66 (1825), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States considered, for the first time, the legitimacy of the international slave trade, and determined "that possession on board of a vessel was evidence of property".

[4] Captain John Jackson of the Dallas filed a claim (called a "libel" in admiralty law) in federal court in admiralty in Savannah to be paid either $25 (~$498.00 in 2023) a head for the Africans on the Antelope under the provisions of the 1819 Act in Addition to the acts prohibiting the slave trade, if they were free, or the salvage value as property lost at sea, if they were slaves of Spanish and Portuguese owners.

[5] John Smith was first mate on the Columbia, later renamed Arraganta, when it sailed from Baltimore, Maryland under a letter of marque issued by the Uruguayan revolutionary José Gervasio Artigas.

(American law prohibited U.S. citizens from serving on foreign war ships, and all of the crew on the Columbia had sworn that they were not U.S.

[6] Smith was put on trial for piracy in December 1820 on three charges, that he had stolen $25 (~$545.00 in 2023) worth of goods from a French schooner attacked by the Arraganta, and that he had participated in the capture of a Portuguese ship and of the Antelope.

After he was acquitted of piracy, Smith filed a libel for the return of the Antelope and its cargo as a legitimate prize.

Smith and another member of the prize crew testified that 25 Africans had been taken from the American brig Essex, and that approximately half of those had died or drowned en route.