Nathaniel Gordon
| Nathaniel Gordon | |
|---|---|
| Born |
February 6, 1826 Portland, Maine, U.S. |
| Died | February 21, 1862 (aged 36) Tombs prison, New York, New York, U.S. |
| Criminal penalty | Death by hanging |
| Criminal status | Executed |
| Conviction(s) | Slave trading |
Nathaniel Gordon (February 6, 1826 – February 21, 1862) was the first and only slave trader in the U.S. to be tried, convicted, and executed "for being engaged in the Slave Trade," under the Piracy Law of 1820.
Gordon was born in Portland, Maine. He went into shipping and eventually owned his own ship, Erie.
On August 7, 1860, he loaded 897 slaves aboard his ship Erie at Sharks Point, Congo River, West Africa, "of whom only 172 were men and 162 grown women. Gordon... preferred to carry children because they could not rise up to avenge his cruelties."
The Erie was captured by the USS Mohican 50 miles from port on August 8, 1860. The slaves were taken to Liberia, the American colony established in West Africa by the American Colonization Society for the settlement of free blacks from the United States.
After one hung jury and a new trial, Gordon was convicted on November 9, 1861 in the circuit court in New York City. He was sentenced to death by hanging on February 7, 1862.
In passing the sentence, Judge W.D. Shipman, in the course of his address to the prisoner, said:
Let me implore you to seek the spiritual guidance of the ministers of religion; and let your repentance be as humble and thorough as your crime was great. Do not attempt to hide its enormity from yourself; think of the cruelty and wickedness of seizing nearly a thousand fellow beings, who never did you harm, and thrusting them beneath the decks of a small ship, beneath a burning tropical sun, to die in of disease or suffocation, or be transported to distant lands, and be consigned, they and their posterity, to a fate far more cruel than death.
Think of the sufferings of the unhappy beings whom you crowded on the Erie; of their helpless agony and terror as you took them from their native land; and especially of their miseries on the ---- ----- place of your capture to Monrovia! Remember that you showed mercy to none, carrying off as you did not only those of your own sex, but women and helpless children.
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Wikipedia