Slave-Trade Resolution in the United States

Reception of the Slave-Trade Resolution (the Period of the Revolution, from 1774)

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: The unanimity with which the colonists received this “Association” is not perhaps as remarkable as the almost entire absence of comment on the radical slave-trade clause. A Connecticut town-meeting in December, 1774, noticed “with singular pleasure … the second Article of the Association, in which it is agreed to import no more Negro Slaves.”16 This comment appears to have been almost the only one. There were in various places some evidences of disapproval; but only in the State of Georgia was this widespread and determined, and based mainly on the slave-trade clause.17 This opposition delayed the ratification meeting until January 18, 1775, and then delegates from but five of the twelve parishes appeared, and many of these had strong instructions against the approval of the plan. Before this meeting could act, the governor adjourned it, on the ground that it did not represent the province. Some of the delegates signed an agreement, one article of which promised to stop the importation of slaves March 15, 1775, i.e., four months later than the national “Association” had directed. This was not, of course, binding on the province; and although a town like Darien might declare “our disapprobation and abhorrence of the unnatural practice of Slavery in America”18 yet the powerful influence of Savannah was “not likely soon to give matters a favourable turn. The importers were mostly against any interruption, and the consumers very much divided.”19Thus the efforts of this Assembly failed, their resolutions being almost unknown, and, as a gentleman writes, “I hope for the honour of the Province ever will remain so.”20The delegates to the Continental Congress selected by this rump assembly refused to take their seats.52 Meantime South Carolina stopped trade with Georgia, because it “hath not acceded to the Continental Association,”21 and the single Georgia parish of St. Johns appealed to the second Continental Congress to except it from the general boycott of the colony. This county had already resolved not to “purchase any Slave imported at Savannah (large Numbers of which we understand are there expected) till the Sense of Congress shall be made known to us.”22

May 17, 1775, Congress resolved unanimously “That all exportations to Quebec, Nova-Scotia, the Island of St. John’s, Newfoundland, Georgia, except the Parish of St. John’s, and to East and West Florida, immediately cease.”23 These measures brought the refractory colony to terms, and the Provincial Congress, July 4, 1775, finally adopted the “Association,” and resolved, among other things, “That we will neither import or purchase any Slave imported from Africa, or elsewhere, after this day.”24

The non-importation agreement was in the beginning, at least, well enforced by the voluntary action of the loosely federated nation. The slave-trade clause seems in most States to have been observed with the others. In South Carolina “a cargo of near three hundred slaves was sent out of the Colony by the consignee, as being interdicted by the second article of the Association.”25 In Virginia the vigilance committee of Norfolk “hold up for your just indignation Mr. John Brown, Merchant, of this place,” who has several times imported slaves from Jamaica; and he is thus publicly censured “to the end that all such foes to the rights of British America may be publickly known … as the enemies of American Liberty, and that every person may henceforth break off all dealings with him.”26

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

• John Quincy Adams. Argument before the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of the United States, Appellants, vs. Cinque, and Others, Africans, captured in the schooner Amistad, by Lieut. Gedney, delivered on the 24th of Feb. and 1st of March, 1841. With a Review of the case of the Antelope. New York, 1841.
• Pope Gregory XVI. To Catholic Citizens! The Pope’s Bull [for the Abolition of the Slave Trade], and the words of Daniel O’Connell [on American Slavery.] New York, [1856.]
• Henry B. Dawson, editor. The Fœderalist: A Collection of Essays, written in favor of the New Constitution, as agreed upon by the Fœderal Convention, September 17, 1787. Reprinted from the Original Text. With an Historical Introduction and Notes. Vol. I. New York, 1863.
• Frederick Law Olmsted. A Journey in the Back Country. New York, 1860.
• British Parliament, House of Lords. Report of the Lords of the Committee of the Council appointed for the Confederation of all Matters relating to Trade and Foreign Plantations, etc. 2 vols. [London,] 1789.
• London Anti-Slavery Society . The Foreign Slave Trade, etc., No. 2. London, 1838.
• Friends. The Appeal of the Religious Society of Friends in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, etc., [Yearly Meeting] to their Fellow-Citizens of the United States on behalf of the Coloured Races. Philadelphia, 1858.
• Joseph Smith. A Descriptive Catalogue of Friends’ Books. (Bibliography.) 2 vols. London, 1867.

Results of the Resolution (the Period of the Revolution, from 1774)

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: The strain of war at last proved too much for this voluntary blockade, and after some 53hesitancy Congress, April 3, 1776, resolved to allow the importation of articles not the growth or manufacture of Great Britain, except tea. They also voted “That no slaves be imported into any of the thirteen United Colonies.”27 This marks a noticeable change of attitude from the strong words of two years previous: the former was a definitive promise; this is a temporary resolve, which probably represented public opinion much better than the former. On the whole, the conclusion is inevitably forced on the student of this first national movement against the slave-trade, that its influence on the trade was but temporary and insignificant, and that at the end of the experiment the outlook for the final suppression of the trade was little brighter than before. The whole movement served as a sort of social test of the power and importance of the slave-trade, which proved to be far more powerful than the platitudes of many of the Revolutionists had assumed.

The effect of the movement on the slave-trade in general was to begin, possibly a little earlier than otherwise would have been the case, that temporary breaking up of the trade which the war naturally caused. “There was a time, during the late war,” says Clarkson, “when the slave trade may be considered as having been nearly abolished.”28 The prices of slaves rose correspondingly high, so that smugglers made fortunes.29 It is stated that in the years 1772–1778 slave merchants of Liverpool failed for the sum of £710,000.30 All this, of course, might have resulted from the war, without the “Association;” but in the long run the “Association” aided in frustrating the very designs which the framers of the first resolve had in mind; for the temporary stoppage in the end created an extraordinary demand for slaves, and led to a slave-trade after the war nearly as large as that before.

Resources

Notes and References

1. W. E. B. Du Bois, “The Suppress
   ion 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

• An African Merchant (anon.). A Treatise upon the Trade from Great-Britain to Africa; Humbly recommended to the Attention of Government. London, 1772.
• H. Hall. Slavery in New Hampshire. (In New England Register, XXIX. 247.)
• Paul Dean. A Discourse delivered before the African Society … in Boston, Mass., on the Abolition of the Slave Trade … July 14, 1819. Boston, 1819.
• Frederick Law Olmsted . A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States, etc. New York, 1856.
• William Brodie. Modern Slavery and the Slave Trade: a Lecture, etc. London, 1860.
• London Society for the Extinction of the Slave Trade, and for the Civilization of Africa. Proceedings at the first Public Meeting, held at Exeter Hall, on Monday, 1st June, 1840. London, 1840.
• Friends. A Brief Statement of the Rise and Progress of the Testimony of the Religious Society of Friends against Slavery and the Slave Trade. 1671–1787. (At Yearly Meeting in Philadelphia.) Philadelphia, 1843.
• Capt. William Snelgrave. A New Account of some Parts of Guinea, and the Slave-Trade. London, 1734.