The Antelope: The Ordeal of the Recaptured Africans in the Administrations of James Monroe and John Quincy Adams

The slave ship Antelope, carrying 280 Africans in chains, was intercepted near St. Augustine in June, 1820, by a U.S. Treasury cutter. For eight years, the American courts discussed the status and disposition of its “cargo.” Championed on appeal by lawyer Francis Scott Key, the Africans were the object of a tortured decision by Chief Justice John Marshall, freeing some to become early settlers of Liberia and leaving others to become the slaves of a Georgia Congressman. John Noonan examines the eight-year dispute in his consideration of the relationship between law and moral obligation.

Students of American and African-American history and legal history will welcome the close analysis of this nearly forgotten event and the light it sheds on attitudes toward slavery in the U.S.