The Foreign Slave Trade in Louisiana After 1808

American history affords many examples—the Spanish Conspiracy, the Burr Conspiracy, and Murrell’s alleged plan for a slave uprising along the Mississippi, to name a few. The prohibition of the foreign slave trade to the Territory of Orleans was not rescinded, and in 1808, at the end of the twenty-year period prescribed by the Constitution, the prohibition became nation-wide. One of the first acts of the United States in administering the territory acquired from France by the Louisiana Purchase was a prohibition of the foreign slave trade. The inhabitants of Louisiana believed that this meant their ruin, and expressions of discontent were widespread. The discontent of the people of Louisiana with the prohibition of the foreign slave trade, combined with normal frontier lawlessness, doubtless encouraged the people of Louisiana to look benevolently upon slave smugglers. Records proving that actual smuggling of blacks into Louisiana continued after the early 1820’s have not been discovered, though rumors of smuggling were common.

Economics · International trade · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Cuban History and Society · Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies