Wanderer was the penultimate documented ship to bring an illegal cargo of enslaved people from Africa to the United States, landing at Jekyll Island, Georgia, on November 28, 1858. It was the last to carry a large cargo, arriving with some 400 people. Clotilda, which transported 110 people from Dahomey in 1860, is the last known ship to bring enslaved people from Africa to the US.

Originally built in New York as a pleasure schooner, Wanderer was purchased by Southern businessman Charles Augustus Lafayette Lamar and an investment group, and used in a conspiracy to import kidnapped people illegally. The Atlantic slave trade had been prohibited under US law since 1808. An estimated 409 enslaved people survived the voyage from the Kingdom of Kongo to Georgia. Reports of the smuggling outraged the North. The federal government prosecuted Lamar and other investors, the captain and crew in 1860, but failed to win a conviction.

During the American Civil War, Union forces confiscated the ship and used it for various military roles. It was decommissioned in 1865, converted to merchant use, and lost off Cuba in 1871. Lamar himself would later become the last Confederate soldier to be killed in action during the war.

In November 2008, the Jekyll Island Museum unveiled an exhibit dedicated to the enslaved Africans on Wanderer. That month also marked the unveiling of a memorial sculpture on southern Jekyll Island dedicated to the enslaved people who were landed there.

The trans-Atlantic slave trade was made illegal by both Britain and the United States in 1807, with the two laws coming into effect on 1 May 1807 and 1 January 1808, respectively. The Royal Navy started intercepting illegal slave traders off the coast of Africa in 1807, but serious enforcement activity started in 1808 with the establishment of the West Africa Squadron The British also worked to persuade other nations to end their involvement in slave trading. At the same time, the British began exerting pressure on the African rulers to stop exporting people as slaves. In contrast, the United States made little effort to enforce their legislation until 1820 and 1821, when US naval ships patrolled the West African coast. A level of local co-operation was achieved between the two navies, but the US persisted in forbidding Royal Navy ships to board slavers flying the American flag. Consequently, US colors were a means by which slavers of many nations avoided interception. US Navy ships were next involved in anti-slavery patrols off Africa in 1842 as a result of the Webster–Ashburton Treaty, but with limited effect.

After the US outlawed the transatlantic slave trade, people continued to buy slaves in Africa and bring them to the US. As sectional tensions rose in the late 1850s, there was growing sentiment among some Southerners to reopen the slave trade. The Wanderer was built in 1857 and in 1858 it was partially outfitted for a long voyage. There was considerable speculation about the ship's projected use; it was inspected in New York harbor. As there was no conclusive evidence that it was to be used as a slave ship, it was allowed to pass. It departed flying the pennant of the New York Yacht Club and under command of Captain Corrie.

When the Wanderer stopped in Charleston, South Carolina, on its way to Africa, its mission was so well known that it was greeted with a cannon salute.

Corrie sailed to the mouth of the Congo River in the Kingdom of Kongo (present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo), which was then a Portuguese protectorate with a long-established slave market. For a period of 10 days, he had shelves and pens built into the hold in order to accept a shipment of 490–600 people, who were loaded on the ship. Many of the people died on the six-week journey across the Atlantic Ocean. Wanderer reached Jekyll Island, Georgia on November 28, 1858, delivering 409 enslaved people alive.