Imperfect Application of the Laws in the United States
Imperfect Application of the Laws and the Rise of the Cotton Kingdom (1820–1851)
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: In reviewing efforts toward the suppression of the slave-trade from 1820 to 1850, it must be remembered that nearly every cabinet had a strong, if not a predominating, Southern element, and that consequently the efforts of the executive were powerfully influenced by the changing attitude of the South. Naturally, under such circumstances, the government displayed little activity and no enthusiasm in the work. In 1824 a single vessel of the Gulf squadron was occasionally sent to the African coast to return by the route usually followed by the slavers; no wonder that “none of these or any other of our public ships have found vessels engaged in the slave trade under the flag of the United States, … although it is known that the trade still exists to a most lamentable extent.”23 Indeed, all that an American slaver need do was to run up a Spanish or a Portuguese flag, to be absolutely secure from all attack or inquiry on the part of United States vessels. Even this desultory method of suppression was not regular: in 1826 “no vessel has been despatched to the coast of Africa for several months,”24 and from that time until 1839 this country probably had no slave-trade police upon the seas, except in the Gulf of Mexico. In 1839 increasing violations led to the sending of two fast-sailing vessels to the African coast, and these were kept there more or less regularly;25 but even after the signing of the treaty of 1842 the Secretary of the Navy reports: “On the coast of Africa we have no squadron. The small appropriation of the present year was believed to be scarcely sufficient.”26 Between 1843 and 1850 the coast squadron varied from two to six vessels, with from thirty to ninety-eight guns;27 “but the force habitually and actively engaged in cruizing on the ground frequented by slavers has probably been less by one-fourth, if we consider the size of the ships employed and their withdrawal for purposes of recreation and health, and the movement of the reliefs, whose arrival does not correspond exactly with the departure of the vessels whose term of service 160has expired.”28 The reports of the navy show that in only four of the eight years mentioned was the fleet, at the time of report, at the stipulated size of eighty guns; and at times it was much below this, even as late as 1848, when only two vessels are reported on duty along the African coast.29 As the commanders themselves acknowledged, the squadron was too small and the cruising-ground too large to make joint cruising effective.30
The same story comes from the Brazil station: “Nothing effectual can be done towards stopping the slave trade, as our squadron is at present organized,” wrote the consul at Rio Janeiro in 1847; “when it is considered that the Brazil station extends from north of the equator to Cape Horn on this continent, and includes a great part of Africa south of the equator, on both sides of the Cape of Good Hope, it must be admitted that one frigate and one brig is a very insufficient force to protect American commerce, and repress the participation in the slave trade by our own vessels.”31 In the Gulf of Mexico cruisers were stationed most of the time, although even here there were at times urgent representations that the scarcity or the absence of such vessels gave the illicit trade great license.32
Owing to this general negligence of the government, and also to its anxiety on the subject of the theoretic Right of Search, many officials were kept in a state of chronic deception in regard to the trade. The enthusiasm of commanders was dampened by the lack of latitude allowed and by the repeated 161insistence in their orders on the non-existence of a Right of Search.33 When one commander, realizing that he could not cover the trading-track with his fleet, requested English commanders to detain suspicious American vessels until one of his vessels came up, the government annulled the agreement as soon as it reached their ears, rebuked him, and the matter was alluded to in Congress long after with horror.34 According to the orders of cruisers, only slavers with slaves actually on board could be seized. Consequently, fully equipped slavers would sail past the American fleet, deliberately make all preparations for shipping a cargo, then, when the English were not near, “sell” the ship to a Spaniard, hoist the Spanish flag, and again sail gayly past the American fleet with a cargo of slaves. An English commander reported: “The officers of the United States’ navy are extremely active and zealous in the cause, and no fault can be attributed to them, but it is greatly to be lamented that this blemish should in so great a degree nullify our endeavours.”35
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