Slave Trade
From Dixiepedia: The PC-Free Encyclopedia
Southern Opposition to the Slave Trade
With the short-lived exception of Georgia and South Carolina, no Southern colony or State was ever a willing participant in the slave trade, which traffic most Southerners viewed with abhorrence. The English Crown was the leader in the trade throughout the Eighteenth Century, it having been declared by Parliament in 1749 "to be very advantageous to Great Britain, and necessary for supplying the plantations and colonies thereunto belonging with a sufficient number of negroes at reasonable rates."(1) On the other hand, the colonial legislature of Virginia attempted on several occasions to stem the importation of Africans only to be consistently overruled by King George III, who refused to assent to any law "by which the importation of slaves should be in any respect prohibited or obstructed."(2) On 20 March 1772, the following petition was forwarded to the King by the Virginia House of Burgesses:
We implore your Majesty's paternal assistance in averting a calamity of a most alarming nature. The importation of slaves into the colonies from the coast of Africa hath long been considered as a trade of great inhumanity, and under its present encouragement we have too much reason to fear will endanger the very existence of your Majesty's American dominions. We are sensible that some of your Majesty's subjects may reap emoluments from this sort of traffic, but when we consider that it greatly retards the settlement of the colonies with more useful inhabitants and may in time have the most destructive influence, we presume to hope that the interests of a few will be disregarded when placed in competition with the security and happiness of such numbers of your Majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects. We, therefore, beseech your Majesty to remove all these restraints on your Majesty's Governor in this colony which inhibits their assenting to such laws as might check so pernicious a consequence.(3)
One of the charges leveled against George III by Thomas Jefferson in the original draft of the Declaration of Independence was that he had "prostituted his negative [veto] for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit, or to restrain, this execrable commerce" and that he, during Great Britain's war with the American colonies, was attempting to incite the slaves "to rise in arms against us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another."(4) Not long after declaring her independence, the fledgling State of Virginia, under the governorship of Patrick Henry, became "the first political community in the civilized modern world" to legislate against the slave trade.(5) In the Act For Preventing the Farther Importation of Slaves of 5 October 1778, it was declared that "no slave or slaves shall hereafter be imported into this Commonwealth by sea or land, nor shall any slaves so imported be bought or sold by any person whatsoever." The penalty provided for violation of this law was the forfeiture of "one thousand pounds for every slave so imported," and "five hundred pounds for every slave so bought or sold." It was further provided that "every slave imported into this Commonwealth, contrary to the true intent and meaning of this act, shall, upon such importation, become free."(6)
The colonial history of South Carolina is a consistent protest against the slave trade. Due to the fact that White settlement of the colony was being hindered by the alarming increase of the African population, the earliest legislation which tended toward discouragement of the importation of Negroes was passed in 1698, requiring planters to employ one white laborer for every six Blacks. This was followed by another act in 1714 which imposed a duty of two pounds sterling upon every slave imported from Africa over the age of twelve, another in 1716 offering a bounty to White settlers, and still another in 1717 imposing an additional duty of forty pounds upon any imported Negro "of any age or condition whatsoever, and from any part of the world."(7) In 1760, the colonial legislature passed an act absolutely prohibiting the further importation of slaves, which was overruled by the Crown. Not only was the royal Governor reprimanded, but a warning was sent to the Governors of the other colonies against allowing similar legislation.(8) The South Carolina legislature responded in 1764 by imposing an additional duty of 100 pounds upon each imported slave.(9)
Shortly after achieving independence from Great Britain and one year before ratifying the Constitution, the South Carolina legislature forbade the further importation of slaves, either from Africa or from other American States, unless accompanied by their master. Any person found in violation of this law was penalized 100 pounds in addition to forfeiture of the Negroes found in his possession.(10) This was followed by a series of laws which extended the prohibition until it was finally repealed in 1803. The stated reason for this repeal was that New England slavers were so flagrant in their violation of this law that, without the aid the federal Government (which had been denied to her), it had become impossible to enforce the law. According to William Lowndes, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from South Carolina:
The geographical situation of our country [South Carolina] is not unknown. With navigable rivers running into the heart of it, it was impossible, with our means, to prevent our Eastern brethren... engaged in this trade, from introducing them [Negroes] into the country. The law was completely evaded.... Under these circumstances, sir, it appears to me to have been the duty of the Legislature to repeal the law, and remove from the eyes of the people the spectacle of its authority being daily violated.(11)
The port of Charleston was thereafter opened to the importation of slaves from 1803 until 1 January 1808 when the slave trade was declared unlawful by the U.S. Congress. During these four years, 202 vessels arrived at Charleston carrying a total of 39,075 slaves, most of which were reshipped to the West Indies.(12) According to the records, the consignees for this human cargo were as follows: "88 were natives of Rhode Island, 13 of Charleston, 10 of France, and 91 of Great Britain."(13)
In 1795, the North Carolina legislature declared it illegal "to land any negro or negroes, or people of colour, over the age of fifteen years, under the penalty of 100 [dollars]... for each and every slave or person of colour...."(14) Not satisfied with mere legislation against the slave trade, the State of Georgia inserted the following clause into its constitution of 1798: "There shall be no future importation of slaves into this State from Africa, or any foreign place, after the first day of October next."(15) Kentucky, which was formed out of the western territory of Virginia, continued the laws of the parent State against the importation of Negroes for the purpose of sale, imposing a $300 fine on violaters. Tennessee, formerly a district of North Carolina, also re-enacted the laws of the parent State.(16) Alabama likewise forbade the ingress of slaves unless accompanied by their masters having the intent to settle in the State, and imposed the death penalty in 1807 upon any "person... guilty of stealing or selling any free person for a slave, knowing the said person so sold to be free...."(17) The legislature of Mississippi enacted the following law in 1822: "It shall not be lawful for any person whatsoever to bring into this State, or to hold therein, any slave or slaves born or resident out of the limits of the United States. Every such offender shall forfeit and pay to the State, for the use of the Literacy Fund, for each slave so brought in, sold, purchased, or hired, a fine of $1,000."(18) The law of 1839 further stipulated:
That if any person shall hereafter bring or import any slave or slaves into this State, as merchandise, or for the purpose of selling or hiring such slave or slaves, or shall be accessory thereto, the person or persons so offending shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanour, and on conviction thereof shall be fined in the sum of $500, and be imprisoned for a term of not less than one nor more than six months, at the discretion of the Court, for each and every slave by him brought into this State as merchandise, or for sale, or for hire.(19)
The laws of the other Southern States were equally restrictive regarding the ingress of slaves within their borders. Thus is proven false the charge of slave-breeding and clandestine importation of slaves which commonly brought against the South.
New England's Complicity in the Slave Trade
It is a great injustice to the Southern people that they have borne the blame for what, for the most part, they did not condone and did not practice. Instead, the importation of slaves from Africa was nearly an exclusive New England enterprise; both Boston and New York harbors were thriving slave ports and the economic prominence of those two cities was almost entirely founded on the slave trade.(20) A slave market was established in 1711 near Wall Street in New York City, from whence Negroes were hurried into the South before they fell sick or died from the harsh Northern climate. Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island were also leading hosts to the trade. According to the Hartford Courant of July, 1916, "Many people in this state as well as in Boston, made snug fortunes for themselves by sending rum to Africa to be exchanged for slaves and then selling the slaves to the planters of Southern states."(21) The colonial government of Rhode Island benefitted directly from a three-pound tax on imported slaves, using the proceeds in 1708 to pave the streets of Newport.(22) By 1713, Newport was the chief slave port in America and by 1770, Rhode Island had one hundred and fifty vessels engaged in the slave trade. In the words of Samuel Hopkins, "Rhode Island has been more deeply interested in the slave trade, and has enslaved more Africans than any other colony in New England.... This trade in human species has been the first wheel of commerce in Newport, on which every other movement in business has depended. That town has built up, and flourished in times past on the slave trade, and by it the citizens have gotten most of their wealth and riches."(23) As late as 1800, the slave trade was still viewed in a positive light by Rhode Island legislators as exemplified by the following statement in the House of Representatives: "We want money; we want money; we ought, therefore, to use the means to obtain it. Why should we see Great Britain getting all the slave trade to themselves -- why not our country be enriched by that lucrative traffic?"(24)
As already noted, Thomas Jefferson, in his original draft of the Declaration of Independence, had included a clause condemning George III for forcing the slave trade upon the American colonies. This clause was stricken out at the request of delegates from South Carolina, Georgia, and the New England States. Jefferson wrote, "Our Northern brethren also, I believe, felt a little tender under these censures; for though their people had very few slaves themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others."(25) The slave trade continued to be a lucrative enterprise for New Englanders long after it had been outlawed by the U.S. Congress in 1808. In his address to Congress on 1 June 1841, President John Tyler said, "There is reason to believe that the traffic is on the increase.... The highest consideration of public honor as well as the strongest promptings of humanity require a resort to the most vigorous efforts to suppress the trade."(26) The U.S. Deputy Marshall for the New York district reported in 1856 that "the business of fitting out slavers was never presented with greater energy than at present."(27) In 1860, a report was presented to Congress which stated, "Almost all the slave expeditions for some time past have been fitted out in the United States, chiefly at New York."(28) In his book, The Suppression of the Slave Trade, W.E.B. DuBois showed that "from 1850 to 1860 the fitting out of slavers became a flourishing business in the United States and centered in New York City" and that eighty-five New England vessels were involved in the transportation of between 30,000 and 60,000 slaves annually.(29) As late as 21 April 1861, nearly a week after Abraham Lincoln had declared war on the South, the slave ship Nightingale -- owned, manned, and equipped at Boston -- was captured by the Saratoga -- commanded by Captain John Julius Guthrie, a Southerner -- off the west coast of Africa with 900 slaves on board. Guthrie later resigned his command in the United States Navy and went into the Confederate service.(30) Furthermore, while the United States Constitution officially sanctioned the slave trade for twenty years following ratification, leaving it to Congress' discretion to end it after 1808,(31) the Confederate States Constitution of 1861 outlawed it completely.(32) Thus, in the former country, the slave trade was only suspended by a statute which any future Congress could have repealed; in the latter, its abolition was part of the law of the land which could not have been changed except through the amendment process.
Endnotes
1. 23 George II (1749); quoted by George McHenry, The Cotton Trade: Its Bearing Upon the Prosperity of Great Britain and Commerce of the American Republics (London: Saunders, Otley, and Company, 1863), page 192.
2. Instructions of King George III to the Royal Governor of Virginia, dated 10 December 1770; quoted by George Bancroft, A History of the United States (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1846), Volume III, page 410.
3. Virginia House of Burgesses, petition to George III dated 20 March 1772; quoted by Beverley Munford, Virginia's Attitude Toward Slavery and Secession (New York: Longmans, Green and Company, 1909), page 18.
4. Thomas Jefferson, clause in the original draft of the Declaration of Independence; quoted by Bancroft, History of the United States, Volume IV, page 445.
5. James Curtis Ballagh, History of Slavery in Virginia (Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins Press, 1902), page 23.
6. William Waller Hening (editor), The Statutes at Large: A Collection of All the Laws of Virginia From the First Session of the Legislature in the Year 1619 (New York: W.G. Bartow, 1823), Volume IX, page 471.
7. Reference: McHenry, Cotton Trade, pages 214-215.
8. Reference: McHenry, ibid., page 192.
9. Reference: McHenry, ibid., page 215.
10. Reference: McHenry, ibid., pages 216-217.
11. William Lowndes, speech in the House of Representatives on 14 February 1804; quoted by Davis, Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume I, page 4 (footnote).
12. Reference: McHenry, Cotton Trade, page 217; John Randolph Spears, The American Slave Trade: An Account of Its Origin, Growth and Suppression (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1900), page 118.
13. Spears, ibid.
14. North Carolina statute of 1795; quoted by McHenry, Cotton Trade, page 214.
15. Constitution of the State of Georgia, 1798; quoted by McHenry, ibid., page 218.
16. Reference: McHenry, ibid., page 219.
17. Alabama statute of 1843; quoted by McHenry, ibid., page 220.
18. Mississippi statute of 1822; quoted by McHenry, ibid.
19. Mississippi statute of 1839; quoted by McHenry, ibid.
20. Reference: Cecil Chesterton, History of the United States (London: Chatto and Windus, 1919).
21. Hartford (Connecticut) Courant, July 1916; quoted by Arthur H. Jennings, "The South Not Responsible For Slavery," The Gray Book (Columbia, Tennessee: The Gray Book Committee, Sons of Confederate Veterans, 1935), page 14.
22. Reference: Spears, American Slave Trade, page 50.
23. Samuel Hopkins, quoted by Spears, ibid., pages 19, 20.
24. John Brown, quoted by Spears, ibid., page 116.
25. Thomas Jefferson, Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson (Charlottesville, Virginia: F. Carr and Company, 1829), Volume I, page 15.
26. John Tyler, address to Congress on 1 June 1841; quoted by Munford, Slavery and Secession, page 38.
27. Henry Wilson, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America (Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1874), Volume II, page 619.
28. House Executive Document Number 7 (Thirty-Sixth Congress, Second Session), page 15.
29. W.E. Burghardt DuBois, The Suppression of the American Slave Trade to the United States of America 1638-1870 (New York: Longmans, Green and Company, 1896), page 178.
30. Reference: Jennings, "South Not Responsible," pages 16-17. See also Dabney, Defense of Virginia, Chapter Two.
31. U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 9, Clause 1.
32. C.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 9, Clause 1.
Contributors:
