Amistad Seizure: The Court Case that Captivated the World
The Amistad Seizure (also known as the Amistad Incident, the Amistad Rebellion, the Amistad Mutiny, and Amistad Revolt) was a conflict aboard the Spanish schooner La Amistad in July 1839, off the coast of Cuba, during which free Blacks, who had been illegally kidnapped from Africa to be sold as slaves, took over the ship, killed crew members, and demanded return to their home in Mendeland (modern-day Sierra Leone, West Africa). Instead, the ship’s owners secretly steered them toward the United States, where the ship was seized and the resulting court case – United States v. The Amistad (1841) – became the most famous of its time.
The ship (whose name means “friendship”) and its human cargo were claimed by Spain (as it was a Spanish ship), by the Cuban owners, and by Lt. Thomas R. Gedney of the brig Washington, who had brought La Amistad into port at New London, Connecticut, and so sought salvage rights. To determine which of these claims was valid, the court first had to establish the status of the 49 African adults and 3 children found on board – whether they were slaves or free – and this was extremely difficult as all of them only spoke their native tongues.
The administration of President Martin van Buren was eager to resolve the case quickly and extradite the Africans to Cuba, but the abolitionists of Connecticut, led by the lawyer Lewis Tappan raised funds for their legal defense, found an interpreter, and, after the case was finally heard by the US Supreme Court, where the Africans were defended by former president and lawyer John Quincy Adams, they were freed and eventually returned home.
The case received international attention as it focused on the issue of slavery, what defined a “slave”, and whether enslaved people had the right to armed revolt in securing their freedom. It also brought to light discrepancies between established laws regarding the slave trade and how those were skirted by various parties. The media covered the case extensively right from the start, and these stories were eventually heard by the slave Madison Washington, inspiring his leadership of the Creole Mutiny/Creole Rebellion of 1841.
The decision of United States v. The Amistad (1841) also generated widespread support for the abolitionist movement in the North, enraged pro-slavery factions in the South, and further escalated conflict between the two in the years leading up to the American Civil War.
The people who eventually wound up at the center of the Amistad case were kidnapped from their various villages in the modern-day Sierra Leone region of West Africa at some point in February 1839. They were sold to Portuguese slave traders who loaded them onto the slave ship Tecora and took them to Cuba.
England and the United States had abolished the international slave trade by this time, and Spain, allied to England, had, too, but refused to outlaw slavery in its colonies and allowed for the transfer, by ship or any other means, of slaves between different points. Slave traders could get around the laws prohibiting the international slave trade by filling their ships’ holds with kidnapped people on the coast of Africa, sailing to a port like Havana, Cuba, and then claiming the “slaves” on board had been born in Cuba and were only being transported from one place to another.
The men, women, and children were unloaded from the Tecora and sold at a market in Havana. 53 of them were purchased by Jose Ruiz and Pedro Montes, who planned to sell them in Puerto Principe, Cuba. La Amistad, captained by its owner Ramon Ferrer, was hired for transport and left Havana on 28 June 1839 for Puerto Principe, a journey that should have taken only four days.
La Amistad was not a slave ship, but a domestic cargo schooner 120 feet (37 m) long with a small hold. As it could not accommodate the 53 Africans below deck, many were kept above and, although all were restrained by shackles, could move about freely, and, as was later revealed, learn about the ship and who among the crew could steer it.
On the night of 1 July 1839, one of the men below deck, Sengbe Pieh (better known as Joseph Cinque, circa 1814 to circa 1879) found a rusty file (or was given it by a fellow prisoner), broke his padlock, freed himself, and then freed the others. Early in the morning of 2 July, they came up on deck to take control of the ship, as described by scholar Marcus Rediker:
A group of four men – Cinque, Faquorna, Moru, and Kimbo – led the way as they climbed up and out of the hatchway onto the main deck. They moved with the grace and precision of warriors accustomed to daring midnight attacks. They picked up belaying pins and barrel staves and stole over to the ship’s boat where the mulatto cook and slave sailor Celestino lay sleeping. They bludgeoned him to death. As more men escaped their irons and swarmed up on deck, they opened a box of cane knives, tools they were meant to use in cutting sugar cane, but which would now serve the purpose of self-emancipation.
Two Africans were killed in taking the ship, Captain Ferrer was killed, and two deckhands escaped in a small boat. The Africans spared Ruiz, Montes, and Ferrer’s slave, Antonio, because they had observed that these three could navigate the ship and return them to their home. Ruiz and Montes agreed to take them back but then secretly steered them north toward the United States, where, they hoped, the ship would be seized by authorities and their ‘property’ returned to them.
⇒ Amistad Seizure: The Court Case that Captivated the World
romaincrisis
andulkaphoto
titsay
kaledo-art
areudirty
origamiaround
yousharknotpass
janainaart
