Somerset v Stewart

Common card · No. 240284

Somerset v Stewart (1772) 98 ER 499 (also known as Sommersett v Steuart, Somersett's case, and the Mansfield Judgment) is a judgment of the English Court of King's Bench, relating to the right of a slave on English soil not to be forcibly removed from the country and sent to Jamaica for sale. The action was commenced on behalf James Somerset, an enslaved African who had been purchased by Charles Stewart while he was in North America, at the time a British crown colony. On his return to England, Stewart brought Somerset with him. After continuing for some time in servitude in England, Somerset escaped. He was recaptured a few weeks later, and was imprisoned on a ship bound for the British colony of Jamaica, where he was to be sold on to a plantation owner. Friends of Somerset made an application in 1771 to the Court of King's Bench for a writ of habeas corpus, requiring the ship's captain to produce Somerset, and asking the court to determine whether his imprisonment was lawful. Typically...

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