Lesson 196:
James Somerset
An ongoing illustrative history study
This piece originally posted on 07/30/2025
I'm guessing your elementary school (or even high school) American Revolution curriculum didn't conspicuously mention James Somerset, but it's important to understand his life and the pivotal role he played in the legal underpinnings of just how American slavery came to be defined, and moreover how it was set apart from English case law. Born in West Africa sometime in 1741, Somerset was captured by British slave traders in 1749, and sold in the then-colony of Virginia, to one Scottish merchant named Charles Stewart. In 1764 Stewart moved to Boston to take a position as a Customs official, and brought Somerset with him.
In 1769 Stewart moved to London and again brought Somerset with him. Significantly Somerset was baptized on February 10, 1771 into the Church of England; legally recorded, and with witnesses and three specifically-named godparents. This specific detail is key to the broader legal understanding, as baptism was commonly associated with manumission --though in England it was more of a time-honored custom than it was any legal precedent or framework. Nevertheless in October of that same year, Somerset declared himself free and left Stewart's service.
Somerset's liberty was short-lived; a mere year later in 1771, he was kidnapped and forced aboard a slave trading vessel, to be sold in Jamaica. This is where his legal godparents stepped in and filed a habeas corpus case, which led into Somerset v. Stewart, 98 ER 499. Somerset was transported back across the Atlantic and presented before the King's Bench Court, and after a year of legal wrangling from a number of then-well-known lawyers like Granville Sharp (and a great deal of public attention, on both sides of the Atlantic!), in May of 1772 Chief Justice Lord Mansfield ruled that: the act of bringing a slave to England but then shipping that slave elsewhere for resale, represented a "high act of Dominion" that "must be recognized by the laws of the country where it is used." Essentially Mansfield's reasoning was that since there never had been a legal basis for slavery, neither in English common law nor in statutory law, that the practice was therefore unlawful and that Somerset must therefore be freed. In fact Lord Mansfield even took it an unexpected step further when he pronounced the institution of slavery "is of such a nature that it is incapable of being introduced on any reason, moral or political, but only positive law which preserves its Force long after the reasons, occasion, and time itself from once it was created, is erased from memory. It is so odious that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law."
The case was ultimately a narrow ruling and had truly been decided entirely on legal technicalities, fine print, and precedent... but it also constituted a considerable moral victory, particularly in light of Mansfield's opinion that the entire practice was based on flimsy precepts that should have frankly been dumped centuries ago. While the ruling certainly did not end the practice of slavery in England outright --nor did it affect the status quo of any English colony or territory, nor the actual slave trade itself-- it was the first case of its kind to recognize slavery's inherent wrongness: clearly signalling that this was not an issue that could be deferred indefinitely.
Unfortunately Somerset v. Stewart also had the unintended side-effect of further separating English case law from colonial (American) jurisprudence: the progress of the case had been closely followed in the American press, particularly in the Southern colonies. The decision is also widely considered to be a precursor to Dunmore's Proclamation of 1775, and certainly laid sufficient groundwork for the role of Black Loyalists during the Revolution.
Yet at the same time, the Somerset ruling also more comfortably brought the subject of abolition into everyday American colonial discourse, which gained further traction over the course of the Revolution (and may have even informed Thomas Jefferson's own famously-deleted slavery abolition clause from the Declaration of Independence (see Lesson #15 in this series). Benjamin Franklin would later reference Somerset v. Stewart in his own various abolitionist projects in the following years. And after ratification, four of the new U.S. states (Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and newcomer Vermont) promptly encoded abolition directly into their respective state constitutions, again citing Somerset v. Stewart as the underlying framework.
Once again I am stymied by having no real pictorial reference of my subject; instead I present to you my own humble study based off of John Singleton Copley's Head Of A Man, (also sometimes referenced as Head Of A Negro), painted between 1777 and 1778. As for what happened to Somerset himself: unfortunately history is largely silent on his life after 1772. I would steer you to this poem by Toastingfork as the best coda I can offer.
Next lesson - Lesson 197: James Armistead Lafayette
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