Slave Trade Ends: US Abolishes International Commerce in 1807

The US Congress banned the importation of enslaved people effective January 1, 1808, the earliest date permitted under Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution. President Jefferson signed the law on March 2, 1807. The legislation classified international slave trading as piracy, punishable by death after 1820, and authorized the Navy to patrol the African coast and Caribbean waters to intercept slave ships. Enforcement was inconsistent: the US Navy assigned only a handful of vessels to the African Squadron, which captured fewer than 100 ships in fifty years. Meanwhile, the domestic slave trade exploded. Between 1790 and 1860, roughly one million enslaved people were forcibly relocated from the Upper South to the cotton plantations of the Deep South through internal sales and forced marches. The ban on international trade actually increased the value of enslaved people already in the country, making the institution more economically entrenched rather than less. Abolition of slavery itself required a civil war and a constitutional amendment.