Amistad Case

I

Introduction

Amistad Case, court case of 1841 in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that Africans aboard L’Amistad, a ship from the Spanish colony of Cuba that was found off the coast of Long Island, New York, should be returned to their homeland and not returned to Cuba as slaves. While not particularly significant for its legal principles, the case brought great attention to the antislavery movement in the United States. It is one of the few Supreme Court decisions that abolitionists (opponents of slavery) won before the American Civil War (1861-1865).

II

Background

In June 1839 Spanish planters Pedro Montez and José Ruiz purchased 53 Africans in Havana, Cuba. The Africans—49 adult men, 3 girls, and 1 boy—had recently been imported into Cuba illegally by Portuguese slave traders. Ruiz and Montez obtained fake identification papers to indicate the blacks had been born in Cuba and thus were legally slaves there. They then placed the Africans on the ship L'Amistad and set out with them on a voyage to another part of Cuba. After a few nights at sea the Africans freed themselves from their chains and revolted. Led by two men who had been given the names Cinque and Grabeau, the slaves killed the captain and cook and took over the ship. Two other crewmembers disappeared in the revolt. The slaves did not kill Montez and Ruiz because they believed the two men could navigate the ship back to Africa. They also spared the cabin boy, who was a Cuban-born slave.

For nearly two months Montez and Ruiz sailed the ship east during the day, as if headed for Africa. However, at night they turned north, hoping to reach one of the southern ports of the United States. Eventually L'Amistad ended up off the coast of Long Island, New York. It was almost entirely out of food and water, and some of the Africans had died. In late August two fishermen, Henry Green and Peletiah Fordham, began to negotiate with the Africans to sell them food and water. Green and Fordham planned to bring the ship into port and claim it for salvage—that is, request the court to award them compensation for recovering the ship and its cargo. Before they could do so, Lieutenant Thomas R. Gedney, who commanded The Washington, a U.S. Coast Guard ship, boarded L’Amistad and towed it to New London, Connecticut. On board he found Montez, Ruiz, the cabin boy, and 39 surviving Africans.

III

Legal Issues

Gedney quickly filed a legal claim for salvage in U.S. district court in Connecticut. The two fishermen also filed a salvage claim. Montez and Ruiz filed a claim as the owners of the slaves, asking the court to turn over the vessel and its cargo (the Africans) to the Spanish government. Furthermore, William Holabird, the U.S. district attorney in Connecticut, filed a claim on behalf of the federal government asserting that the Africans should be turned over to the custody of the United States.

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Initially Holabird indicated the government wanted to return the slaves to Africa because they had been imported into the United States in violation of various federal laws banning the slave trade. However, after consulting with the administration of President Martin Van Buren, Holabird amended his claim. In an additional filing to the court, Holabird argued that the Africans should be returned to Montez and Ruiz under the terms of the 1795 Pinckney Treaty between the United States and Spain. Simultaneously, Holabird asked that the adult Africans be held for prosecution for murder on the high seas. If the court upheld that claim, the Africans could be sent to Cuba for trial.

While the district court sorted out these competing claims and assertions, the Africans were held in a jail in New Haven, Connecticut. Abolitionists began to organize a defense for the 'Amistads,' as the Africans from the ship came to be known. Over the next two years New York businessman and philanthropist Lewis Tappan led this effort and raised money for the education and legal defense of the Amistads. A Connecticut lawyer, Roger Sherman Baldwin, was primarily in charge of the Amistads’ defense. New York attorneys Seth P. Staples and Theodore Sedgwick and the leading antislavery lawyer in Boston, Massachusetts, Ellis Gray Loring, assisted Baldwin.

In September 1839 the abolitionist lawyers applied to Justice Smith Thompson of the U.S. Supreme Court for a writ of habeas corpus challenging the government’s attempt to return the Amistads to Cuba or to prosecute them for murder. Justice Thompson ruled that because whatever crime the Amistads had committed took place on the high seas on a Spanish ship, the U.S. courts had no authority to investigate the matter. This ended the government’s attempt to prosecute the Amistads for murder. However, Justice Thompson refused to release the Africans until the U.S. district court in Connecticut determined their status.

Working to resolve the various legal claims, District Court Judge Andrew T. Judson began to issue rulings that were generally favorable to the Amistads. First, he determined that because they were not subject to prosecution for their mutiny on the ship, they could not be held in jail. He ordered the U.S. marshal to find a more suitable place to house them and to make sure they had adequate clothing, food, and medical care. He then ruled that slavery did not exist in Connecticut. Consequently, the Amistads could not be considered property and Gedney could claim no salvage rights in them. The remaining question for Judson was the status of the Amistads. If they were African-born and had been taken to Cuba illegally, then they should be set free. If they were legally slaves in Cuba, then he was prepared to turn them over to Ruiz and Montez.

IV

The Trial Court Decision

The trial on the status of the Amistads finally began in January 1840. To avoid being returned to Cuba, the Amistads had to prove that they had been born in Africa and only recently brought to Cuba in violation of various international bans on the slave trade. The Amistads did not speak Spanish, which indicated their African birth. However, the real key to the defense was the testimony of the Amistads themselves. Initially this seemed impossible because no one in Connecticut was able to communicate with them and no one knew what language they spoke. Josiah W. Gibbs, a linguistics professor from Yale College, solved this problem. Gibbs spent time with the Amistads and learned how to count in their language. He then went to the docks in New York City and stopped every black sailor he could find, counting for them in the Amistads’ language and hoping to find someone who spoke it.

Eventually Gibbs encountered James Covey and Charles Pratt, both natives of West Africa who had been kidnapped and enslaved earlier in their lives. Both men spoke Mende, the language of the Amistads, as well as English. Covey, a sailor on a British naval vessel, testified at the trial about conditions in Africa and also translated for the Amistads. Pratt testified that only people who had lived in West Africa could know the geography and culture that the Amistads described. Covey’s and Pratt’s testimony helped show the court that the Amistads were native Africans who had been illegally kidnapped and taken to Cuba.

After hearing all the evidence, Judson ruled against the federal government. He ordered that the Africans be delivered to the president of the United States to be transported to Africa. Judson also granted Gedney salvage rights for one-third the value of the ship itself. Because the cabin boy had been legally a slave in Cuba, Judson ordered that he be returned to Cuba, along with the ship and all its goods, but only after the Spanish government had paid Gedney his salvage claim. President Van Buren, who in anticipation of a favorable decision had sent a U.S. Navy ship to Connecticut to transport the Amistads to Cuba, was greatly surprised and angered by the court’s decision.

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