Page:The American Slave Trade (Spears).djvu/158

 

 A Slaver's Ferry Between Havana and the Florida Ports — Amelia Island as a Smugglers' Headquarters — The Barataria Pirates and the Smuggling Trade — Extent of the Illegal Traffic — A Georgia Governor who Left His Post to Become a Slave Smuggler.

like a complete story of the smuggling traffic in slaves carried on along the coasts of the United States has ever been told, and none can be told, because of conditions that were very well stated by Congressman Lowndes, of South Carolina, in the House on February 14, 1804. “With navigable rivers running into the heart of it [his State], it was impossible, with our means, to prevent our Eastern brethren, who in some parts of the Union, in defiance of the authority of the general Government, have been engaged in this trade, from introducing them into the country. The law was completely evaded, and for the last year or two Africans were introduced into the country in numbers little short, I believe, of what they would have been had the trade been a legal one."

The fling at New England ship-owners was entirely justified by the facts, but it will also be observed that citizens of South Carolina were the receivers of the goods stolen by the New England thieves.