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C
HAPTER
1
S
OMERSET’S
J
OURNEY
S
PARKS THE
A
MERICAN
R
EVOLUTION

1
. Details of the lives of Somerset and Stewart have recently been unearthed by our colleague Mark Weiner in “New Biographical Evidence in Somerset’s Case”: 121–36; and in
Black Trials
. Weiner has reported that the correct spelling of Stewart’s name is Steuart, but the conventional spelling has been retained.

2
. Weiner,
Black Trials
, 77

3
. Gerzina,
Black London
, 1–68

4
. Fielding,
Extracts from Penal Laws
, 142–144

5
. Gerzina,
Black London
, passim

6
. Fryer,
Staying Power
, 71–72 . See
www.eastlondon history.com/wilkes.htm

7
. Weiner,
Black Trials
, 79; Gerzina,
Black London
, 90–132

8
. See Wiecek,
Antislavery Constitutionalism
, 20–61; Shyllon,
Black Slaves in Britain
. Oldham,
Mansfield Manuscripts
1221–45

9
. Landon Carter, the owner of the most slaves in Virginia, expressed similar feelings in his diary when some of his trusted slaves left to join the British in 1776. Isaac,
Landon Carter’s Uneasy Kingdom
, 3–15

10
. Habeas corpus is an ancient form of order requiring a person to explain to the court the reasons for the detention of another person.

11
. Blackstone,
Commentaries (1765)
, 123, repeated on 412. Blackstone modified this statement in his 1768–69 revision by adding at the end that, “the master’s rights to his service may possibly still continue.” Blackstone,
Commentaries (1768–69)
, 424–425. See Wiecek,
Antislavery Constitutionalism
, 27

12
. Mansfield was hated in the colonies after 1765 when he rejected the colonial claim of “no taxation without representation” by stating that the colonies were fully subject to the will of Parliament in all matters. During debate on the repeal of the Stamp Act and adoption of Declaratory Act, he took the position that the colonists were subject to the power of Parliament without limitation, and that there was no difference between internal and external taxes and that “when the supreme power abdicates, the government is dissolved.” Gipson,
Coming of the Revolution
, 113–114. See Bernard Bailyn,
The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967) 200–202 on the English attitude toward Parliament as reflected by Blackstone. See Beverly Zweiben,
How Blackstone Lost the Colonies
(Garland Publishing Co., 1990), suggesting that Blackstone’s assertion of Parliamentary supremacy bore some responsibility for hardening the position of the British government.

13
. Davis,
Problem of Slavery,
488-501, discusses the
Somerset
decision as part of an emerging free-labor philosophy. See Gipson,
The Coming of the Revolution,
7, for a general perspective on the period in England.

14
. Oldham, “New Light on Mansfield” 45-65 at 48

15
. Gerzina,
Black London
, 88-89

16
. Ibid. 66–67

17
. Ibid. 120, quoting Granville Sharp, New York Historical Society, 186

18
.
Somerset v. Stewart
, Howell’s State Trials, Vol. 20, 1, 80 (1771–7).

19
. Edward Fiddes, “Lord Mansfield, and the
Somerset
Case,”
Law Quarterly Review
50, (1934), 508–509

20
.
General Evening Post
, May 26, 1772 , p. 4, col. 3 (p. 2 of May 28 section). Stewart acknowledged that the West Indian planters and merchants had taken over control of the case. Davis,
Problem of Slavery
, 480–81n20.

21
. Howell’s State Trials, Vol. 20, 82 (1771–7). There is some dispute over the exact language used in Mansfield’s opinion. See Oldham, “New Light on Mansfield.” The dispute does not affect the point that the decision was interpreted at the time as freeing the slaves in England. A clear summary of the uncertain status of slaves in England prior to the Somerset decision appears in Higginbotham,
In the Matter of Color
, 313–355. The restrictive interpretations of the decision of
Somerset
in England after the 1780s are discussed at 356–358.