Put to Sea Again: The Coastwise Traffic of Enslaved People in Antebellum America

In 1807, the US Congress enacted the "Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves," which outlawed the nation’s participation in the transatlantic slave trade. This very same statute required any captain of a coastwise vessel with enslaved people onboard to file a manifest listing those individuals by name with the collector (or in his absence, the surveyor) of the port of departure and of the port of arrival. As a result of this legislation, the coastwise traffic was systematically documented; more than 10,000 manifests listing the names and physical descriptions of enslaved people trafficked to and from various domestic ports survive. Based on a systematic study of these documents, this paper presents an overview of the coastwise traffic in the antebellum United States. It argues that while the domestic slave trade to New Orleans accounted for the largest portion of the coastwise traffic, other routes and trajectories must be considered in order to understand of the traffic as a whole.