Piracy Law of 1820

An Act to protect the commerce of the United States and punish the crime of piracy is an 1819 United States federal statute against piracy, amended in 1820 to declare participating in the slave trade or robbing a ship to be piracy as well. The last execution for piracy in the United States was of slave trader Nathaniel Gordon in 1862 in New York, under the amended act.

The original act, passed in 1819, was officially known as "An act to protect the commerce of the United States and punish the crime of piracy" (Pub.L. 15–77, 3 Stat. 510, enacted March 3, 1819), and provided in section 5 that "That if any person or persons whatsoever shall, on the high seas, commit the crime of piracy, as defined by the law of nations, and such offender or offenders shall afterwards be brought into or found in the United States, every such offender or offenders shall, upon conviction thereof ... be punished by death." Section 6 set the act to expire at "the end of the next session of Congress".

This original 1819 act was amended by "An Act to continue in force 'An act to protect the commerce of the United States and punish the crime of piracy', and also to make further provisions for punishing the crime of piracy" (Pub.L. 16–13, 3 Stat. 600, enacted May 15, 1820), sometimes known as the "1820 Piracy Law." It extended the original act to 2 years after, then to the end of the next session of Congress after that.

It also added three types of piracy:

The act was made "perpetual" by the 17th United States Congress (Pub.L. 17–8, 3 Stat. 721, enacted January 30, 1823).

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