United States v. The Amistad

First page of the deposition of James Covey concerning La Amistad prisoners held in the New Haven, Connecticut jail, October 4, 1839

A case before the circuit court in Hartford, Connecticut, was filed in September 1839, charging the Africans with mutiny and murder on La Amistad. The court ruled that it lacked jurisdiction, because the alleged acts took place on a Spanish ship in Spanish waters. It was entered into the docket books of the federal court as United States v. Cinque, et al.[15]

Various parties filed property claims with the district court to many of the African captives, to the ship, and to its cargo: Ruiz and Montez, Lieutenant Gedney, and Captain Henry Green (who had met the Africans while on shore on Long Island and claimed to have helped in their capture). The Spanish government asked that the ship, cargo and slaves be restored to Spain under the Pinckney treaty of 1795 between Spain and the United States. Article 9 of the treaty held 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 a claim on behalf of Spain.

Lewis Tappan, American evangelical abolitionist and founder of the "Amistad committee"

The abolitionist movement had formed the "Amistad Committee," headed by the 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 spoke neither English nor Spanish. Professor J. Willard Gibbs, Sr. learned from the Africans to count to ten in their Mende language. He went to the docks of New York City and counted aloud in front of sailors until he located a person able to understand and translate. He found James Covey, a twenty-year-old sailor on the British man-of-war HMS Buzzard. Covey was a former slave from West Africa.[16]

The abolitionists filed charges of assault, kidnapping, and false imprisonment against Ruiz and Montes. Their arrest in New York City in October 1839 had outraged pro-slavery advocates and the Spanish government. Montes immediately posted bail and went to Cuba. Ruiz, "more comfortable in a New England setting (and entitled to many amenities not available to the Africans), hoped to garner further public support by staying in jail.... Ruiz, however, soon tired of his martyred lifestyle in jail and posted bond. Like Montes, he returned to Cuba."[12] Outraged, the Spanish minister, Cavallero Pedro Alcántara Argaiz, made "caustic accusations against America's judicial system and continued to condemn the abolitionist affront. Ruiz's imprisonment only added to Alcántara's anger, and Alcántara pressured Forsyth to seek ways to throw out the case altogether."[12] The Spanish held that the bailbonds that the men had to acquire so that they could leave jail and return to Cuba caused them a grave financial burden, and "by the treaty of 1795, no obstacle or impediment [to leave the U.S.] should have [been] placed" in their way.[13]

On January 7, 1840, all of the parties, with the Spanish minister representing Ruiz and Montes, appeared before the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut and presented their arguments.[17]

The abolitionists' main argument before the district court was that a treaty between Britain and Spain in 1817 and a subsequent pronouncement by the Spanish government had outlawed the slave trade across the Atlantic. They established that the slaves had been captured in Mendiland (also spelled Mendeland, now 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 victims of illegal kidnapping and so, the abolitionists argued, were not slaves but free to return to Africa. Their papers wrongly identified them as slaves who had been in Cuba since before 1820 and so were thus considered to have been born there as slaves. They contended that government officials in Cuba condoned such mistaken classifications.

Concerned about relations with Spain and his re-election prospects in the South, U.S. President Martin Van Buren, a Democrat, sided with the Spanish position. He ordered the schooner USS Grampus to New Haven Harbor to return the Africans to Cuba immediately after a favorable decision, before any appeals could be decided.[18]

The district court, led by judge Andrew T. Judson, ruled in favor of the abolitionists and the Africans' position. In January 1840, he ordered for the Africans to be returned to their homeland by the U.S. government, and for one third of La Amistad and its cargo to be given to Lieutenant Gedney as salvage property. (The federal government had outlawed the slave trade between the U.S. and other countries in 1808; an 1818 law, as amended in 1819, provided for the return of all illegally-traded slaves.) The captain's personal slave Antonio was declared the rightful property of the captain's heirs and was ordered restored to Cuba. (Sterne said that he returned to Cuba willingly.[19] Smithsonian sources say that he escaped to New York,[20] or to Canada, with the help of an abolitionist group.)

In detail, the District Court ruled as follows:

• It rejected the claim of the U.S. Attorney, who argued on behalf of the Spanish minister for the restoration of the slaves.[17]
• It dismissed the claims of Ruiz and Montez.[17]
• It ordered that the captives be delivered to the custody of the U.S. president for transportation to Africa since they were in fact legally free.[17]
• It allowed the Spanish vice-consul to claim the slave Antonio.[17]
• It allowed Lt. Gedney to claim one third of the property on board La Amistad.[17]
• It allowed Tellincas, Aspe, and Laca to claim one third of the property.[17]
• It dismissed the claims of Green and Fordham for salvage.[17]

The U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut, by order of Van Buren, immediately appealed to the U.S. Circuit Court for the Connecticut District. He challenged every part of the District Court's ruling except the concession of the slave Antonio to the Spanish vice-consul. Tellincas, Aspe, and Laca also appealed to gain a greater portion of the salvage value. Ruiz and Montez and the owners of La Amistad did not appeal.[17]

The Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the District Court's decision in April 1840.[17] The U.S. Attorney appealed the federal government's case to the U.S. Supreme Court.[17]

On February 23, 1841, U.S. Attorney General Henry D. Gilpin began the oral argument phase before the Supreme Court. Gilpin first entered into evidence the papers of La Amistad, which stated that the Africans were Spanish property. Gilpin argued that the Court had no authority to rule against the validity of the documents. Gilpin contended that if the Africans were slaves, as indicated by the documents, they must be returned to their rightful owner, the Spanish government. Gilpin's argument lasted two hours.[21]

John Quincy Adams, a former U.S. president who was then a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts, had agreed to argue for the Africans. When it was time for him to argue, he said that he felt ill-prepared. Roger Sherman Baldwin, who had already represented the captives in the lower cases, opened in his place.[21]

Baldwin, a prominent attorney, contended that the Spanish government was trying to manipulate the Supreme Court to return "fugitives." He argued that the Spanish government sought the return of slaves who had been freed by the district court but was not appealing the fact of their having been freed. Covering all the facts of the case, Baldwin spoke for four hours over the course of February 22 and 23.[21] (He was of no relation to the Court's Justice Henry Baldwin.)

Adams rose to speak on February 24. He reminded the Court that it was a part of the judicial branch and not part of the executive. Introducing copies of correspondence between the Spanish government and the U.S. Secretary of State, he criticized President Martin Van Buren for his assumption of unconstitutional powers in the case:[21]

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.[21]

Adams argued that neither Pinckney's Treaty nor the Adams–Onís Treaty applied to the case. Article IX of Pinckney's Treaty referred only to property and did not apply to people. As to The Antelope decision (10 Wheat. 124), which recognized "that possession on board of a vessel was evidence of property,"[22] Adams said that did not apply either since the precedent was established prior to the prohibition of the foreign slave trade by the United States. Adams concluded on March 1 after eight-and-a-half hours of speaking. (The Court had taken a recess following the death of Associate Justice Barbour).[21]

Attorney General Gilpin concluded oral arguments with a three-hour rebuttal on March 2.[21] The Court retired to consider the case.

On March 9, Associate Justice Joseph Story delivered the Court's decision. Article IX of Pinckney's Treaty was ruled inapplicable since the Africans in question had never been 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."[23] The documents submitted by Attorney General Gilpin were evidence not of property but rather of fraud on the part of the Spanish government. Lt. Gedney and the USS Washington were to be awarded salvage from the vessel for having performed "a highly meritorious and useful service to the proprietors of the ship and cargo."[24] When La Amistad anchored near Long Island, however, the Court believed it to be in the possession of the Africans on board, who had never intended to become slaves. Therefore, the Adams-Onís Treaty did not apply and so the President was not required to return the Africans to Africa.[21]

In his judgment, Story wrote:

Joseph Story gave the Supreme Court's majority judgment.

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 their 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.[24]

A print of Cinqué that appeared in the New York Sun on August 31, 1839

Portrait of Kimbo, one of 36 men aboard La Amistad, c. 1839–1840

The Africans greeted the news of the Supreme Court's decision with joy. Abolitionist supporters took the survivors – 36 men and boys and three girls – to Farmington, a village considered "Grand Central Station" on the Underground Railroad. Their residents had agreed to have the Africans stay there until they could return to their homeland. Some households took them in; supporters also provided barracks for them.[25][26][27]

The Amistad Committee instructed the Africans in English and Christianity, and raised funds to pay for their return home. One missionary was James Steele, an Oberlin graduate, previously one of the Lane Rebels. "In 1841 he joined the Amistad Mission to Mendhi, which returned freed slaves to Africa and worked to establish a mission there. However, Steele soon found that the Amistad captives belonged to seven different tribes, some at war with one another. All of the chiefs were slave traders and authorized to re-enslave freed persons. These findings led to the decision that the mission must start in Sierra Leone, under the protection of the British.[28]

Along with several missionaries, in 1842 the surviving 35 Africans returned to Sierra Leone, the other having died at sea or while awaiting trial.[29] The Americans constructed a mission in Mendiland. Former members of the Amistad Committee later founded the American Missionary Association, an integrated evangelical organization that continued to support both the Mendi mission and the abolitionist movement.

In the following years, the Spanish government continued to press the US for compensation for the ship, cargo, and slaves. Several Southern lawmakers introduced resolutions into the United States Congress to appropriate money for such payment but failed to gain passage, although it was supported by presidents James K. Polk and James Buchanan.

Joseph Cinqué returned to Africa. In his final years, he was reported to have returned to the mission and re-embraced Christianity.[30] Recent historical research suggests that the allegations of Cinqué's later involvement in the slave trade are false.[31]

In the Creole case of 1841, the United States dealt with another ship rebellion similar to that of La Amistad.

The US had prohibited the international slave trade in 1808, but ended domestic slavery only in 1865 with the Thirteenth Amendment. Connecticut had a gradual abolition law passed in 1797; children born to slaves were free but had to serve apprenticeships until young adulthood; the last slaves were freed in 1848.

In popular culture

In 1998 a memorial was installed at the Montauk Point Lighthouse to commemorate the Amistad.

Amistad memorial at Montauk Point Lighthouse on Long Island.

On August 26, 2023, the Montauk Historical Society, together with the Eastville Community Historical Society and the Southampton African-American Museum, erected a historic marker near Culloden Point in Montauk where the Amistad was anchored in 1839.

The slave revolt aboard La Amistad, the background of the slave trade and its subsequent trial is retold in a celebrated[32] poem by Robert Hayden entitled "Middle Passage", first published in 1962. Howard Jones published Mutiny on the Amistad: The Saga of a Slave Revolt and Its Impact on American Abolition, Law, and Diplomacy in 1987.

A movie, Amistad (1997), was based on the events of the revolt and court cases, and Howard Jones' 1987 book Mutiny on the Amistad.

African-American artist Hale Woodruff painted murals portraying events related to the revolt on La Amistad in 1938, for Talladega College in Alabama. A statue of Cinqué was erected beside the City Hall building in New Haven, Connecticut in 1992.[33] There is an Amistad memorial at Montauk Point State Park on Long Island.

In 2000, Freedom Schooner Amistad, a ship replica, was launched in Mystic, Connecticut. The Historical Society of Farmington, Connecticut offers walking tours of village houses that housed the Africans while funds were collected for their return home.[34] The Amistad Research Center at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, has numerous resources for research into slavery, abolition, and African Americans.

Senior Justice Joseph Story wrote and read the decision of the Court. The Supreme Court ruled that the Africans on board La Amistad were free individuals. Kidnapped and transported illegally, they had never been slaves. The decision affirmed that "... it was the ultimate right of all human beings in extreme cases to resist oppression and to apply force against ruinous injustice." The Court ordered the immediate release of the Amistad Africans.[35]

• Amistad Research Center
• American slave court cases
• John Quincy Adams and abolitionism
• Mendi Bible

• Jackson, Donald Dale (1997). "Mutiny on the Amistad". Smithsonian. 28 (9): 114–118, 120, 122–124. ISSN 0037-7333.
• Jones, Howard (1987). Mutiny on the Amistad: The Saga of a Slave Revolt and Its Impact on American Abolition, Law, and Diplomacy. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195038282.
• Jones, Howard (2000). "Cinqué of the Amistad a Slave Trader? Perpetuating a Myth". Journal of American History. Organization of American Historians. 87 (3): 923–939. doi:10.2307/2675277. JSTOR 2675277.
• Osagie, Iyunolu Folayan (2000). The Amistad Revolt: Memory, Slavery, and the Politics of Identity in the United States and Sierra Leone. Athens: University of Georgia Press. ISBN 0820322245.
• Rediker, Marcus (2012). The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom. New York: Viking. ISBN 978-0670025046.

• Works related to The Amistad at Wikisource
• Text of United States v. The Amistad, 40 U.S. (15 Pet.) 518 (1841) is available from: CourtListener  Findlaw  Google Scholar  Justia  Library of Congress  OpenJurist  WorldLII 
• "Courtroom portraits of the Amistad captives drawn by New Haven resident William H. Townsend while the prisoners awaited trial", Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University
• "A chronology of the trials", Amistad Ctr
• John Warner Barber (1798–1885), "A History of the Amistad Captives", 1841, e-text, University of North Carolina
• Amistad, Gilder Lehrman Center, Yale Univ
• Michael Peil, "Legal background on the Amistad case", Cornell University (includes case documents)
• "Amistad Court Records Online", Footnote
• "The Amistad Case", the University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School