Nathaniel Gordon of Portsmouth, Maine was executed under the 1820 federal law that designated slave trading as piracy. He had been captured with his ship the Erie on August 8, 1860 off the coast of West Africa by the USS Mohican with a cargo of 897 men, women, and children. The slaves were freed and landed in Liberia and Gordon returned to New York City for trial. He was convicted and hanged there, in the Tombs Prison. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
Ron Soodalter, Hanging Captain Gordon: The Life and Trial of an American Slave Trader (New York: Atria Books, 2006)
Joseph Nathan Kane, ed., Famous First Facts (New York: H.W. Wilson Company, 1981), 252.
Joseph Nathan Kane, ed., Famous First Facts (New York: H.W. Wilson Company, 1981), 252.
Record Data
Date Certainty
Exact
Type
Lawmaking/Litigating
