The Creole Affair

by Arthur T. Downey

  The Creole Affair

  The Creole Affair

  The Slave Rebellion that Led the U.S. and Great Britain to the Brink of War

  Arthur T. Downey

  ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD

  Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

  Published by Rowman & Littlefield

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  Copyright © 2014 by Arthur T. Downey

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Arthur T. Downey.

  The Creole affair : the slave rebellion that led the U.S. and Great Britain to the brink of war / Arthur T. Downey.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 978-1-4422-3661-5 (paperback) — ISBN 978-1-4422-3662-2 (electronic)

  1. Creole (Brig) 2. Slave insurrections—United States—History—19th century. 3. Mutiny—United States—History—19th century. 4. Washington, Madison. 5. Slaves—Emancipation—Bahamas—History— 19th century. 6. United States—Foreign relations—Great Britain. 7. Great Britain—Foreign relations— United States. 8. Great Britain. Treaties, etc. United States, 1842 August 9. 9. Webster, Daniel, 1782– 1852. 10. Ashburton, Alexander Baring, Baron, 1774–1848. I. Title.

  E447.D69 2014

  327.7304109'034—dc23

  2014009987

  TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Preface

  The most successful slave revolt in American history—on the high seas, on board the Creole—is an important event on its own, and deserves broad and deep scholarly study. The American and British diplomacy leading to the 1842 Webster-Ashburton Treaty was significant in deflecting the potential for a third US-UK war. This book tries to focus on the US domestic and diplomatic landscapes as seen from the viewpoint of the Creole affair. It also treats the various legal issues, domestic and international. The blending of these subjects enhances our understanding of that period, which is generally little known.

  On the other hand, this book does not attempt to explore the impact of the Creole revolt on the slave and free black communities in the United States (or in the British Caribbean colonies). And it does not attempt to plow much new ground in diplomatic history; for example, it does not explore in depth the non-Creole issues surrounding the treaty, such as the delineation of the Maine boundary. It does attempt to provide an engaging and accurate story of the intersection of these two events, including their development over the following dozen years.

  Fortunately, most of the basic documents are readily available: Presidential Messages to Congress, Opinions of the Attorney General, congressional debates, and the like. However, it proved necessary for me to carry on some research in the archives of the Bahamas in Nassau. Acquiring a personal sense for the physical surroundings of the harbor into which the Creole sailed on November 9, 1841, permitted me to develop a vivid picture of those events. Similarly, it was helpful to stand in “Ashburton House” across the park from the White House—now the parish house of St. John’s Episcopal Church—and in the law office in Ohio of Congressman Joshua Reed Giddings, who offered the brilliant legal defense of the slaves’ revolt.

  The book begins with the facts of the revolt on the Creole. It then offers the context in which that event was set: in the United States, in terms of US-UK relations, and in the British Bahamas (part I). The story then returns to November 1841 in Nassau, and in the United States, and proceeds forward to the conclusion of the Webster-Ashburton Treaty (part II). Part III explores three events in the years following the diplomatic resolution, each event dealing with consequences flowing from the Creole affair. Finally, the epilogue traces the interesting lives in the period after the Creole affair of more than a dozen of the main characters. To assist the reader, there are three appendixes: a chronology of events, the relevant text of Tyler’s Message to Congress in December 1841, and the complete texts of the Webster-Ashburton diplomatic notes dealing with the Creole affair.

  All images are courtesy of the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress, unless otherwise noted.

  Arthur T. Downey

  2014

  Introduction

  For most of us, American history begins with the War of Independence and the establishment of the US Constitution, and then makes a brief stop at the Anglo-American War of 1812. At that point, most discussion of American history leaps forward to the Civil War, with no more than perhaps a glance at the Monroe Doctrine, Alexis de Tocqueville, the Mexican War, the acquisition of Texas, and the California gold rush. As a result, most Americans have missed the enormous growth in territory, strength, population, and social maturity during that half century between the War of 1812 and the Civil War. In the middle of that period, there was a real threat of yet another war—a third—with Great Britain.

  America, slavery, and Great Britain formed a triangle of linked tension. The British introduced slavery into their American colonies, but at the time of the American Revolution, the slavery issue cut both ways for the British. In November 1775, the Royal Governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, promised freedom to slaves owned by rebels if those slaves would join His Majesty’s troops.[1] The British were walking a bit of a tightrope, since they also wanted to leave untouched slaves owned by those colonialists who were loyal to the British Crown. In 1779, Sir Henry Clinton in New York declared that slaves who were captured by British forces while those slaves were serving the rebels would be sold for the benefit of the Crown; on the other hand, slaves who deserted the rebels would be offered “full security”—sort of a promise of freedom. By the end of the Revolutionary War, some 15,000 to 20,000 escaped slaves remained under British protection in the ports that had not yet been evacuated (New York, Charleston, and Savannah). Some 9,000 freed slaves accompanied the last British forces to leave.[2]

  At the time of the establishment of the US government in 1789, 90 percent of blacks in the United States were slaves, and 40 percent of those lived in Virginia.[3] There were no slaves in Maine and Massachusetts, but as late as 1820, New York State had about the same number of slaves as Missouri; slavery remained legal in New York until 1827 and in Connecticut until 1848.

  British action to free American slaves during the American Revolution had been driven by military necessity and clever political pragmatism. However, by the first decade of the new century, Britain had become the international star of the abolition movement. In 1806, Britain passed the Foreign Slave Trade Act, presented as a national security measure, rather than as a humanitarian one, which prohibited participating in the slave trade with current or former colonies and possessions of France.[4] Then, on February 23, 1807, Parliament passed the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, which prohibited participation in the slave trade by British subjects, and the importation of slaves into British possessions, with effect on January 1, 1808. (This Act, of course, did not free any of the 600,000 slaves in the British Caribbean.) In December 1806, President Jefferson advised Cong
ress of his support for legislation to ban the slave trade, and he signed a bill in March 1807, banning the import of slaves, effective ten months later. This nearly coterminous action against the slave trade was an occasion where the triangle of tension among the United States, slavery, and the United Kingdom was relaxed.

  The War of 1812 revealed once again the British-American tension over slavery. British naval raids along the Chesapeake Bay created the opportunity for many slaves to escape and to enlist in British service, as sailors, laundresses, and so forth.[5] Hundreds of slaves enlisted. At the start of the war, the British were interested in only a few slaves—to serve as guides or pilots—but by 1814 the British encouraged mass escapes. Black marines permitted the British to raid deeper into American territory, and also allowed the black marines to “plunder their former masters and retrieve family members.”[6] During the war, more than three thousand slaves from Maryland and Virginia alone fled to British ships. Not surprisingly, these events, as the great scholar of the period and 2014 Pulitzer Prize winner for history, Professor Alan Taylor, noted: “soured many Virginians on the Union because the national government did precious little to defend them and to prevent their slaves from escaping.”[7] The British were “demonized” as “race traitors who allied with savage Indians on the frontier and fomented bloody slave uprisings in the South.”[8]

  The War of 1812 was concluded by the December 1814 Treaty of Ghent. The first article of that treaty required the British to withdraw promptly from American land and waters, and to leave behind any private property, including slaves. The British took a very narrow interpretation of this requirement, and the Royal Navy refused to return hundreds of freed slaves. President Monroe, a slaveholder, instructed the American minister to Britain, John Quincy Adams, to demand compensation for those slaves. The British countered that the royal ships were their sovereign territory (even when within American territorial waters), and the slaves ceased to be “property” once on those vessels. The United States and United Kingdom finally agreed to submit the issue to Czar Alexander I of Russia, who in 1822 decided that the British had to compensate the Americans for those runaway slaves who were on board the navy’s ships. Finally, in 1826, the United States accepted a British offer to settle the claims for $1.2 million.[9]

  The United States tightened the screws on the international slave trade in 1819. In that year, Congress authorized the president to create the “Africa Squadron” of armed US vessels to cruise the African coast and interdict slaver traders.[10] The law provides that any slaves interdicted would be returned to Africa, rather than being sold in the United States. The law also provided an incentive for the US sailors in the squadron: a $25 bounty to be shared by the crew for every African rescued. In 1820, Congress ratcheted up the pressure: a new law provided that any American engaging in the African slave trade would be judged a pirate—and that carried a death penalty.[11] For a brief time in 1820, the United States had five navy ships off the coast of Africa. One of them, the USS John Adams, cooperated with a British Royal Navy ship in an effort to capture a slave ship, but the American ships were soon called to service elsewhere.[12]

  At about the same time, Britain was also dramatically pressing to eliminate the international slave trade through diplomacy, backed by the Royal Navy. Thus, in 1817, Britain entered into treaties with The Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain banning the slave trade and permitting mutual rights of search of their vessels, and also established binational courts to adjudicate captured slave ships.[13] The robust enforcement mechanisms reflected a sea change in the effort to suppress the international slave trade. The British had made overtures to the Monroe administration at about the same time, but the United States rejected the idea. From the American perspective, the central problem was the issue of the “right of search.” Secretary of State John Quincy Adams explained to the British Minister in Washington in 1819 that he simply could not listen to any proposal that would permit a right of search of American merchant vessels by foreign (UK) armed vessels—since it was too reminiscent of the impressment issue that was a trigger for the War of 1812.[14] The timing for the United States was also problematic, since it was dealing with the issue of the expansion of domestic slavery, a problem temporarily resolved by the famous Missouri Compromise of 1820, which preserved the exact balance between slave states and free states.

  By 1823–1824, the United States and the United Kingdom were negotiating a treaty dealing with the slave trade, and they agreed that the two countries would stipulate that the penalties of piracy (death) would apply to the offense of participating in the slave trade by their respective citizens or subjects. The treaty was signed in London on March 13, 1824, but the Senate insisted that the waters off the American coast be excluded from the treaty. The British refused to accept that amendment, and the ratification failed in the Senate. In his message to both houses of Congress on December 7, 1824, President Monroe lamented the failure, but said he was suspending the negotiation of a new treaty until the definitive sentiments of Congress would be ascertained.[15] The British continued to conclude treaties with a host of countries, making the slave trade equal to piracy. (Indeed, in November 1840, the Republic of Texas signed such a slave trade treaty in London.)[16]

  The British took a giant step forward with respect to slavery itself—not only the international slave trade. Effective August 1, 1834, the British abolished slavery throughout most of the Empire. Originally designed as a gradual emancipation, all the slaves were freed as of August 1, 1838. Southern slave owners were aghast at this nearby abolition, and, not surprisingly, this confirmed their view of the British as a menace. Professor Alan Taylor noted:

  Slaves overheard their masters denounce the British as a menace to the republic through their black proxies and abolitionist pawns. . . . American talk unwittingly had confirmed to listening blacks that the British offered their best chance to win freedom for all. Then, in the endless feedback of rhetorical dread, Americans regarded the Anglophilia of slaves as a special menace to the republic of white men.[17]

  US-British relations were seriously strained for several years during the late 1830s. Most of those difficulties involved disputes along the northeast border areas, and did not directly involve slavery. There were, however, three instances—in 1830, 1834, and 1835—when American ships in the domestic slave trade were wrecked near British colonies in the Caribbean, and where the slaves gained their freedom to the anger of their owners. But a little-known event in late 1841 sparked a sharp deterioration in the US-UK relationship and brought America and Great Britain perilously close to their third war. Once again, the triangle of tension—the United States, slavery, and the United Kingdom—tightened. The event also exposed the sectional strains in the nation that, less than twenty years later, led to the Civil War. America’s “original sin” of slavery began to dominate the public square during this period, when the politics and economics of slavery increasingly conflicted with the moral surge of abolitionism.

  That 1841 event was a violent slave rebellion on board an American ship, the Creole, as it sailed with its human cargo from Richmond to New Orleans. It was the most successful slave revolt in American history.[18]

  This is the story of that event, and that period.[19] It is a story of the horrors of slavery and the power of the drive for freedom. It is a story about diplomacy, particularly about how two extraordinary nonprofessional diplomats cleverly resolved the tensions that were pushing the United States and the United Kingdom toward war. And, it is a story about the role of law—domestic and international—with respect to the status of a slave, and the rights and obligations arising from that status. As was usual at that period, the key political leaders on the American side were all lawyers (President Tyler, Secretary of State Webster, Congressmen John Quincy Adams, Joshua Giddings, etc.).[20] On the British side, none of the leading figures were lawyers.

  Even though the slave rebellion lasted only a few days in late November 1841, the struggles to grapple with
specific issues continued into the mid-1850s, including an international claims tribunal in London, and a novella by the great abolitionist orator, Frederick Douglass.

  1. See Arthur T. Downey, Civil War Lawyers: Constitutional Questions, Courtroom Dramas, and the Men Behind Them (Chicago: ABA Books, 2010), 212–16.

  2. See David Brion Davis, In Human Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). See also George M. Fredrickson, “Redcoat Liberation,” New York Review of Books 53, no. 13 (August 10, 2006): 51–53.

  3. Mark S. Weiner, Black Trials: Citizenship from the Beginnings of Slavery to the End of Caste (New York: Knopf, 2004), 73. See also Joseph Ellis, American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic (New York: Knopf, 2007), 268n53.

  4. Jenny S. Martinez, The Slave Trade and the Origins of International Human Rights Law (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 22.

  5. Alan Taylor, The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772–1832 (New York: Norton, 2013), 2.

  6. Ibid., 5.

  7. Ibid., 9.

  8. Ibid., 10.

  9. Ibid., 429–35.

  10. Act of 1819, and Act of March 3, 1819, Relative to the Slave Trade.

  11. Act of 1820, Statute I, May 15, 1820, chap. CXIII—An Act to continue in force “an Act to protect the commerce of the United States, and punish the crime of piracy,” and also to make further provisions punishing the crime of piracy.