The Last Slave Ships: New York and the End of the Middle Passage

by John Harris

Overview

“This stunning behind-the-curtain look into the last years of the illegal transatlantic slave trade in the United States represents “a signal contribution to U.S. antebellum historiography.”—Library Journal, starred review
 
“A remarkable piece of scholarship.”—Eric Herschthal, New Republic
 
“Uncovers an important—and little known—aspect of both New York City history and the history of the illegal slave trade to Cuba.”—Erin Becker, Global Maritime History
 
Long after the transatlantic slave trade was officially outlawed in the early nineteenth century by every major slave trading nation, merchants based in the United States were still sending hundreds of illegal slave ships from American ports to the African coast. The key instigators were slave traders who moved to New York City after the shuttering of the massive illegal slave trade to Brazil in 1850. These traffickers were determined to make Lower Manhattan a key hub in the illegal slave trade to Cuba. In conjunction with allies in Africa and Cuba, they ensnared around two hundred thousand African men, women, and children during the 1850s and 1860s. John Harris explores how the U.S. government went from ignoring, and even abetting, this illegal trade to helping to shut it down completely in 1867.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300247336
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	11/24/2020
Pages:	312
Sales rank:	1,137,926
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

John Harris is assistant professor of history at Erskine College.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction. The Midcentury Moment 1

1 The Final Triangle Takes Shape 13

2 Slave Traders at Work 56

3 Aboard an Illegal American Slaver 93

4 Ring of Spies 137

5 American Politics and American Suppression 183

Epilogue. Atlantic Reverberations 235

Notes 249

Index 291

Editorial Reviews

10/16/2020

In this engrossing study, Harris (history, Erskine Coll., SC) traces America's shifting relationship with the transatlantic slave trade during its last illegal period, from 1850 to 1867. Using New York and other Northeastern ports as a backdrop, Harris's astonishingly well-documented work examines how and why the United States remained in the outlawed transatlantic slave trade after 1850 but abandoned the country's involvement in the 1860s. The author also investigates the international results of its decisions. His findings reveal that U.S. participation was made possible not only by the work of the traffickers who often avoided arrest at home and abroad, but also by many Americans' fervent wish to annex Spanish Cuba. Harris shows that U.S. business and geopolitical strength bolstered traffickers with means necessary for maintaining the trade and aided Washington, DC, in blocking international condemnation of its weak approach to suppression. It was not until the GOP took power following the 1860 presidential election, Harris concludes, that Lincoln could begin the destruction of this nefarious trade. This study also reveals, among other topics, the role of the British Foreign Office in its maritime interagency antitrafficking activities, which included an extensive American spy network. VERDICT A signal contribution to U.S. antebellum historiography. Highly recommended for U.S. Middle Period, African American, and Civil War historians, and for all general readers.—John Carver Edwards, formerly with Univ. of Georgia Libs.

Library Journal

Harris is that rare historian who revels in complexity and contradiction and yet manages to also write a clear and gripping narrative.”—James Oakes, New York Review of Books

“Smoothly written, well-researched . . . illuminating an often forgotten yet crucially important chapter in US history. . . . Timely.”—Gerald Horne, Nation

“A remarkable piece of scholarship, sophisticated yet crisply written. . . . [It] deserves the widest possible audience.”—Eric Herschthal, New Republic

“Engrossing. . . . Astonishingly well-documented. . . . A signal contribution to U.S. antebellum historiography. Highly recommended for U.S. Middle Period, African American, and Civil War historians, and for all general readers.”—Library Journal, starred review

“A riveting and deeply researched account. . . . Compelling and convincing. It will be the authoritative source on the late Atlantic slave trade, and U.S. policy toward it, for years to come.”—Gregory E. O’Malley, Journal of Southern History

“A groundbreaking contribution to the history of capitalism, international politics, and slavery.”—Marcelo Rosanova Ferraro, Business History Review

“A nuanced and impressive narrative which uncovers an important—and little known—aspect of both New York City history and the history of the illegal slave trade to Cuba.”—Erin Becker, Global Maritime History

“[An] engrossing discussion of the closing days of the Atlantic Slave trade.”—Bob Cary, Metropole (blog)

The Victorian Society Book of the Year for 2020

“Harris uncovers the untold story of Lower Manhattan as one of the last hubs of the transatlantic slave trade in the age of steamships, telegrams and daily newspapers. Set against a background of secessionist politics, British spies, and international diplomacy, the author elegantly tracks the last sixteen years of the traffic and offers a new interpretation of why it came to an end. This page-turner combines first rate scholarship with a clear and compelling argument.”—David Eltis, coauthor of Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

“Brilliant and strikingly original. An important addition to the literature on the U.S. involvement in the illegal slave trade with major implications for our understanding of the larger conduct of that traffic throughout the Atlantic world.”—Randy J. Sparks, Tulane University

“With startling detail and crisp prose, Harris exposes an international ring of human traffickers based in Lower Manhattan during the final years of the transatlantic slave trade. Today, as the United States scrutinizes the roots of anti-black racism and the traumatic legacies of slavery, The Last Slave Ships reveals new dimensions of U.S. complicity in the twinned history of global capital and chattel slavery.”—Sharla Fett, author of Recaptured Africans: Surviving Slave Ships, Detention, and Dislocation in the Final Years of the Slave Trade

From the Publisher