Execution case puts slave trade under the microscope

The first American slave trader executed under the 1820 law was a Portland, Maine, sea captain named Nathaniel Gordon. In 1860, Captain Gordon anchored his Massachusetts-built ship in the Congo River and purchased 897 Africans, paying for them with whiskey. After he reached the Atlantic, his ship was boarded by federal authorities, who seized the vessel and arrested him. The Africans were released, while Gordon was transported to New York City to face trial.

Soodalter does a fine job explaining just how unusual Gordon's prosecution was. The captain was in the wrong place at the wrong time when he got caught, but nobody involved thought he would be convicted or executed. Soodalter details 40 years of lax enforcement, outright bribery, and judicial nullification of the 1820 slave-trade law. The district attorney in New York offered Gordon a plea bargain: If he informed on his financial backers, he'd receive a reduced sentence. A confident Gordon refused the deal.

Then Gordon's luck took a dramatic change for the worse. Abraham Lincoln became president and named an ambitious new district attorney, Edward Delafield Smith. The 34-year-old Smith saw the Gordon case as a chance to make a name for himself and an opportunity to set an example for all future slave traders. He wanted Gordon executed.

Soodalter marshals court documents, newspaper accounts, and private letters to skillfully re-create the courtroom drama. Gordon tried to convince the jury that he was merely a passenger on board the ship and had no idea it was involved in the slave trade. The jury didn't buy it. Moreover, the political climate had changed. New York City Mayor Fernando Wood, who had once proposed that the city secede from the Union in order to continue trading with the South, became firmly pro-Lincoln when the Civil War began.