The American Slave Trade (Spears)/Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII
SLAVERS DECLARED PIRATES
Fines and Imprisonment with Rewards for Informers were not Sufficient to Stop Slave Smuggling — Workings of the Prohibitive Legislation Illustrated by the Doings of the Knife-Inventor Bowie and the Pirate Lafitte — Slaves Sold by the Pound — Influences that Led to the Piracy Act.
With the smoke of the Amelia Island camp-fires in their eyes and nostrils our national legislators undertook the task of making the dead law of 1807-08 a live one. Both houses brought in bills, but adroit politicians were found in Congress to see that the power of the bills was weakened, if not destroyed, and in this case these politicians succeeded in ruining the bill altogether.
The bill as passed was entitled "An act in addition to ‘an act to prohibit the introduction [importation] of slaves into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States, from and after the first day of January in the year of our Lord 1808,' and to repeal certain parts of the same." It was approved on April 20, 1818.
It might with truth have been entitled "An act to promote treachery among smugglers.' Congress supposed that by appealing to the cupidity of the lawless, and offering a cash premium to those smugglers who would inform on their associates, the morality of the smuggling region would be improved.
To show how the new law differed from that of 1807, it may be said that the old provided (see sec. 2) that "every such ship"? engaged in importing slaves "shall be forfeited to the United States." The law of 1818 [sec. 1] provided "forfeiture, in any district in which it may be found; one-half thereof to the use of the United States, and the other half to him or them who shall prosecute the same to effect.But while the act was ineffective, as a whole, one section (8) is of interest because it clearly shows a tendency in Congress at that time to extirpate the trade. Therein it was provided that in "all prosecutions under this act the defendant or defendants shall be holden to prove" that the slave "which he or they shall be charged with having brought into the United States, or with purchasing, selling, or otherwise disposing of the same," was brought into the United States at least five years previous to the commencement of such prosecution, or was not brought in, holden, or purchased, or otherwise disposed of contrary to the provisions of this act." To throw the burden of proof on the accused was a novelty in American legislation.
The next year Congress acknowledged this law to be inefficient by passing the act of March 3, 1819. While this was in the House of Representatives, Nelson, of Virginia, had a clause inserted providing the death penalty for engaging in the traffic. This penalty was struck out in the Senate. Du Bois notes here that Congress was already beginning to divide on party as well as geographical lines when slavery
See page 75.
was to be considered. The bill of 1818 was favored, he says, "by the South, the Senate, and the Democrats." The law of 1819 was the bill of the North, the House, and by the as yet undeveloped but growing Whig Party.
Under the act of 1819 the President, in section 1, was "authorized, whenever he shall deem it expedient, to cause any of the armed vessels of the United States to be employed to cruise on any of the coasts of the United States or territories thereof, or of the coasts of Africa or elsewhere... to seize" American slavers. The proceeds from the sale of seized slavers were to be divided between the nation and the naval crew, and a bounty of $25 for each slave so taken was given in addition.
The President was also authorized to appoint an agent to reside on the coast of Africa (Liberia) to receive and care for the negroes when captured.
Plain citizen informers were to have half the proceeds of fines and $50 cash bonus for each slave captured in the course of smuggling operations.
On the other hand, in the interests of the slavers, it was provided (sec. 5) that a naval officer must "bring the vessel and her cargo, for adjudication, into some port of the State or Territory to which such vessel so captured shall belong, if he can ascertain the same." This section was added on the motion of Congressman Butler, of Louisiana, who said he had "a due regard for the interests of the State that he represented." The slave-ships owned in New Orleans, for instance, were to be sent to New Orleans for adjudication. Section 4 provides also that "it shall be ascertained by verdict of a jury" whether a ship had violated the law.
To show how this law operated we may quote a passage from the life of the noted James Bowie, of New Orleans, who gave his name to the famous sheathknife. Bowie, with his brother, Rezin Bowie, and two others of like adventurous minds, formed a company, and entered into treaty with Lafitte, who was still a chief spirit among the smugglers in the Gulf region. Lafitte "sold them sound and likely blacks off his slave-ships at the rate of a dollar a pound. That made the average price something like $140 the head. In the open market the blacks would fetch from $500 to$1,000 each." Having purchased the slaves, the ordinary course was to sneak them through bayous to any purchaser they could find. But taking advantage of the law that gave half the proceeds of the sale of the negroes to the informer, besides a bounty of $50 a head, they often informed on each other, under false names, and had the slaves condemned and sold by due process of law. At the sale no competitors appeared, because it was fully understood in the community that Bowie was evading the law, and, slaves being in demand, public sentiment supported the transaction. The Bowies made a good profit in these transactions, the Government officials got fat fees, and planters got the slaves at market prices.
"Altogether the company realized a profit of some $65,000 within a couple of years. But the business involved such mummery and flummery of false names, pretended disguises, and pretended seizures that the Bowies pretty soon tired of it." They were a rough lot, but they were not sneaks. They proved, long fore the words were written, that "it is physically imbefore for a brave man to make money the chief object of his thoughts."
When Congress reassembled in December after passing the act of March 3, 1819, the slave-trade came up for further consideration. The colonization society that established Liberia, of which the story is to be told, had, by its activity in various ways, increased the public knowledge of the evils of the slave-trade. Furthermore, it was able to reach the slave-holders for two reasons. First, it was pledged not to interfere with American slavery. Second, it was formed for the specific purpose of removing the slave-holder's chief eyesore, the free negro, out of the United States.
Undoubtedly there were in the United States many people who were opposed to the trade because of principle. But the student cannot overlook the fact that the feeling against the trade was able to make headway because there was no financial interest in slaves or slavers at the North, outside of a few ports, and at the South there were increasing numbers of slave-owners who had slaves to sell through the natural increase of their holdings. The fact that the coastwise trade had demanded consideration in the previous legislation is significant. Virginia was already the mother of an export trade in slaves. To prohibit absolutely the importation of wild Africans was to "bull the market" for the planters who found more profit in breeding slaves than in cultivating the soil.
Meantime the privateers, so-called, of the Latin-American republics had made alarming attacks on our unarmed merchant ships. Pirates swarmed over the West India seas, and their doings were justly believed to be, in many cases, chargeable to the slave-trade. The slavers turned pirates, and the pirates turned slavers, as occasion warranted.
In short, from good motives and bad, a bill was brought in that became the act of May 15, 1820. Because it provided the death penalty for participation in the slave-trade, the sections pertaining to the trade shall be given in full:
And be it further enacted, That, if any citizen of the United States, being of the crew or ship's company of any foreign ship or vessel engaged in the slave-trade, or any person whatever being of the crew or ship's company of any ship or vessel owned in whole or in part, or navigated for, or in behalf of, any citizen or citizens of the United States, shall land, from any such ship or vessel, and, on any foreign shore, seize any negro or mulatto, not held to service or labor by the laws of either of the States or Territories of the United States, with intent to make such negro or mulatto a slave, or shall decoy, or forcibly bring or carry, or shall receive, such negro or mulatto on board any such ship or vessel, with intent as aforesaid, such citizen or person shall be adjudged a pirate, and, on conviction thereof, before the Circuit Court of the United States for the district wherein he may be brought or found, shall suffer death.
And be it further enacted, That, if any citizen of the United States, being of the crew or ship's company of any foreign ship or vessel engaged in the slave-trade, or any person whatever, being of the crew or ship's company of any ship or vessel owned wholly or in part, or navigated for, or in behalf of, any citizen or citizens of the United States, shall forcibly confine, or detain, or aid or abet in forcibly confining, or detaining, on board such ship or vessel, any negro or mulatto not held to service by the laws of either of the States or Territories of the United States, with intent to make such negro or mulatto a slave, or shall, on board any such ship or vessel, offer or attempt to sell, as a slave, any negro or mulatto not held to service as aforesaid, or shall, on the high seas, or anywhere on tide-water, transfer or deliver over, to any other ship or vessel, any negro or mulatto not held to service as aforesaid, with intent to make such negro or mulatto a slave, or shall land or deliver on shore, from on board any such ship or vessel, any such negro or mulatto, with intent to make sale of, or, having previously sold, such negro or mulatto as a slave, such citizen or person shall be adjudged a pirate, and, on conviction thereof before the Circuit Court of the United States for the district wherein he shall be brought or found, shall suffer death.
An an expression of the sentiment of the nation as a whole at that time, regarding the slave-trade, that law seems unmistakable. But that was not all that Congress did to show the determination of the nation to suppress the slave-trade. On May 12th a resolution passed the House as follows:
"That the President of the United States be requested to negotiate with all the Governments where Ministers of the United States are or shall be accredited, on the means of effecting an entire and immediate abolition of the slavetrade."
The law was comprehensive and just. Though limited in life to two years, it was made perpetual by a joint resolution on January 30, 1823. This resolution looked to a wide-spread and thorough enforcement of the law. It was a good resolution.