IRB Media Summary of John Harris's The Last Slave Ships

Annotation

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview: #1 The illegal slave trade was banned by every major power in the mid-1800s. But some countries, including the United States, had strong interests in permitting the trade to continue, despite its illegality.#2 The United States and the traffickers who would come to operate from its ports were intimately connected to a much broader Atlantic story that would shape America's engagement in the trade in years to come.#3 The British were the first to permanently end their trade in 1807, and they were the main force behind a network of international slave trade courts known as Courts of Mixed Commission, which were established to adjudicate violations of slave trading treaties.#4 The United States was also a young republic when it took action against the slave trade. In 1787, the U. S. Constitution permitted the importation of slaves for another twenty years, after which Congress would have the authority to end the traffic completely if it wished.