewd Portuguese had already made arrangements with my uncle’s consignees. I soon learned how readily, and at what profits, the Florida negroes were sold into the neighboring American States. The kaffle, under charge of negro drivers, was to strike up the Escambia River, and thence cross the boundary into Georgia, where some of our wild Africans were mixed with various squads of native blacks, and driven inland, till sold off, singly or by couples, on the road. At this period [1812], the United States had declared the African slave trade illegal, and passed stringent laws to prevent the importation of negroes; yet the Spanish possessions were thriving on this inland exchange of negroes and mulattoes; Florida was a sort of nursery for slave-breeders, and many American citizens grew rich by trafficking in Guinea negroes, and smuggling them continually, in small parties, through the southern United States. At the time I mention, the business was a lively one, owing to the war then going on between the States and England, and the unsettled condition of affairs on the border.”74
The Spanish flag continued to cover American slave-traders. The rapid rise of privateering during the war was not caused solely by patriotic motives; for many armed ships fitted out in the United States obtained a thin Spanish disguise at Havana, and transported thousands of slaves to Brazil and the West Indies. Sometimes all disguise was thrown aside, and the American flag appeared on the slave coast, as in the cases of the “Paz,”75 the “Rebecca,” the “Rosa”76 (formerly the privateer 115″Commodore Perry”), the “Dorset” of Baltimore,77 and the “Saucy Jack.”78 Governor McCarthy of Sierra Leone wrote, in 1817: “The slave trade is carried on most vigorously by the Spaniards, Portuguese, Americans and French. I have had it affirmed from several quarters, and do believe it to be a fact, that there is a greater number of vessels employed in that traffic than at any former period.”79
Leave a Reply