Freebooters and Smugglers: The Foreign Slave Trade in the United States after 1808

5. “A Great Frontier Movement”

“A Great Frontier Movement” SANCTUARIES FOR THE FOREIGN SLAVE TRADE Several factors helped sustain the foreign slave trade in the United States during the 1850s. One was the highly organized filibuster communities.These expeditions of conquest overcame legal and political attacks and penetrated foreign borders with the intention of toppling governments and reintroducing the foreign slave trade through law, policy, and practice. Using filibusters, whale ships, and recycled vessels, slave traffickers and smugglers shared in this objective.They too worked to locate a safe haven for their vocation. By the end of the 1850s their common interests had converged with those of American slaveholders. By then, the idea of legally reopening the foreign slave trade in the United States had become a principle topic of conversation at southern commercial and economic conventions and conferences. It generated spirited debates that persisted up to the Civil War. No matter how much borders and boundaries changed and central authorities may or may not have suppressed the foreign slave trade, in the end, participants in and supporters of the practice always searched for ways 144 5 and places to advance the practice. By the 1850s the trade bound together the interests of the United States with a range of nations, territories, and colonies and its adherents fueled many of the contentious issues that shaped the political and economic context of remote and border regions. Smugglers and traffickers were rarely short of supporters, collaborators, or resources. They sought out locations where they could implant their business. Evidence of the help they received could be seen in the actions and activities of filibusters , who orchestrated plans to establish slaveholding republics that would be sustained through the foreign slave trade, and provided capital for purchase or renovation of otherwise dormant or useless ships. During the 1850s the foreign slave trade was widely recognized as a vital component of America’s slave economy, and those who were most convinced of this made their feelings known and their voices heard to have the practice legally reinstated and sustained. Filibusters and Foreign Invasion Plots Filibuster campaigns and the foreign slave trade brought to surface many of the latent issues that helped expose the necessity of ratcheting up antislavetrade campaigns.When the interests of slave traffickers and smugglers converged with foreign invasion plots (sometimes referred to as “Aaron Burr schemes” or “buffalo hunts”) designed to overthrow existing governments and to install political systems that favored their goals, their activities were met with intense scrutiny. Derived from the Dutch term vrijbuiter, a filibuster in English usage refers to a freebooter.During the seventeenth century,“filibuster”originally referred to English buccaneers or maritime pirates who roamed the Caribbean in search of Spanish quarry. By the 1840s and 1850s, it more often applied to virtual armies of adventurers from the United States and to individuals who joined their ranks. Almost without exception, filibusters preferred Latin America.They mixed political and pecuniary motives, pursued territorial conquests through intervention in the domestic affairs of foreign countries in which the United States was a neutral party, and demonstrated fearless devotion to their cause. Filibustering was viewed by southern planters as necessary to defend and maintain slavery abroad. The object was to enlarge American territory and to influence and expand slavery through the continuation of the foreign slave trade. Revolution, political grievances, liberation, promises of available land, and the desire to control and dominate commercial trade and certain commodities,inspired their actions.Although filibuster expeditions violated the United States Neutrality Act of 1818, which prohibited “A Great Frontier Movement” 145 private warfare by American citizens in foreign lands, thousands joined as recruits or provided material and financial support. Filibusters established their own patterns of conduct and often launched their escapades from American soil by winning the trust of wealthy Americans, politicians, journalists , lawyers, doctors, authors, overseers, immigrants, and the unattached and unencumbered.Viewed by many as heroes, filibusters epitomized the spirit of the frontier. “Conquest and transformation” was their manifesto. Their private military expeditions gave rise to several disputatious issues and to numerous widely publicized controversies. Many of these disputes were tied directly to the foreign slave trade.1 “Annexationism” in Cuba coincided with the expansionist or Manifest Destiny movement in the United States.As Americans were on the brink of acquiring the Mexican Cession, some lawmakers formulated ideas of making Cuba an integral part of their vision, not only to preserve and extend the foreign...