On January 1, 1808, the importation of slaves into the United States was banned.
One reply on “International Slave Trade”
When slaves were discovered to have been illegally imported, they were not freed nor returned whence they came; they were confiscated and auctioned.
In some cases, those who exposed smuggling would be rewarded with half of the proceeds of auction. And it could be profitable for a smuggler to report his own smuggling, to buy-back the slaves at effectively half their prices, and then to sell them.
Despite such manipulations, a consequence of the ban was to constrain the supply of slaves, thereby increasing the marginal value of a slave, thus making manumission less likely.
None of that is to argue that the ban should not have been effected. Some people were spared the horrors of transportation in a 19th-Century slave ship, to which they certainly should not have been subjected for the sake of others. But the case illustrates how difficult it can be even to redemiate a grave social problem without further injury to victims.
One reply on “International Slave Trade”
When slaves were discovered to have been illegally imported, they were not freed nor returned whence they came; they were confiscated and auctioned.
In some cases, those who exposed smuggling would be rewarded with half of the proceeds of auction. And it could be profitable for a smuggler to report his own smuggling, to buy-back the slaves at effectively half their prices, and then to sell them.
Despite such manipulations, a consequence of the ban was to constrain the supply of slaves, thereby increasing the marginal value of a slave, thus making manumission less likely.
None of that is to argue that the ban should not have been effected. Some people were spared the horrors of transportation in a 19th-Century slave ship, to which they certainly should not have been subjected for the sake of others. But the case illustrates how difficult it can be even to redemiate a grave social problem without further injury to victims.