The coastwise slave trade existed along the eastern coastal areas of North America. Shiploads and boatloads of slaves were transported from place to place on the waterways that exist there. Hundreds of vessels of various sizes and capacities were employed in the transporting of slaves from place to place. The famous Creole case began on board a ship which was transporting 135 slaves coastwise.
A similar incident occurred on board the Amistad, on the high seas.
Legal rights
Prior to 1807, the 1787 U.S. Constitution and the 1793 Fugitive Slave Law were the laws on slavery that applied to two states. Other laws on slavery applied only to the Colony or the State which had enacted them. The multi-faceted 1807 Act of Congress which abolished the importation of slaves from Africa led to the creation of the blockade of Africa. The Act also regulated the coastwise slave trade, hence, it imparted legal rights to those slave traders who utilized the coastwise shipping of slaves in their business.
Greater list of laws
The most important national laws on slavery were these, in the order of their enactment:
1. 1787 The U.S. Constitution.
2. 1793 The Fugitive Slave Law.
3. 1807 The Congressional Act banning the importation of slaves.
4. 1850 The Fugitive Slave Law.
5. 1853 The Dred Scott ruling.
6. 1865 The 13th Constitutional Amendment.
Oftentimes, other subsequent national laws on slavery cited either the U.S. Constitution or the 1807 Act of Congress.
Cabotage
The act of sailing along a coast and using landmarks for guidance is called cabotage, from the French word caboter, ("to coast," "go from cape to cape"). When slaves were the merchandise being transported by cabotage, the practice was called the coastwise slave trade.
The process may be seen in the number of slaves in the colonies north and south of Mason and Dixon's line, as estimated by the royal governors in 1715, as estimated by congress in 1775, and as ascertained by the first census, in 1790, as follows.
By the treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, it secured for one of its monopolies the slavetrade from Africa to the West Indies; in 1750 it beneficently threw open the trade to all its subjects; and its consistent policy is well stated in the official declaration of the earl of Dartmouth in 1775.
A slave state was regularly declared such, at its admission, only by the provision forbidding the legislature to emancipate slaves without consent of owners, or to forbid the domestic slavetrade.
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