The Peculiar Institution and National Honor: The Case of the Creole Slave Revolt

Abstract

The slave mutiny on the brig Creole in 1841 has long been of interest to historians. Not only did it involve American domestic politics, it intimately concerned relations between the governments of the United States and Great Britain. Disposition of the case raised arguments and counterarguments similar to those which were to echo through American politics for two decades and result in the Civil War; it also indirectly affected the negotiation of the Webster-Ashburton Treaty in 1842. Because the Creole revolt occurred in 1841, not 1861, it eventu- ally took its place as a minor incident in antebellum history; yet its potentially explosive nature justifies more attention than it has received. As far as this writer can tell, there has been no full, scholarly treatment of the Creole affair. Partially because of this, many accounts of the event have been either misleading or mistaken.' The reader is left with the erroneous impression that the British government won a diplo- matic victory over the United States, that the incident was indicative of the spontaneous, disorganized nature of slave revolts, and that it caused many Southerners to consider seriously the possibility of having to fight England again. The purposes of this essay are to dispel some of the myths surround- ing the Creole affair, to describe how such a seemingly unimportant event evoked serious questions of national honor, and to offer an ex- planation of the South's surprisingly subdued behavior in the latter stages of the controversy. By the I830*s that section of the United States, just embarking on the politics of slavery, was interested in almost any method to keep the peculiar institution intact. One of these was to prevent incendiary talk about the subject. Indeed, some * This essay was delivered in revised form before the Missouri Valley History Con- ference, Omaha, Nebraska, March 10, 1973. The author wishes to acknowledge the assistance of Professors Maurice G. Baxter and Robert H. Ferrell of Indiana University. 1