A stunning behind-the-curtain look into the last years of the illegal transatlantic slave trade in the United States
Long after the transatlantic slave trade was officially outlawed in the early nineteenth century by every major slave trading nation, merchants based in U.S. ports were still sending hundreds of illegal slave ships to the African coast. The key instigators were slave traders who moved to New York after the shuttering of the massive illegal slave trade to Brazil in 1850. These traffickers made Manhattan a key hub in the illegal slave trade to Cuba. In conjunction with allies in Africa and Cuba, they ensnared around 200,000 African men, women, and children. Harris explores how the U.S. government ignored, abetted, and eventually helped shut down the trade completely in 1867.
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Praise for The Last Slave Ships
“Harris is that rare historian who revels in complexity and contradiction and yet manages to also write a clear and gripping narrative … This is a small book about big things.”
— James Oakes, New York Review of Books
“A remarkable piece of scholarship, sophisticated yet crisply written, and deserves the widest possible audience.”
— Eric Herschthal, The New Republic
“Brilliant”
— Calvin Schermerhorn, Journal of American History
“Harris’s smoothly written, well-researched book … illuminates an often forgotten yet crucially important chapter in US history. Timely.”
— Gerald Horne, The Nation
“Magisterial … Simply a game changer.”
— Manuel Barcia, H-Early-America
"Uncovers an important--and little known--aspect of both New York City history and the history of the illegal slave trade to Cuba."
— Erin Becker, Global Maritime History
“Compelling … should be read by all those interested in the histories of Atlantic slavery, commerce, and antislavery movements”
— Robert Colby, Journal of Early Republic
"Fascinating ... The Last Slave Ships is a model for scholars who wish to place the U.S. Civil War within a broader international context."
— Jonathan White, The Civil War Monitor
"Engrossing … Astonishingly well-documented … A signal contribution to U.S. antebellum historiography. Highly recommended for U.S. Middle Period, African American, and Civil War historians, and for all general readers."
—Library Journal (Starred Review)
"A riveting and deeply researched account. . . . Compelling and convincing. It will be the authoritative source on the late Atlantic slave trade, and U.S. policy toward it, for years to come."
—Gregory E. O’Malley, Journal of Southern History
"Harris [presents] an unimpeachably persuasive argument”
—Thomas B. Blakeslee, New York History
"[Harris] provides readers with a clear and engaging narrative, which is accessible to wider audiences. The book is a groundbreaking contribution to the history of capitalism, international politics, and slavery."
– Marcelo Rosanova Ferraro, Business History Review
"A landmark academic study… The skilfully developed transnational approach mobilised in the book is a model of historical scholarship … This timely, lucid, and highly engaging book needs to find as wide an audience as possible."
– Anita Rupprecht, International Review of Social History
“Brilliant and strikingly original. An important addition to the literature on the U.S. involvement in the illegal slave trade with major implications for our understanding of the larger conduct of that traffic throughout the Atlantic world.”
—Randy J. Sparks, Tulane University
“With startling detail and crisp prose, Harris exposes an international ring of human traffickers based in Lower Manhattan during the final years of the transatlantic slave trade. Today, as the United States scrutinizes the roots of anti-black racism and the traumatic legacies of slavery, The Last Slave Ships reveals new dimensions of U.S. complicity in the twinned history of global capital and chattel slavery.”
—Sharla Fett, author of Recaptured Africans: Surviving Slave Ships, Detention, and Dislocation in the Final Years of the Slave Trade
“Harris uncovers the untold story of Lower Manhattan as one of the last hubs of the transatlantic slave trade in the age of steamships, telegrams and daily newspapers. Set against a background of secessionist politics, British spies, and international diplomacy, the author elegantly tracks the last sixteen years of the traffic and offers a new interpretation of why it came to an end. This page-turner combines first rate scholarship with a clear and compelling argument.”
—David Eltis, co-author of Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade