“Somerset v. Steuart @ 250” via the A.P.S., 30 Nov.

On Wednesday, 30 November, the American Philosophical Society will host a panel discussion on the topic “Somerset v. Steuart @ 250: A Virtual Roundtable Discussion.”

The event description says:

The Somerset v. Steuart trial of 1772 has emerged as an event of much discussion in the history of transatlantic antislavery. Scholars have debated the decision’s importance and centrality to the emancipatory impulses in the British Atlantic, and, more recently, weighed its possible role in the coming of the American Revolution. Some have argued that Lord Mansfield’s decision in James Somerset’s favor was a central, even epochal event, while others maintain that North Americans scarcely noticed the decision.

The panelists are top-notch historians of slavery, law, and politics in the Revolutionary era:

• David Waldstreicher, moderator, teaches at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and is the author of In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American Nationalism, 1776-1820; Runaway America: Benjamin Franklin, Slavery, and the American Revolution; and Slavery’s Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification. His new book, The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley, will be published in March 2023.
• Holly Brewer, Burke Professor of American History at the University of Maryland, is finishing a book that examines the origins of American slavery in larger political and ideological debates, tentatively entitled Slavery & Sovereignty in Early America and the British Empire. She is also Principal Investigator for a documentary editing project called “Slavery, Law, and Power.”
• Christopher Brown is a professor of History at Columbia University, principally studying the British empire in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. His books include Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism and, with Philip D. Morgan, Arming Slaves: Classical Times to the Modern Age.
• Manisha Sinha, the Draper Chair in American History at the University of Connecticut, is the author of The Counterrevolution of Slavery: Politics and Ideology in Antebellum South Carolina and The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition, which won the Frederick Douglass, Avery Craven, James Rawley, and SHEAR Best Book prizes.
• Alan Taylor is the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Professor of History at the University of Virginia. His ten books include William Cooper’s Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early Republic and The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, both winners of the Pulitzer Prize.

To register for this online event, start at this page.

The painting above, courtesy of Colonial Williamsburg, shows Charles Steuart around 1785.

Calls for Papers on the Somerset Case and Much More

Several seminar series and conferences have put out their calls for papers for the 2022-23 academic year, including:

• David Center for the American Revolution at the American Philosophical Society seminar series (deadline 10 June)
• British Group of Early American Historians’ Conference at Cardiff University, 2–3 September (deadline 15 June)
• Washington Area Early American Seminar at the University of Maryland (deadline 17 June)
• Providence College Seminar on the History of Early America (deadline 1 July)

That’s not supposed to be a comprehensive list, just a sign of what’s in season.

One call for papers that particularly caught my eye, however, came from the American Philosophical Society. It’s for a conference on “Somerset v. Steuart @ 250: Facts, Interpretations, and Legacies," to be held on 1–2 December:

In recent years, the Somerset v. Steuart trial of 1772 has emerged as an event of much discussion in the history of transatlantic antislavery. Scholars have debated the decision’s importance and centrality to the emancipatory impulses in the British Atlantic, and, more recently, its role in the outbreak of the American Revolution. Some have argued that Lord Mansfield’s decision in James Somerset’s favor was a central, even epochal event, while others maintain that North Americans scarcely noticed the decision. With the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the trial upon us, the David Center is convening a scholarly symposium to continue this conversation and offer fresh appraisals of the causes, nature, and consequences of the decision.

The program committee seeks paper proposals from scholars in all fields to assess what we have learned and how we might interpret events before, during, and after the 1772 decision. We seek to evaluate the origins of the trial and to examine the question of how important the trial was to the momentous changes of the period, Potential topics and themes include but are not limited to:

• New analysis on the causes and nature of the Somerset decision in 1772.
• Exploration of the impact and reception of the Somerset decision.
• The direct and indirect effects of the decision on the lives of the enslaved and enslavers.
• The influence of the decision on the law, the empire, the politics, and the African diaspora within the British Empire and beyond it.
• The importance or unimportance of ideas, of law, and of courts.
• The historiography of the Somerset case.
• Memory and public commemoration of the decision, both historically and contemporaneously.
• The current use and depiction of the case in educational materials, public debates, the media, and sites of public history.
• The role of James Somerset himself and other African actors.

We will meet on Thursday and Friday, December 1-2, 2022, for online and in-person sessions, all of which will be open to the public. Papers will be distributed in advance. Participants should be committed to read all the papers and to serve as a discussion leader for another session.

Ultimately the conference organizers hope to produce a book of essays published through the David Center and the University of Pennsylvania Press.

People proposing a paper should send send an abstract of 250 words, a one-page c.v., and a brief cover letter about how this topic fits into their research through Interfolio by 15 June. 

“Deeply conflicted over its role in the barbaric institution”

Yesterday I shared more than a thousand words about the American Revolution from Nikole Hannah-Jones’s opening essay in “The 1619 Project,” as originally published by the New York Times.

Most of those words don’t seem to have produced any objections, at least on factual grounds.

Almost all the ire focused on these 135 words, particularly the first three sentences:

Conveniently left out of our founding mythology is the fact that one of the primary reasons the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery. By 1776, Britain had grown deeply conflicted over its role in the barbaric institution that had reshaped the Western Hemisphere. In London, there were growing calls to abolish the slave trade. This would have upended the economy of the colonies, in both the North and the South. The wealth and prominence that allowed Jefferson, at just 33, and the other founding fathers to believe they could successfully break off from one of the mightiest empires in the world came from the dizzying profits generated by chattel slavery. In other words, we may never have revolted against Britain if some of the founders had not understood that slavery empowered them to do so; nor if they had not believed that independence was required in order to ensure that slavery would continue.

I’ll discuss the first sentence tomorrow.

I see more problems with the next two sentences, about anti-slavery views in Britain. The abolition movement in that country was still in its infancy, not strong enough to make the body politic “deeply conflicted.” We might well find individual writers who felt “conflicted” in an intellectual or psychological sense, opposing the brutality of the slave trade and chattel slavery while still thinking the empire required it, at least in the short term. But it took decades for seriously deep political fissures to appear.

The British high court’s 1772 decision in Somerset v. Steuart did limit slavery—but only in Britain. While that case did become an inspiration and precedent for later anti-slavery advocates, Chief Justice Lord Mansfield made clear that his legal ruling didn’t have force over in “the Western Hemisphere.”

A few British writers followed the Somerset decision with calls to limit slavery further. In 1774 the Rev. John Wesley published Thoughts Upon Slavery, which advocated (in a footnote) an end to the slave trade and reform of labor practices in the Caribbean islands. The following year, the nine-year-old, policy-free letters between the formerly enslaved Ignatius Sancho and the bestselling novelist Laurence Sterne were published. Those were indeed part of “growing calls to abolish the slave trade” in 1770s London, but those calls were growing only because they started from nearly nothing—basically Granville Sharp’s 1769 A Representation of the Injustice and Dangerous Tendency of Tolerating Slavery.

Left out of the paragraph above is how in the decade before the war the legislatures of two large North American colonies—Massachusetts and Virginia—voted to end the transatlantic slave trade into their ports. The royal governors vetoed those measures. Thus, the parts of the British Empire furthest along to actually barring the slave trade were two of the provinces kicking up the most resistance to the Crown. And the Massachusetts assembly repeated its vote after the Somerset decision.

Of course, some Western Hemisphere slaveowners didn’t like how the Somerset case ended. Caribbean planters had bankrolled Steuart’s defense because they worried about an adverse ruling. Despite Mansfield’s insistence, some continued to fret about a slippery-slope trend that could eventually limit the profits from their slave-labor sugar plantations.

How strong was that worry for North American colonists? In 2005 Alfred W. and Ruth G. Blumrosen wrote Slave Nation: An Unflinching Look at the Racism that Inspired the American Revolution, arguing that “racist fury over [the Somerset case] united the Northern and Southern colonies and convinced them to fight for independence.” (Their son Steven Blumrosen is credited as coauthor of the paperback edition, which might have been revised.) In 2014 Gerald Horne echoed that argument in The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America and emphasized white Americans’ fears about uprisings of the enslaved before and during the war.

All three of those authors were respected professors, though they were working outside their core specialties; the Blumrosens were experts on discrimination law while most of Horne’s books are about nineteenth- and twentieth-century history. Both titles received early praise for raising provocative and important questions about the Revolution and some prominent mainstream reviews.

In most historical journals, however, reviewers criticized the lack of evidence that leaders of the American resistance showed so much concern about the Somerset case, or any concern at all. Some pointed out how the authors had misinterpreted their eighteenth-century sources, or read backward from later abolitionist writers. However, no one argued that these books were so flawed that we should reject them entirely. They were part of an ongoing historiographical debate.

Hannah-Jones’s essay in “The 1619 Project” appears to have relied on Horne’s argument and possibly the Blumrosens’, among others. However, she stopped short of adopting their position that fear of an end to slavery because of British policy and/or uprisings was the cause, or even the main cause, of the American Revolution.

Nevertheless, some critics of “The 1619 Project” insist on misreading the paragraph above that way.

TOMORROW: Actual words.

“If he could get there he should be Free”

From 19 Aug 1771 to 9 September, an advertisement from John Hunt appeared in the Boston Gazette and the Boston Evening-Post.

Hunt (1716-1777) was a prosperous farmer in Watertown, a local trader and former town representative to the Massachusetts General Court.

His house, demolished in 1935, appears here courtesy of the Watertown Public Library and Digital Commonwealth.

The advertisement read:

Ran away from John Hunt of Watertown, on Tuesday last, a Negro Man named Prince, a tall streight Fellow, walks with a small Hitch. He is about 33 Years old, has been used to farming Business, is a handy Fellow on most Accounts, talks pretty good English.—Had on when he went away a striped Jacket, a Frock & Trowsers almost new.—

His Design was to get off in some Vessel so as to go to England, under the Notion if he could get there he should be Free.

Whoever takes up and secures said Fellow so that his Master receives him again shall be well rewarded for their Trouble.

He carried with him a good Pair of Deerskin Breeches.

All Masters of Vessels are cautioned against carrying off said Servant, as they would avoid the Penalty of the Law.

Hunt had advertised for escaped workers twice in the 1740s, once guessing his quarry would head for part of New England where he had lived before. But this man Prince had a more ambitious idea of reaching Great Britain and liberty.

This was two years after Customs officer Charles Steuart had left Boston with his enslaved manservant James Somerset. But it was months before Somerset tried to escape in London, leading to what in 1772 became a landmark court case over slavery in England.

This advertisement indicates that the “Notion” that a slave could “go to England” and “be Free” was circulating in New England even before the Somerset legal case confirmed, by some readings, that idea.

Noting this advertisement in the Massachusetts Historical Review, Antonio T. Bly declined to guess at why Prince believed he might be free in England. But once John Hunt was announcing it in the newspapers, the idea must have spread even wider than before.

Charles Steuart’s Stamp Act Crisis

In early December 1765, the surveyor-general of the Customs service in North America, Charles Steuart, sat down in his office in Philadelphia to write a report to his superiors about the state of the continent. (I’ve seen this letter dated to both 7 and 8 December.)

The Stamp Act required all ships leaving North American ports after 1 November to carry Customs office documents, called “clearances,” that had been filled out on stamped paper, a way of collecting a tax on that bureaucratic transaction. That made the Customs agents responsible for enforcing the Stamp Act.

Steuart told his bosses that wasn’t easy:

Your Honours, I presume, have been informed of the distracted State of this Continent on Account of the Stamp Act, I am but ill qualified to give a Description of it, for though I have travelled near 2000 miles since my Arrival in America, I have been fortunate enough to escape all the scenes of Rage and Madness that have been acted in it. I must therefore beg Leave to refer to the Accounts from those Officers whose Residence enabled them to give more full Information and particularly to the Officers at New York, where the fury of the Mob committed great Excesses.

All the Distributors of Stamps between Halifax and St. Augustine have been compelled to resign their Commissions, and no stamp papers can be obtained in all these Countries, this has thrown them into great Confusion. The Courts of Law are shut, Redress for Injuries cannot be obtained, debts recovered, nor Property secured or transferred.

But the Evils necessarily occasioned by a Stop to the internal business and Police of the Colonies, are not equal to the Consequences of shutting up their Ports at this season of the year—permit me briefly to enumerate a few of them.

Thousands of Seamen and Others whose sole Dependance is on Navigation not only rendered Useless to their Country but deprived of the Means of Subsistance, Provisions for which there are at this time large Orders, particularly for Corn for France, Spain, Portugal, the Mediterranean &c. must perish on hand, while famin may spread itself through our West India Islands by being suddenly cut of from their usual Supplies; Ireland would be greatly distressed by the Want of flax seed from hence, on which her linen Manufacture depends; Other Articles of Produce by which Remittances may be made to Britain detained in the Country—the Revenue lessened, and trade and Navigation the Source of Wealth and the Support of a Maritime and Commercial Nation, entirely stopped, which must be attended with Ruin to Multitudes and distress to All. These are weighty Considerations, but a stronger Inducement for proceeding to Business here and at New York still remains.

By “proceeding the business,” Steuart meant having Customs officers approve ships for departure with documents on non-stamped paper. He was trying to make the case for his superiors to approve of that policy to ignore the law, at least temporarily.

The Officers at both Places have by their Address and prudence evaded for a full Month granting Clearances, in hopes that some way would be opened by which they might be extricated out of their Difficulties, that time did not pass without strong Applications and even threats, which they had great Reason to believe would soon become very serious.

It is supposed there are uow in this Port 150 Sail of Vessells; the frost generally sets in about Christmas, and continues upwards of two Months; Nothing is more certain than that so great a Number of Seamen shut up for that time, in a town destitute of all Protection to the Inhabitants, even a Militia, would commit some terrible Mischief, or rather that they would not suffer themselves to be shut up but would compel the Officers to clear Vessells without Stamps this would undoubtedly have been the Consequence of a few days longer delay. And, I hope, I need not add, it would have been highly imprudent to have hazarded the Event; the least Evil attending it would in all probability have been the Loss of about £5000—belonging to the Revenue in the Custom house.

So far Steuart’s letter has raised the specters of loss of imperial trade, famine in the Caribbean, damage to the Irish linen industry, and idle sailors rampaging through the North American ports and looting the Customs house. It may also have mentioned dogs and cats living together. All of which led up to…

The Collector came to me on the Morning of the 2d. Instant, told me his Situation, his Apprehensions and his Resolution of proceeding to business immediately; I could not refuse my Approbation and wrote circular Letters to all the other Ports in the district except Quebec, a Copy of which I have the Honour of sending herewith. I had before written to the Officers at New York when that City was governed by the Mob, that they must clear Vessells, if necessary, which they every Moment expected to be forced to, but the Arrival of their Governour gave them some Respite, and they got leave to wait till Philadelphia should take the lead; they accordingly began the 5th.

At last Steuart had gotten to the main substance of his report: he had already told the Customs officers in New York, Philadelphia, and other ports he supervised that they should clear ships to leave without the stamped paperwork.

The Governours were applyed to, but thought proper to observe a cautious Silence. I might have done the same, but do not think it honourable, nor consistent with my duty to withhold my Advice and Opinion in a Matter of Difficulty, when called upon by those who have a Right to demand them.

Having now without Exaggeration laid before your Honours the Situation in which the Officers of these two Ports stood, it is humbly hoped that, abstracted from any Reasoning on the Propriety of the Step they have been compelled to take, their Conduct and my Approbation of it will stand justified on the Plea of Necessity and Self Preservation.

This letter is thus an example of making a decision and asking for forgiveness afterward instead of proposing an action and asking for approval in advance.

These days Steuart is best known as the slaveowner in the Somerset case, but here he was playing a small but significant role in the Stamp Act crisis.

Thomas Hutchinson Meets Dido Belle

The movie Belle is now in theaters, I’m sharing former Massachusetts governor Thomas Hutchinson’s impression of Dido Elizabeth Belle, the young woman of (some) African descent who inspired that drama.

This is from Hutchinson’s diary entry for 19 Aug 1779, when he dined with Lord Chief Justice Mansfield and his family in England. Dido Belle had grown up in that family, receiving a genteel though limited education. It’s notable that she didn’t dine with the family on this occasion and had responsibility for some of the farming operation.

As usual, Hutchinson grasped many of the implications of the situations yet carefully deferred to his aristocratic host’s sensibilities in what issues he raised.

A Black came in after dinner and sat with the ladies, and after coffee, walked with the company in the gardens, one of the young ladies having her arm within the other. She had a very high cap, and her wool was much frizzled in her neck, but not enough to answer the large curls now in fashion. She is neither handsome nor genteel—pert enough. I knew her history before, but my Lord mentioned it again. Sir Jno. Lindsay having taken her mother prisoner in a Spanish vessel, brought her to England, where she was delivered of this girl, of which she was then with child, and which was taken care of by Lord M., and has been educated by his family. He calls her Dido, which I suppose is all the name she has. He knows he has been reproached for shewing a fondness for her—I dare say not criminal.

A few years ago [in 1771-1772] there was a cause before his Lordship bro’t by a Black [James Somerset] for recovery of his liberty. A Jamaica planter being asked what judgment his Ldship would give? “No doubt,” he answered, “he will be set free, for Lord Mansfield keeps a Black in his house which governs him and the whole family.” She is a sort of Superintendent over the dairy, poultry yard, &c., which we visited, and she was called upon by my Lord every minute for this thing and that, and shewed the greatest attention to everything he said.

I took occasion to mention that all the Americans who had brought Blacks had, as far as I knew, relinquished their property in them, and rather agreed to give them wages, or suffered them to go free. His Ldship remarked that there had been no determination that they were free, the judgment (meaning the case of Somerset) went no further than to determine the Master had no right to compel the slave to go into a foreign country, &c. I wished to have entered into a free colloquium, and to have discovered, if I am capable of it, the nice distinctions he mast have had in his mind, and which would not make it equally reasonable to restrain the Master from exercising any power whatever, as the power of sending the servant abroad; but I imagined such an altercation would rather be disliked, and forbore.

As Hutchinson tells Dido Belle’s story, Capt. Lindsay wasn’t necessarily her father—but most people had no trouble saying he was.

The Somerset legal case that Hutchinson referred to has a Massachusetts connection: Somerset’s owner, the Customs official Charles Steuart, had been posted in Boston in 1769 just before returning to Britain with a slave he’d purchased years before in Virginia. Hutchinson had probably met Steuart and might even have seen Somerset at work. But because he was just another enslaved servant, he probably didn’t prompt the attention that Hutchinson gave to Dido Belle.