Lamar, Charles Augustus Lafayette, 1824-1865

Charles Augustus Lafayette Lamar (August 1, 1824 – April 16, 1865) was known as an American businessman from Savannah who invested in the ship Wanderer to import slaves from Africa in 1858, decades after it was prohibited by law. The ship ran blockades and brought 409 surviving slaves from the Congo to the United States for sale. The ship was later impounded. Although Lamar and numerous other defendants were prosecuted, none was convicted of any crime. This was the penultimate slave ship known to have brought in slaves before the Civil War, and the last with a large cargo. The last was Clotilda, which brought 110 slaves to Mobile, Alabama, on July 9, 1860.

Born and raised in Savannah, Georgia, Lamar was the son of businessman and banker Gazaway Bugg Lamar and Jane Meek Cresswell of that city. His mother and all five of his siblings, plus a niece, were lost in the June 1838 explosion and wreck of the steamship Pulaski, when two-thirds of the passengers died. He and his father were among the 59 who survived the sinking ...