Death Sentence of Nathaniel Gordon, Slave Trader — 1862

President Abraham Lincoln authorized the execution of Nathaniel Gordon, who was hanged on February 21, 1862. Gordon became the first and only person in U.S. history to be executed for participating in the slave trade, having been convicted under the Piracy Law of 1820 after his ship, the Erie, was found carrying 897 enslaved Africans. Despite widespread public appeals for clemency, Lincoln refused to commute the sentence, stating that “there ought to be one case” of a Northern white slave trader receiving the death penalty for the crimes inflicted on the Black man. It was said that Gordon’s execution was a major factor in deterring slave traders and ending the slave trade.