geeky
On June 27, 1839, the Spanish ship La Amistad (meaning “Friendship”), departed from Havana, Cuba (then a Spanish colony), for Puerto Principe, also in Cuba. The ship was transporting 53 African slaves, "owned" by the governor-general of Cuba. The voyage normally took only four days, the crew had brought only four days’ worth of rations, not anticipating the strong headwind that slowed the schooner. On July 2, 1839, one of the Africans, Cinqué, managed to free himself and the other captives. Some of the Africans killed the ship's cook and also killed the vessel's captain in a struggle in which two of the rebelling slaves were killed. Two sailors escaped in a lifeboat. The slaves spared the lives of the two crew members who could navigate the ship on the condition that they would return the ship to Africa. They also spared the captain's personal slave, Antonio, using him as an interpreter between themselves and the two sailors.
The crew deceived the Africans and steered the Amistad north along the coast of the United States. They dropped anchor half a mile off eastern Long Island, New York, on August 26, 1839, at Culloden Point. The vessel was discovered by the United States revenue cutter USRC Washington. Lieutenant Thomas R. Gedney, commanding the cutter, took custody of the Amistad and the rebel slaves. He took them to the state of Connecticut and presented a claim under admiralty law for salvage of the vessel, the cargo, and the Africans. Lieutenant Gedney chose to land in Connecticut because slavery was still technically legal there, unlike in New York. He hoped to profit from sale of the slaves. Gedney transferred all captured slaves into the custody of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, at which time legal proceedings began.
Among the parties to the lawsuit were Lieutenant Gedney who claimed the captives and cargo on board La Amistad as property seized on the high seas, the two Spanish sailors named Ruiz and Montez who sued for the return of their slaves and cargo, be returned to them, the Office of the United States Attorney for Connecticut, representing the Spanish Government, who wanted the slaves, cargo, and vessel to be returned to Spain as its property, and the Africans themselves, who denied that they were slaves or property, or that the court could return them to the control of the government of Spain. Their case was supported by the abolitionist movement's Amistad committee headed by New York City merchant Lewis Tappan.
Great Britain and Spain tried to bring diplomatic pressure on President Martin Van Buren, in the former case for the release of the Africans, and in the latter for the return of the ship, cargo and Africans. 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.
On January 7, 1840, the civil case was argued before the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut. President Van Buren was not necessarily a supporter of slavery, but he was concerned about relations with Spain and about his re-election prospects in the southern states. He sided with the Spanish position and tried to order 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. However the District Court agreed with the abolitionists. The court ordered 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 U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut was instructed by Van Buren to immediately appeal to the U.S. Circuit Court for the Connecticut District. That court upheld the District Court's decision in April 1840. From there, the U.S. Attorney appealed to the United States Supreme Court. On February 23, 1841, the case was argued before the court. Attorney General Henry D. Gilpin began the oral argument. John Quincy Adams had agreed to argue for the Africans, but when it was time for him to do so, he felt ill-prepared so Roger Sherman Baldwin, who had already represented the captives in the lower cases, opened in his place. Baldwin spoke for four hours over the course of the 22nd and the 23rd. Adams addressed the court on February 24. He reminded the court that it was a part of the judicial branch, and not part of the executive (i.e. that it was not answerable to the President). He was critical of President Van Buren for his assumption of unconstitutional powers. He told the court:
"This review of all the proceedings of the Executive I have made with utmost pain, because it was necessary to bring it fully before your Honors, to show that the course of that department had been dictated, throughout, not by justice but by sympathy – and a sympathy the most partial and injust. And this sympathy prevailed to such a degree, among all the persons concerned in this business, as to have perverted their minds with regard to all the most sacred principles of law and right, on which the liberties of the United States are founded; and a course was pursued, from the beginning to the end, which was not only an outrage upon the persons whose lives and liberties were at stake, but hostile to the power and independence of the judiciary itself."
Attorney General Gilpin concluded oral argument with a three-hour rebuttal on March 2. The Court retired to consider the case. A week later, on March 9, Associate Justice Joseph Story delivered the Court's decision. He held that the Africans in question were never legal property. They were not criminals, as the U.S. Attorney's Office argued, but rather "unlawfully kidnapped, and forcibly and wrongfully carried on board a certain vessel". When La Amistad came into Long Island, the Court fount it to be in the possession of the Africans on board, who had no intent to become slaves. Therefore, the Adams-Onís Treaty did not apply, and the President was not required to return the Africans to Africa. Story said in his reasons for decision:
"It is also a most important consideration, in the present case, which ought not to be lost sight of, that, supposing these African negroes not to be slaves, but kidnapped, and free negroes, the treaty with Spain cannot be obligatory upon them; and the United States are bound to respect their rights as much as those of Spanish subjects. The conflict of rights between the parties, under such circumstances, becomes positive and inevitable, and must be decided upon the eternal principles of justice and international law. If the contest were about any goods on board of this ship, to which American citizens asserted a title, which was denied by the Spanish claimants, there could be no doubt of the right to such American citizens to litigate their claims before any competent American tribunal, notwithstanding the treaty with Spain. A fortiori, the doctrine must apply, where human life and human liberty are in issue, and constitute the very essence of the controversy. The treaty with Spain never could have intended to take away the equal rights of all foreigners, who should contest ther claims before any of our courts, to equal justice; or to deprive such foreigners of the protection given them by other treaties, or by the general law of nations. Upon the merits of the case, then, there does not seem to us to be any ground for doubt, that these negroes ought to be deemed free; and that the Spanish treaty interposes no obstacle to the just assertion of their rights.
"When the Amistad arrived, she was in possession of the negroes, asserting their freedom; and in no sense could they possibly intend to import themselves here, as slaves, or for sale as slaves. In this view of the matter, that part of the decree of the district court is unmaintainable, and must be reversed.
"The view which has been thus taken of this case, upon the merits, under the first point, renders it wholly unnecessary for us to give any opinion upon the other point, as to the right of the United States to intervene in this case in the manner already stated. We dismiss this, therefore, as well as several minor points made at the argument.
"Upon the whole, our opinion is, that the decree of the circuit court, affirming that of the district court, ought to be affirmed, except so far as it directs the negroes to be delivered to the president, to be transported to Africa, in pursuance of the act of the 3rd of March 1819; and as to this, it ought to be reversed: and that the said negroes be declared to be free, and be dismissed from the custody of the court, and go without delay"
Abolitionist supporters took the freed Aficans to Farmington, and they subsequently sailed back to Africa early in 1842. The Spanish government continued to press the US for compensation. Several lawmakers from southern states introduced resolutions into the United States Congress to pay. These efforts were supported by presidents James K. Polk and James Buchanan, but they all failed to pass in Congress.
A retelling of this historic event was made into a movie called Amistad in 1997. The movie was directed by Steven Spielberg and starred Anthony Hopkins as John Quincy Adams, Morgan Freeman as one of the abolitionists, Djimon Hounsou as Cinqué, Nigel Hawthorne as Martin Van Buren and Matthew McConaughey as Roger Sherman Baldwin.