Somerset v Stewart facts for kids

Somerset v Stewart (1772) was an important court case in England in 1772. It was about whether an enslaved person could be forced to leave England and be sold in another country, like Jamaica. This case is also known as Sommersett v Steuart, Somersett's case, or the Mansfield Judgment.

At the time, slavery had never been officially made legal by a law in England and Wales. The main judge, Lord Mansfield, decided that English common law (laws based on customs and court decisions) did not support slavery in England. However, he did not say anything about slavery in other parts of the British Empire. This case was watched very closely across the Empire, especially in the American colonies.

The Story of James Somerset

James Somerset was an enslaved African man. He was bought by Charles Stewart, a customs officer, in Boston, which was then a British colony in North America.

Stewart brought Somerset with him when he moved back to England in 1769. But in October 1771, Somerset managed to escape. He was caught again in November. Stewart then had him put on a ship called the Ann and Mary. This ship was heading to the British colony of Jamaica, where Stewart planned to sell Somerset to work on a plantation.

A Fight for Freedom

Somerset had three godparents from his Christian baptism in England: John Marlow, Thomas Walkin, and Elizabeth Cade. On December 3, they asked the Court of King's Bench for a special order called a habeas corpus. This order makes someone bring a prisoner to court to see if their imprisonment is legal.

On December 9, Captain John Knowles brought Somerset before the court. The court then had to decide if it was legal to keep Somerset imprisoned. The Chief Justice, Lord Mansfield, set a hearing for January 21. He also let Somerset go free until then, on the promise that he would return.

Somerset's lawyers asked for more time to prepare their arguments, which was granted. So, the case was finally heard on February 7, 1772. The case got a lot of attention in newspapers. People even donated money to help pay for the lawyers on both sides.

The Lawyers' Arguments

Granville Sharp, a person who worked to end slavery (an abolitionist), was the main supporter behind Somerset's case. Five lawyers spoke for Somerset during three hearings between February and May. These lawyers included Francis Hargrave, James Mansfield, William Davy, John Glynn, John Alleyne, and John Philpot Curran.

Somerset's lawyers argued that even though slavery might be allowed in the colonies, no English common law or law made by Parliament recognized slavery. Therefore, they said, slavery was against the law in England. They also argued that English contract law did not allow anyone to enslave themselves. They said no contract could be binding without a person's agreement. Their arguments focused on legal details, not just on humanitarian reasons.

The two lawyers for Charles Stewart argued that property rights were most important. They said it would be dangerous to free all the Black people in England, who were about 15,000 at that time.

The Court's Decision

Lord Mansfield listened to all the arguments. At first, he gave a short opinion, suggesting that both sides should agree to let Somerset go free. He said if they didn't, he would make a judgment. He famously said, "Let justice be done whatever the consequence."

After hearing both sides, Lord Mansfield took over a month to make his final decision. He announced his judgment on June 22, 1772.

Lord Mansfield was the Chief Justice who decided the Somerset case.

What Happened After

After the decision, Somerset was freed. His supporters, including both Black and white Londoners, celebrated. Lord Mansfield seemed to believe that a very important moral question had been raised. He tried to avoid answering that question fully because it had huge political and economic consequences.

Lord Mansfield is often wrongly quoted as saying that "this air is too pure for a slave to breathe in." These words were actually spoken by one of Somerset's lawyers, William Davy. He was quoting an older case from 1569.

What the Decision Meant

Legal experts have debated for years what exactly this case meant for the law. The different reports of the judgment make it hard to know how far Lord Mansfield went in his ruling.

In 1785, Lord Mansfield said that his ruling in the Somerset case only meant that a slave could not be forced to leave England against their will. He compared it to how a master in earlier times could not force a villein (a type of servant) to leave.

The Somerset judgment did not clearly say that slaves became free as soon as they entered England. It was silent on their exact status in England. However, even if it only stopped masters from forcing slaves out of England, it was still a very important decision. It went against earlier legal opinions that said slaves were like property.

Whatever the exact legal meaning, the public widely understood the Somerset case to mean that, in England, no person could be a slave.

Impact in England

While Somerset's case was a big help to the movement to end slavery, it did not immediately stop people from holding slaves in England. It also did not end Britain's involvement in the slave trade or slavery in other parts of the British Empire. Even after the ruling, enslaved people who escaped in England were sometimes still caught.

Newspaper ads from the time show that enslaved people continued to be bought and sold in Britain. For example, in 1779, a Liverpool newspaper advertised the sale of a Black boy. In 1788, anti-slavery campaigners even bought an enslaved person in England to show that slavery still existed.

It wasn't until 1807 that Parliament decided to stop the slave trade. They made it illegal for British people to trade slaves and tried to stop others through the power of the Royal Navy. Slavery itself continued in parts of the British Empire until it was finally abolished by the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.

The slave merchants who paid for Stewart's defense were not worried about James Somerset himself. They were worried about how ending slavery in England might affect their huge slave trading businesses overseas. Merchants could continue trading slaves for 61 years after Lord Mansfield's decision. Many people believe the case's importance came from how it was reported by newspapers and supported by the abolitionist movement.

Lord Mansfield freed Somerset with his ruling, even though it went against earlier opinions from important legal figures. The case brought the issue of slavery to the public's attention. It was widely, but incorrectly, thought to have ended slavery in Britain. Even Mansfield himself believed slavery was still legal in Britain. When he died in 1793, his will granted freedom to his grand-niece, Dido Elizabeth Belle, who was of mixed race. This shows that slavery was still considered legal at that time.

Abolitionists saw this case as a major step towards ending slavery. It is an example of the legal saying Lord Mansfield used as a warning: "Let justice be done though the heavens fall" (meaning, let justice be done, no matter what happens).

Influence in the British Empire

The Somerset case became a very important part of the law on slavery in English-speaking countries. It helped start a new wave of abolitionism. Lord Mansfield's ruling helped create the idea that slavery was against "natural law" and the rules of the English Constitution. Abolitionists used this idea.

In Scotland, a similar case called Knight v Wedderburn began in 1774 and ended in 1778. The Scottish court ruled that slavery was against Scottish law.

The Royal Navy started stopping the Atlantic slave trade on its own in 1807. At its peak, stopping the slave trade took up one-sixth of the Royal Navy's fleet.

Slavery in the rest of the British Empire continued until it was ended by the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. India was not included in these rules because slavery was seen as part of the local culture there.

Impact in the American Colonies and United States

The Somerset case was reported in detail by newspapers in the American colonies. In Massachusetts, several enslaved people filed lawsuits for their freedom in 1773–1774, based on Mansfield's ruling. The colony's government supported these lawsuits, but the Royal governors stopped them.

During the Revolutionary War, Northern states began to abolish slavery. Vermont was first in 1777, followed by Pennsylvania (1780), Massachusetts (1783), and Connecticut (1784). In Massachusetts, court rulings in cases like Brom and Bett v Ashley (1781) and Quock Walker (1783) led to slavery being found against the new state constitution. This ended slavery in Massachusetts. The Walker case is often seen as the American version of the Somerset Case.

After the American Revolution, the Somerset decision became very important in American discussions about the Constitution and anti-slavery ideas. In the Southern states, slavery was a huge part of the economy and grew even more after the Revolution. This was largely because of the invention of the cotton gin, which made growing cotton very profitable. The new Constitution of the United States protected slavery in these states from federal interference.

See also

• Abolitionism in the United Kingdom
• Dred Scott
• Ottobah Cugoano
• United Kingdom constitutional law
• United Kingdom labour law