Creole case

The Creole case is an incident in American history concerning the coastwise slave trade, which flourishes for a half century or longer.

In 1841, a brig named Creole (also known as USS Creole) is transporting 135 slaves between Hampton Roads, Virginia and New Orleans.

Nineteen slaves on board the Creole revolt, led by Madison Washington, and direct the ship to be taken to Nassau, on the island of New Providence in the Bahamas, which is at this time a British colony.The Creole case generates diplomatic tension between Great Britain and the United States, and political rumblings within the United States itself.

Secretary of State Daniel Webster explains that the slaves are legal properties and demands their return.

Slavery is by this time illegal in Great Britain and her colonies, and so the British ignores the claim.In the United States House of Representatives, Joshua Reed Giddings of Ohio introduces a series of nine resolutions that argues that Virginia state law does not apply to slaves outside of Virginian waters, and that the US federal government should not act to protect the rights of the slaveholders in this case.

The resolutions provoke strong emotions.

The House censures Giddings, who promptly resigns.

The voters of Ohio reelect him soon afterwards.Though either the United States or the British might have raised the issue during the discussions that produce the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842, neither nation does.

Among other declarations, the Webster-Ashburton Treaty calls for a final end to the slave trade on the high seas to be enforced by both signatories.

The British had arrested and incarcerated the nineteen rebellious slaves and held them on a charge of murder.

The arrest of the conspirators may have placated the Americans sufficiently.

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