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The ''Enterprise'' was a United States merchant vessel〔Variously described in sources as a schooner, brig or brigantine〕 active in the coastwise slave trade in the early 19th century along the Atlantic Coast. Forced into Hamilton, Bermuda waters by bad weather on February 11, 1835, it carried 78 slaves in addition to other cargo. It became the centre of a minor international incident when the British authorities freed nearly all the slaves. Britain had abolished slavery in its Caribbean colonies effective 1834. At that time, it advised "foreign nations that any slavers found in Bermuda (the Bahamas ) waters would be subject to arrest and seizure. Their cargoes were liable to forfeiture" without compensation.〔 Bermuda customs officers called a gunboat and Royal Navy forces to detain the ''Enterprise'' ship so that the slaves could be freed. Richard Tucker of the local Friendly Society served the captain with a writ of ''habeas corpus,'' ordering him to deliver the slaves to the Bermuda Supreme Court so they could speak as to their choice of gaining freedom in the colony or returning with the ship to slavery in the United States. The court met from 9 p.m. to midnight on February 18, and the Chief Justice interviewed each slave. Seventy-two of the seventy-eight slaves from the ''Enterprise'' chose to stay in Bermuda and gain freedom. The freeing of slaves from the ''Enterprise'' was one of several similar incidents from 1830 to 1842: officials in Bermuda and the Bahamas freed a total of nearly 450 slaves from United States ships in the domestic trade, after the ships had been wrecked in their waters or entered their ports for other reasons. United States owners kept pressing the government for claims for their losses. In the 1853 Treaty of Claims, the US and Britain agreed to settle a variety of claims dating to 1814, including those for slaves freed after 1834. This was ultimately settled by arbitration in 1855, establishing a payment of $270,700 against the US Government, due British subjects, and $329,000 against the British Government, due to American citizens. Ultimately some insurance companies were paid for the loss of property of the slaves. ==Background== Both the United States and Great Britain had banned the international slave trade since 1807, and both operated sailing patrols off Africa and in the Caribbean to intercept illegal vessels and suppress the trade. The United States in its legislation preserved the right to operate ships for its domestic coastwise slave trade among various markets along the East and Gulf coasts, which became increasingly important as the Deep South rapidly developed cotton cultivation. With labor demand at a height, in the antebellum years, nearly a million enslaved African Americans were moved to the Deep South in a forced migration, two-thirds through the domestic slave trade. New Orleans had the largest slave market and its port was important for the slave trade and related businesses. In 1818,〔(Appendix: "Brigs Encomium and Enterprise" ), ''Register of Debates in Congress,'' Gales & Seaton, 1837, p. 251-253. Note: In trying to retrieve American slaves off the ''Encomium'' from British colonial officials (who freed them), the US consul in February 1834 was told by the Lieutenant Governor that "he was acting in regard to the slaves under an opinion of 1818 by Sir Christopher Robinson and Lord Gifford to the British Secretary of State."〕 the Home Office in London had ruled that "any slave brought to the Bahamas from outside the British West Indies would be manumitted."〔 This interpretation led to British colonial officials' freeing a total of nearly 450 slaves owned by U.S. nationals from 1830 to 1842, in incidents in which American merchant ships were wrecked in the Bahamas or put into colonial ports for other reasons.〔(Gerald Horne, ''Negro Comrades of the Crown: African Americans and the British Empire Fight the U.S. Before Emancipation'' ), New York University (NYU) Press, 2012, p. 103. Horne notes 300; more were freed when all five ships are considered.〕 The American slave ship ''Comet'' was wrecked in 1830 off Abaco Island, as was the ''Encomium'' in February 1834. Customs officials seized the cargoes of slaves when brought into Nassau by wreckers, and colonial officials freed them: 164 slaves from the ''Comet'' and 45 from the ''Encomium''. Britain paid an indemnity to the US in those two cases, but only in 1855 under the Treaty of Claims of 1853. Additional slaves were liberated from American ships during the intervening years.〔Horne (2012), ''Negro Comrades of the Crown'', p. 137〕 Great Britain abolished slavery effective in August 1834 in the British Isles, most of its colonies and their waters. Since the emancipation, Britain had advised "foreign nations that any slavers found in Bermuda (the Bahamas ) waters would be subject to arrest and seizure. Their cargoes were liable to forfeiture" without compensation.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Enterprise (slave ship)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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