Post-1808 importation of slaves to the United States

Ward Lee, Tucker Henderson, and Romeo—born Cilucängy, Pucka Gaeta, and Tahro in the Congo River basin—were trafficked to the United States in 1859 on the Wanderer (1908 photograph by Charles J. Montgomery for the journal American Anthropologist)
Following the discovery of 18 enslaved people from Jamaica who were deposited along the Mississippi River at a spot between Fort St. Philip and English Turn, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana John W. Smith published this notice reminding the public that the importation of enslaved people from overseas was illegal and would be prosecuted (Louisiana State Gazette, December 8, 1825)
Jim may have been trafficked from Africa three or four years after the 1808 ban went into effect ("Fifteen Dollars Reward" National Banner and Nashville Whig, December 19, 1829)
There was a practical resurgence in American piracy in tandem with the political movement to reopen to the Atlantic slave trade; by August 1860, the Houston Petrel claimed "native Africans are becoming quite a common thing, even in interior markets"

The importation of slaves from overseas to the United States was prohibited in 1808, but criminal trafficking of enslaved people on a smaller scale likely continued for many years. The most intensive periods of piracy were in the 1810s, before the U.S. Congress passed laws with massive fines and penalties including execution for illegal importers, and in the 1850s, when pro-slavery activists decided that the solution to rapid inflation in slave prices was simply to flood the market with humans abducted from across the ocean.

History

Under an agreement made at the time of the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, Congress passed an Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves in 1807 and the law became effective in 1808. Many states already had similar laws, but with a multitude of exceptions; South Carolina, for instance, prohibited and then reauthorized the African slave trade multiple times between colonization and the 1787 Constitutional Convention, and then reopened the port of Charleston to the transatlantic slave trade between 1803 and 1807, during which time some 40,000 to 50,000 enslaved Africans were imported to the state. (Some states also passed laws prohibiting or heavily regulating interstate trading, although over time most of these laws would be diminished, disregarded, and eventually repealed entirely.) After 1808, people transporting slaves by coastwise routes had to sign affidavits before U.S. Customs officers swearing that none of their cargo came from anywhere but the Continental United States. Despite the legal strictures on slave shipments from outside the United States, and despite active anti-slavery patrols by both the U.S. and Royal Navies, officials believed that trafficking of enslaved people from Africa, South America, and the Caribbean continued to at least some extent. According to abolitionist William Jay in 1844, "In a debate in Congress in 1819, Mr. Middleton of South Carolina, stated, that in his opinion, 13,000 Africans were annually smuggled into the United States. Mr. Wright of Virginia estimated the number at 15,000!" Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story and Secretary of the Navy Paul Hamilton also asserted in public declarations that human trafficking from overseas continued.

In 1820 the Act to protect the commerce of the United States and punish the crime of piracy (Act of May 15, 1820, Chap. 113, 3 Stat. 600) instituted massive fines and the death penalty for pirates caught importing slaves into the United States. Fewer than 10,000 people may have been trafficked from Africa to the United States between 1825 and 1850.

By the 1850s, a growing movement to reopen the transatlantic slave trade was part and parcel of the pro-slavery agitation of the Fire-Eaters in the south. During this time (in an attempt to move the ball forward toward an unimpeded nationwide slavery-based economy), Charles Q. Lamar and a cabal of associates were involved in trafficking people from the Congo River basin to the Savannah River and Mississippi River watersheds, on the Wanderer certainly, but likely on the E. A. Rawlins and the Richard Cobden as well.

Specific cases

Debarking the cargo of William at Key West
  • Echo, American-flagged slaver captured 1858 near Cuba and towed to Charleston; crew acquitted by jury; pro-slavery editorial writers lately complained that James Buchanan had wanted to squander federal funds to care for the survivors and then ship them back to Africa, rather than release them to the market for sale and the supposed relative beneficence of American slavery.
  • In April 1860 there was a rumor that a "cargo of African negroes" had been landed in the natural harbor between Corpus Christi and Indianola, Texas.
  • The William, captained by a Philadelphian and bound for Havana, was captured by the USS Wyandotte (1853) and landed at Key West. The bulk of the human cargo would probably be sent to Liberia, and supposedly 190 passengers died at Key West and were to be buried—but was this mortality claim just a ruse to supply plantations in Alabama and Mississippi with new enslaved laborers? If not, then what was the source of the "23 Africans" to be auctioned at the St. Charles Hotel in June 1860?
  • Clotida landed at Mobile Bay in July 1860

See also