author
Nathaniel Gordon
Best remembered today not as a literary figure but as a notorious historical subject, he was an American slave trader whose case became a grim landmark in U.S. history. His story is often discussed in writing about the Atlantic slave trade, piracy law, and the Civil War era.
1 Audiobook
The Golden Judge
by Nathaniel Gordon
About the author
Nathaniel Gordon was born in Portland, Maine, in 1826. He is known from the historical record as a ship captain and slave trader rather than as an author in the usual sense.
He became the only person executed by the U.S. federal government for engaging in the slave trade after American participation in that trade had been legally treated as piracy. He was hanged in New York City in 1862, and his case has continued to appear in historical writing about slavery, law, and federal enforcement.
Because the available reliable sources identify him chiefly as a criminal figure in American history, not as a writer with a body of published work, there is little conventional author biography to give here. Readers are most likely to encounter him in nonfiction about the slave trade and the era of Abraham Lincoln.