27 - “To Enter America from Africa and Africa from America” during the Nineteenth Century

Summary

On November 17, 1862, the New York Times reported that the transatlantic slave trade continued to flourish, arguing, “no commerce was ever more profitable than the traffic in Africans, provided those engaged could go on unmolested.”¹ Even after the United States abolished the “African Trade” in 1807, slave trading across the Atlantic remained alluring to merchants unconvinced of the lucrativeness of “legitimate” trade with West and Central Africans. The Times tracked over 150 vessels that engaged in the slave trade from 1858 to 1861. Of that number, American authorities had seized thirty-six ships in US ports alone, primarily in the South. The commandeering of these ships exposed some American citizens’ complicity in perpetuating a trade then considered the shame of the “civilized” world. The Times detailed the circumstances under which officials impounded slave ships and arrested “Slavers” during the period preceding the Civil War.