[kbenson]

Well, if you want to get into misnomers, calling all the "free men" slavers may be going a bit far. The vessel was not nominally a slave ship, it was a side business of the captain, and speculating on whether the other crew and/or passengers that signed on to a ship sailing in seas where slave trading was banned knew that slaves would later be brought on board at a separate port is hard to do accurately without a lot more information.

[maceo]

No, not at all. Freedom does not occur in isolation.

Commemorating the end of WW2, German president Joachim Gauck said, "On May 8, 1945, we were liberated — by the people of the Soviet Union." The crew on the slave ship were not "free men," even if they were well-meaning.

[senthil_rajasek]

Ignorance is not a defense. Also, it would still be considered aiding and abetting. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aiding_and_abetting

[kbenson]

Ignorance is a defense against aiding and abetting. You can't abet something if you don't know about it. You can unknowingly aid it, but any legal system that prosecutes people for their role crimes they had no knowledge of is not a just system.

Some non-enslaved/kidnapped people of the ship may have had no knowledge of the cargo, or if they did, may not yet have had an opportunity to notify authorities at a port after learning. Calling them slave traders before they've had an opportunity to show their side one way or another is no different than calling the kidnapped people slaves before they've been actually put into slavery.

To be clear, I believe most the people on the ship probably would not raise any alarm over the situation, at least not enough to cause legal trouble, but if you are going to be pedantic about terminology in this way, it only makes sense to do the same in all cases brought forth, unless you are using terminology to manipulate the perspective (this is not an accusation).

Note: Edited slightly for clarity and typos.

[senthil_rajasek]

Notice the "Also" in my original comment. It is meant to be read as 2 distinct sentences.

I am not a lawyer but I do know that people are held responsible for the personal belongings they carry, say on a plane. I know that I cannot carry a prohibited item on a plane and claim that I didn't know how it got there. Which is probably why they make you say that your bag was not touched by any strangers before you board your flight.

The captain of a ship should be held responsible for the ship and it's cargo.

[placeybordeaux]

Of course the captain of the ship should be held responsible. An ignorant ship hand should not.

[lotharbot]

> "I do know that people are held responsible for the personal belongings they carry"

Actually there's strong legal precedent in the opposite direction. From page 14 of [0], "a defendant cannot knowingly acquire or possess that which he or she does not know exists". This sentiment is common in US law -- you can claim to not know how something got into your possession, and if that claim is reasonably credible, you'll typically be let off the hook.

[0] http://www.nycourts.gov/ctapps/Decisions/2012/May12/70opn12....

[senthil_rajasek]

>"a defendant cannot knowingly acquire or possess that which he or she does not know exists"

I read the above line several times carefully.

Here is the meaning I made out of that sentence, one cannot claim that they knew exactly how they got a certain object and then say at a later time that they did not even know such an object exists.

This is a different scenario than accepting responsibility for your personal belongings (say while flying) and then claiming that you don't know how it got there.

In the former case there is evidence that you got that object.

To summarize, my understanding of in flight carry on rules are you are aware of the things you are carrying and would be held responsible if you are later caught with a prohibited item.

[lotharbot]

> "one cannot claim that they knew exactly how they got a certain object and then say at a later time that they did not even know such an object exists"

But it can happen in the opposite order. I recall at least one professional athlete [0] getting caught with drugs in his bag at the airport, and having the charges dismissed because (supposedly) his friend had used his bag and left the drugs in it, without his knowledge. The claim "I didn't know that existed" (ie, drugs in the bag -- knowing drugs exist in general is not the same as knowing drugs exist within your bag) is compatible with the later claim "given that it does exist, I'm certain as to where it came from" (knowing someone else had used that bag during the prior week).

In the context of this thread, it's quite possible for (some of) the crew of a ship to be in the dark as to what cargo might be onboard, and therefore to not knowingly possess contraband or be involved in slave trading. "Ignorance of the law is no defense; ignorance of crime is one." [1] As kbenson rightly pointed out, it's not "aiding and abetting" if you don't know crime is happening; it's only "aiding and abetting" if you're trying to help someone commit a crime. As the link you yourself posted says, "It is necessary to show that the defendant has wilfully associated himself with the crime being committed" -- not merely that he helped someone who happened to have committed a crime, but that he intentionally, knowingly, chose to participate in crime.

[0] http://espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=1906525

[1] http://www.nbcnews.com/id/40709114/ns/us_news-weird_news/t/i...