## Facts

- A privateer named the *Colombia*, sailing under a Venezuelan commission and manned largely by U.S. citizens, left Baltimore in 1819 and cruised along the West African coast.
- During the voyage, the *Colombia* captured multiple vessels and took Africans from them, including from an American vessel from Bristol, Rhode Island, from several Portuguese vessels, and from a Spanish vessel called the *Antelope*.
- The captured Spanish vessel (also identified in the record under other names) sailed with roughly 280 Africans aboard.
- On June 29, 1820, the U.S. Revenue-Marine cutter *Dallas*, commanded by Captain John Jackson, seized the *Antelope* off the coast of Florida on suspicion of an intended unlawful importation of Africans into the United States.
- The *Dallas* carried the vessel and Africans into Savannah, Georgia, where admiralty proceedings followed in federal court.
- Competing filings included: (a) a libel by Captain Jackson seeking compensation (either per-head compensation under U.S. anti–slave-trade statutes if the Africans were treated as free, or salvage if treated as foreign property), and (b) libels by the Vice-Consuls of Spain and Portugal claiming Africans as the property of their sovereigns or subjects.
- The matter reached the U.S. Supreme Court as an appeal from the Circuit Court of Georgia in admiralty.

## Issues

1. Whether the African slave trade was prohibited by the law of nations, so that U.S. courts could not recognize any property claim in Africans taken in that trade.
2. Whether the slave trade was piracy under the law of nations, permitting seizure and condemnation as piratical activity.
3. Whether, in time of peace, the United States could seize a foreign vessel on the high seas for slave trading absent treaty authority or a domestic-law basis tied to U.S. jurisdiction.
4. Whether possession of Africans aboard a seized vessel was sufficient proof of ownership, or whether claimants bore the burden to prove lawful acquisition and a specific proprietary interest.
5. Whether consuls could claim on behalf of unknown subjects and obtain restitution without identifying proof linking particular Africans to particular foreign owners.
6. How any tie vote among the Justices would affect the decree under review.

## Decision

- The Court (Marshall, C.J.) stated that the African slave trade was contrary to the law of nature, but was not prohibited by the positive law of nations as of 1825; therefore, subjects of nations that had not barred it by municipal law or treaty could still carry it on without violating general international law.
- The Court held that the slave trade was not piracy under the law of nations unless made piracy by the treaties or statutes of the nation to which the offenders belonged.
- The Court reaffirmed that the right of visitation and search does not exist in time of peace; a vessel engaged in the slave trade could not, for that reason alone, be seized on the high seas and brought in for adjudication in another nation’s courts.
- The Court recognized that capture would not be unlawful where the seizing nation’s laws were violated (or where a treaty authorized the proceeding), and treated the seizure in this record as falling within lawful grounds given the suspicions of violations tied to U.S. law and the voyage’s unlawful features.
- On proof of ownership, the Court stated that possession of Africans was not sufficient evidence of property in this setting; the onus was on the claimant to show lawful acquisition and title, with specific proof for the individuals claimed.
- The Court held that although a consul could file claims for subjects unknown of his nation, restitution could not be decreed without specific proof of the individual proprietary interest.
- On whether restitution should be decreed at all in the circumstances presented, the Court was equally divided; to the extent of that division, the decree below was affirmed.
- The net result was a mixed disposition: some Africans were restored where Spanish claims were supported to the required standard, and others were not restored to foreign claimants and were treated as free under U.S. law for purposes of disposition.

## Legal Principles

- Moral condemnation does not itself create a rule of the law of nations; courts applying international law look to widely accepted positive rules shown by state practice, statutes, and treaties.
- The slave trade is not piracy under the law of nations unless piracy is assigned to it by applicable treaties or by the domestic law of the offenders’ sovereign.
- In peacetime, there is no general right for one nation to stop, visit, and search the vessels of another on the high seas; capture requires treaty authority or a lawful domestic-law basis connected to the capturing nation’s jurisdiction.
- In adjudicating claims to Africans found aboard a seized slaver, mere possession does not establish title; claimants bear the burden to prove lawful acquisition and a specific proprietary interest.
- Consular standing to present claims does not dispense with proof; restitution requires identification and evidence tying particular persons claimed to a proven foreign ownership interest.
- When the Supreme Court is equally divided on a point, the decree below stands as to that point.

## Conclusion

*The Antelope* held that, despite the slave trade’s moral wrong, general international law in 1825 did not ban it, and it was not piracy absent treaty or statute; the Court also rejected any peacetime right of search without legal authorization and required foreign claimants to prove specific lawful ownership before U.S. courts would order restitution, leaving parts of the lower decree in place where the Justices divided evenly.


*The Antelope*, 23 U.S. (10 Wheat.) 66 (1825)

The Antelope, 23 U.S. (10 Wheat.) 66 (1825)