Economic Self Interest Versus Racial Control: Mobile's Protest Against the Jailing of Black Seamen

ECONOMIC SELF INTEREST VERSUS RACIAL CONTROL: Mobile's Protest Against the Jailing of Black Seamen Edited by Marshall Rachleff Ante-bellum whites living in slave-dense southern Alabama often manifested consternation over the behavior and growth of the slave population. Always fearful of servile uprisings, the state legislature periodically revised the slave code to better regulate the movement of bondsmen and freedmen.1 Because of the massive increase in the number of slaves from the 1820's through the 1850's, the State Assembly often considered restricting the domestic slave trade.2 Free blacks were especially feared as possible insurrectionary provocateurs and were singled out for special proscriptions. In 1832 Alabama lawmakers prevented freedmen from entering Alabama. The same ordinance, the Anti-Immigration Act, also specified the death penalty for anyone convicted of circulating seditious writing or inciting rebellion among the slaves.3 The Anti-Immigration law, however, was difficult to enforce when free black sailors came into the port of Mobile. In 1835 a panic was generated among white Mobilians when the vessel Warsaw, sailing from New York, arrived with a black crew carrying abolition propaganda. One black was lynched and the others were put in jail and later sent back to New York.4 New legislation had to be constructed to meet similar threats to Alabama's white racial hegemony. In 1842 the General Assembly passed the Mobile Harbor law, an act which stipulated that a ship's captain would be required to confine his black crew members to the ship and post a $2000 bond to insure compliance.5 1 For a study of white fear of slave rebellions in Alabama see Marshall Rachleff, "Racial Fear and Political Factionalism: A Study of the Secession Movement in Alabama, 18191861 " (Ph.d. dissertation, University of Massachusetts, 1974). 2 Ibid., 17-22. 3 John G. Aiken, Digest of the Laws of Ahbama, (Philadelphia, 1843), 396-397. 4 Niies Register, XLIX, 74, Oct. 3, 1835, cited in James B. Sellers, Shvery in Ahbama (University, Alabama, 1950), 368. 5 C. C. Clay, Digest of the Laws of Ahbama, (Tuscaloosa, 1843), 474-476. Civil War History, Vol. XXV, No. 1 Copyright © 1979 by The Kent State University Press 0009-8078/79/2501-0006 $00.50/0 ANTE-BELLUM MOBILE85 While the Mobile Harbor Act reflected a general uneasiness among white Alabamians manifested throughout the 1850's, the strains created by slave reprisals, insurrectionary panics, and abolitionist criticism provoked further debates regarding the strength of the state's racial controls. Many Alabamians wanted more populous white communities because they regarded black labor, slave or free, as a rival labor force. Attempts were made to restrict the further importation of slaves into the state and a colonization society was established to rid the state of free blacks. In 1849 the lawmakers sought to strengthen the Mobile Harbor ordinance by making it mandatory for ships entering that harbor to confine their black seamen in Mobile jails during a vessel's stay in port. The proposed resolution was strongly protested by commercial interests in the North and in England on the grounds that it was an outright obstruction of trade to jail crewmen who had not committed any crimes.6 Dissent against the amendment also came from a prominant group of Mobile citizens. In an example of pecuniary interest overriding racial anxities an assemblege of Mobile insurance executives, city tradesmen, and politicians petitioned against its passage. Five of the signatories were presidents of insurance companies.7 Others held important business and political positions. Thomas W. McCoy, a Whig, was a leading banker and insurance executive who was elected in 1842 to the state legislature where he became a member of the joint examining committee on the state bank and its branches.8 S. J. Murphy was a cotton commission merchant connected with Allen and Hayden, one of the most successful factor houses in Mobile. S. N. Allen, a co-founder of the firm, also signed the petition.9 H. O. Brewer was president of his own cotton commission business, director of the National Commercial Bank and was on the board of the Planters and Merchants Insurance Company.10 Lewis T. Woodruff was a partner in a auction...