Amistad (case)

( it was carrying broke out in 1839 when the Schooner was traveling along the coast of Cuba . The ship was taken over by a group of captives who had been kidnapped in Africa and sold into slavery. The Africans were later apprehended on the vessel near Long Island, New York at what is now Montauk Point State Park by the United States Navy and taken into custody. The ensuing widely publicized court cases in the United States helped the Abolitionism movement along. In 1840 , a federal trial court found that the initial transport of the Africans across the Atlantic had been illegal and that they were not legally slaves but free. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed this finding on March 9 , 1841 , and the Africans travelled home in 1842 .

REBELLION AT SEA

The voyage of the ''Amistad'' began on June 28 , 1839 in Havana , Cuba (then a Spanish Colony ), where 53 Africans had purportedly been bought as slaves. The ship was headed to Puerto Principe , Cuba. However, on July 2 , 1839 , one of the Africans, Cinqué , managed to free himself and the other captives. They killed the ship's cook, Celestino, (who had earlier scared the slaves by describing how they would be killed and eaten upon arrival) and the captain in a struggle that also killed two Africans. Two sailors escaped. The slaves spared the lives of the two purported slave owners, Ruiz and Montez, upon the understanding that they would return the ship to Africa. They also spared the captain's personal slave.

However, the navigator deceived the Africans and steered the ''Amistad'' north along the coast of the United States where the ship was sighted repeatedly. They dropped anchor half a mile off Long Island, New York on August 26 , 1839 . Some of the Africans went on shore to procure water and provisions, and the vessel was subsequently discovered by the United States naval brig '' Washington ''. Lieutenant Gedney, commanding the ''Washington'', assisted by his officers and crew, took custody of the ''Amistad'' and the rebel slaves, subsequently taking them to the state of Connecticut . He then presented a written claim under Admiralty Law (that is, a Libel ) for salvage of the vessel, the cargo, and the Africans. Gedney allegedly chose to land in Connecticut because, unlike in New York , slavery was still technically legal there (though extremely rare), and hoped to profit from the slaves.

''THE AMISTAD'' CASES

A case before the Circuit Court in Hartford, Connecticut , was filed in September 1839, alleging Mutiny and Murder . The court ruled that it lacked Jurisdiction , because the alleged acts took place on a Spanish ship in Spanish waters.

Various parties then filed property claims to the slaves, to the ship and to its cargo before the lower of 1795 between Spain and the United States. Article 9 of this treaty holds that "all ships and merchandises of what nature soever, which shall be rescued out of the hands of pirates or robbers on the high seas, …shall be restored, entire, to the true proprietor." The United States filed this claim on behalf of Spain.

The Abolitionist Movement had formed the "Amistad Committee", headed by New York City Merchant Lewis Tappan , and had collected money to mount a defense of the Africans. Initially, communication with the Africans was difficult, since they did not speak English or Spanish . Professor Gibbs learned to count to ten in their native Mende Language , went to the harbor of New York City , and counted out loud until he located a person able to understand and translate. That person was James Covey, a twenty year old sailor, of the ship ''Buzzard'', a British man-of-war. Covey was himself a former slave from West Africa.

The abolitionists filed charges of Assault , Kidnapping , and False Imprisonment against Ruiz and Montez. Their arrest in New York City in October 1839 outraged Conservatives and the Spanish government. They were eventually released on bail and left for Cuba.

The abolitionists' main argument before the District Court was that a treaty between Britain and Spain of 1817 and a subsequent pronouncement by the Spanish government had outlawed the slave trade across the Atlantic. It was established that the slaves had been captured in Mendiland (current Sierra Leone ) in Africa, sold to a Portuguese trader in Lomboko (south of Freetown ) in April 1839, and taken to Havana illegally on a Portuguese ship. The Africans were therefore not slaves, but victims of illegal kidnapping and free to go. Their papers wrongly identified them as slaves that had been in Cuba since before 1820 , a common practice in Cuba condoned by government officials.

U.S. President Martin Van Buren , who did not have strong opinions on the slavery question but was concerned about relations with Spain and about his re-election prospects in the southern states, sided with the Spanish position; he ordered a U.S. schooner to New Haven Harbor to return the Africans to Cuba immediately after a favorable decision, before any appeals could be decided.

The District Court however agreed with the abolitionists, ordering in January 1840 that the ''Amistad'' and its cargo be given to Lieutenant Gedney and the Africans be returned to their homeland by the U.S. government. (The federal government had outlawed the slave trade between the U.S. and other countries in 1808 , and a law from 1818 , amended in 1819 , provided for the return of all illegally traded slaves.) The captain's slave was declared the rightful property of the captain's heirs and was ordered restored to Cuba (he escaped to Canada ).

The U.S. Attorney for the District Of Connecticut , on order of Van Buren, immediately appealed to the Circuit Court. This court upheld the decision in April 1840 but nevertheless forwarded the case to the U.S. Supreme Court for a final decision because of its international importance.

John Quincy Adams , Congressman from Massachusetts and former President Of The United States , agreed to argue the case on behalf of the Africans before the high court. The Supreme Court ruled in ''The Amistad'', 40 U.S. 518 ( 1841 ), that the Africans had been kidnapped from their homeland and had therefore (even under Spanish law) never been lawful slaves and the legal property of Ruiz and Montez, that (therefore) article 9 of the Pinckney treaty did not apply to them, and that they were free and had the right to defend that freedom through violent insurrection. The U.S. law from 1818 did not apply to them either since they had not been brought to the U.S. in order to be sold, and the federal government was thus not obliged to pay for their return to Africa. The one dissenting justice also essentially agreed with these findings.

AFTER THE TRIAL

The Mende greeted the news of the Supreme Court's decision with joy. Free at last, the survivors—35 men and boys and 3 girls—were brought to Farmington, Connecticut by abolitionist supporters, a village considered "Grand Central Station" on the Underground Railroad . Charles Ledyard Norton was a child in Farmington at the time and he wrote of the Mendi's arrival in his journal, "Barracks were erected and here the former captives made their home. Cinque was a born ruler. Ably seconded by his lieutenant, Grabeau, he maintained a very creditable degree of discipline among his followers. They were, for the most part, free to roam about, except for regular school hours, and townsfolk soon ceased to fear them. Anxious mamas at first trembled and kept their children behind bolted doors, but before long it was no uncommon sight to see the big grown-up blacks playing with little white children in village dooryards."

The Amistad committee continued to instruct the Africans in English and Christianity and collected donations to pay for their return. Along with several missionaries, the surviving 36 Africans travelled back to Africa early in 1842, and a mission was erected in Mendiland . The Amistad committee later evolved into the American Missionary Association , an evangelical organization which continued to support the Mendi mission, argued for abolitionism, and eventually established many schools for freed slaves in the U.S.

In the following years, the Spanish government continued to press for compensation, and several lawmakers from southern states introduced resolutions into Congress to pay. These efforts were supported by presidents James K. Polk and James Buchanan , but they all failed.

Cinqué, once returned to Africa, is often said to have set himself up as a slave trader. No surviving documentation supports this claim and opinion among reputable historians seems to range from "not proven" to "presumed innocent". What little evidence we have are Oral Accounts from Africa and a claim by William A. Owens to have seen letters, written by AMA missionaries, suggesting that Cinqué was a slave trader.

The United States faced an incident similar to the Amistad case in the Creole Case of 1841.

LEGACY

A simplified version of the events described was made into a movie called '' Amistad '' in 1997 . It was directed by Steven Spielberg and starred Anthony Hopkins as John Quincy Adams, Morgan Freeman as one of the Abolitionists, Djimon Hounsou as the Africans' leader Cinqué and Matthew McConaughey as their Lawyer . This film also depicts the initial transport of the slaves from Africa to Cuba, showing group drownings (tying a number of slaves in line to a bundle of rocks and pushing the rocks off of the side of the ship, causing the slaves to fall into the sea), death by starvation and suffocation. This is, however, a dramatisation; while drowning slaves was a recognised practise in the trade, there are no accounts of mass executions on that ship (or on the ''Amistad'').

There is a statue of Cinqué beside the City Hall building in New Haven, Connecticut .
In March 2000 , a Replica of the ''Amistad'' was launched from Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut . Its mission is to educate the public on the history of Slavery , Discrimination and Civil Rights . The vessel is currently homeported in New Haven, Connecticut , where the Amistad Trial occurred. It also travels to port cities for educational opportunities. The official name of the vessel is the ''Freedom Schooner Amistad''.

The Historical Society of Farmington Connecticut offers walking tours of village homes that once housed the Africans while funds were collected for their return home, as well as the grave stone of Foone, who drowned in the Farmington River.

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Amistad (case)