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This was the context that gave rise to ''Somerset v. Stewart'', where an enslaved African that had been transported to the English mainland had sued for his freedom based on English common law. Lord Mansfield, the judge who decided the case, had been influenced by the arguments of the abolitionists, and eventually awarded freedom to the plaintiff, James Somerset. This decision sent shockwaves throughout the British Empire—especially the American colonies. But it signaled to the enslaved that the British could serve as a vehicle to remove the thumb of their enslavers, much like the Spanish had done during the eighteenth century. <ref> Cedric Robinson, ''Black Movements in America'' (New York: Routledge, 1997), 14-29; Gerald Horne, ''The Counterrevolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States'' (New York: New York University Press, 2014), 209-19. </ref>

===The Impact of ''Somerset===