284 Political Activity and Resistance to Oppression: From the American Revolution to the Civil War
Th e Atlantic slave trade was a deadly enterprise. African
captives died on forced marches to the coast, in slave pens
on the African littoral, on ships during the Middle Passage,
and during their fi rst year of “seasoning” in the Americas. At
least 40 percent of the Africans caught up in the trade were
killed by it. Historians who count only those who died on
ships during the Middle Passage itself set the mortality rates
at approximately 20 percent.
Th e Atlantic slave trade was carried out by shift ing Eu-
ropean naval powers, each of which overlapped but gained
ascendancy in diff erent time periods. Th e Portuguese were
fi rst, and then came the Dutch, followed by the Spanish and
the French. Th e English began trading in large numbers
during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Th is entry fo-
cuses on the abolition of the British and American trades
because they directly impacted the English settler colo-
nies that would become the United States and because the
United States and England were the fi rst countries to abol-
ish the Atlantic slave trade by law.Abolition in England
Th e British slave trade grew exponentially between the last
decades of the 1600s and the fi rst years of the 19th cen-
tury, and the movement for the abolition of slavery and the
slave trade grew along with it. In the course of the triangu-
lar trade, some African captives were brought to England
and purchased by wealthy Englishmen as personal servants
Th eir exact legal status was unclear until 1772, when op-
ponents of slavery brought the case of James Somerset, a
runaway slave. His owner, Charles Stuart, captured him and
intended to ship him to a Jamaican plantation. In response,
Somerset brought a writ of habeas corpus before Lord
Mansfi eld, the chief justice of the King’s Bench. In Somerset
v. Stuar t, Mansfi eld held that the condition of slavery was
not supported on English soil by English law, and Somerset
must be freed.
Despite this victory for abolitionists, slavery contin-
ued to thrive in the British colonies, and the slave trade
expanded dramatically. Quakers and other religious and
political groups who opposed slavery formed the Society
for Eff ecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, or SEAST,
on May 22, 1787. SEAST was able to focus the energies of
various abolitionist forces and direct it toward one purpose:
the legal abolition of the slave trade. Although its mem-
bers were opposed to slavery as well as to the slave trade,the federal government for their own protection and safety,
and it was the duty of the Supreme Court to determine the
constitutionality of federal laws. Th e Court also held that it
has appellate jurisdiction, whether from state or U.S. courts,
and that such jurisdictional power is necessary to show
states’ errors and the resulting consequences if incorrect
state decisions are not followed. Th e Court explained that
the U.S. district court had exclusive jurisdiction of the laws
of the United States and that the state court had no author-
ity to question the federal district court’s decision. Further,
because the Fugitive Slave Law and all of its provisions were
fully authorized by the Constitution of the United States,
the Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Commissioner had
the legal authority to issue a warrant to commit Booth to
jail. In so doing, Justice Taney and the majority opinion de-
nied the right of state courts to interfere in federal cases,
prohibited states from releasing federal prisoners through
writs of habeas corpus, and upheld the constitutionality of
the Fugitive Slave Act.
See also: Dred Scott v. Sandford; Fugitive Slave Act of 1793;
Fugitive Slave Act of 1850; Fugitive Slaves
Nancy A. McCaslinBibliography
Blue, Frederick J. No Taint of Compromise: Crusaders in Antislav-
ery Politics. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press,
2005.
Peterson, Merrill D. Th e Jeff erson Image in the American Mind.
Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1998.
Rightmire, George Washington. Cases and Readings on the Juris-
diction and Procedure of the Federal Courts. Cincinnati, OH:
W.H. Anderson, 1917.
Abolition, Slave Trade
Th e Atlantic slave trade, the largest forced migration of
people in human history, occurred between the mid-1400s
and the mid-1800s. Estimates of the number of Africans
who survived the journey and arrived in the Americas
range between 9 and 30 million. Th is trade had a profound
demographic impact on both Africa and the Americas. By
the end of the trade, West and West-Central Africa were
close to the brink of demographic exhaustion. By contrast,
Africans were central in populating the Americas, espe-
cially aft er “Old World” diseases destroyed 90 percent of
indigenous populations.