Atlantic Slave Trade Continues Illegally: 500,000 More Africans Enslaved After 1808

Although the United States banned the Atlantic slave trade in 1808 and declared it piracy in 1820, the illegal trade continued. Historians estimate 500,000 to 1 million Africans were illegally transported to Cuba and Brazil between 1820 and 1867 — with U.S. ships and capital frequently involved. Some historians document hundreds of Africans landed illegally in the American South, particularly in the late 1850s. The Wanderer (1858) and Clotilda (1860) cases documented illegal slave landings in Georgia and Alabama. Britain's Royal Navy patrol of the African coast was the primary enforcement mechanism; the U.S. largely refused to cooperate until 1862.