Suppressing the Slave Trade
Topic: History
I was visiting the Official Site of the US Navy this evening, and was reminded of something too many Americans seem to forget.

On February 24, 1861, the USS Saratoga, attached to the United States African Squadron, captured the slaver sloop Express, freeing the slaves on board.

The United States often is excoriated, and rightly so, for its sordid history in regards to African slaves. What is usually overlooked, however, is that slavery long predated the Atlantic slave trade, and that said slave trade was only stamped out by the efforts of the Anglo-American navies.

While the Royal Navy, which began the anti-slave trade effort during the Napoleonic wars, had by far the larger role, and deserves most of the credit, the US Navy, as is shown in this example, was also active in suppressing the slave trade even before the Civil War began.

Interested readers can read a fictionalized episode in the fight against the Atlantic slave trade in C.S. Forester's masterful Hornblower Series #10 Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies.