Five-minute digest

United States v. The Amistad

Joseph Story (opinion of the Court)

Summary

United States v. The Amistad is the Supreme Court case that freed the African captives who had seized the Spanish schooner Amistad. In 1839 Portuguese slave traders kidnapped a large group of people, most of them Mende, from the region of present-day Sierra Leone and carried them illegally to Havana, in violation of Spanish laws and treaties against the African slave trade. There José Ruiz and Pedro Montez bought fifty-three of them, with forged papers calling them Cuban-born slaves, and shipped them on the Amistad along the coast of Cuba. At sea the captives, led by a man called Sengbe Pieh or Cinqué, rose against the crew, killed the captain and the cook, and ordered Ruiz and Montez to steer for Africa. The Spaniards steered by night toward North America instead, and in August 1839 the ship was seized off Long Island by the U.S. brig Washington and brought into Connecticut. A complicated lawsuit followed. The naval officers claimed salvage; Ruiz and Montez claimed the Africans as their property; and the Spanish government, supported by the administration of President Martin Van Buren, demanded that the ship and its cargo, including the Africans, be returned under a 1795 treaty with Spain. Abolitionists organized the captives' defence. The federal district and circuit courts in Connecticut ruled that the Africans had been kidnapped and were free, and ordered them delivered to the President to be returned to Africa. The government appealed. The case was argued before the Supreme Court in February and March 1841. Roger S. Baldwin and the former President John Quincy Adams, then a congressman, argued for the Africans. On 9 March Justice Joseph Story delivered the opinion of the Court. He held that the treaty applied only to property, and that the Africans were not property: they had been kidnapped and illegally imported, and their papers were fraudulent. When the rights of Spanish claimants and of the Africans conflicted, the question had to be decided upon the eternal principles of justice and international law, and the Africans could not be treated as pirates or robbers for asserting their freedom. The Court therefore declared them free and reversed the order to deliver them to the President. Justice Baldwin dissented without opinion. The salvage award on the ship and cargo was upheld. The thirty-five surviving Africans sailed for Sierra Leone in late 1841, with funds raised by supporters and accompanied by missionaries, and arrived in January 1842. The case became a landmark for abolitionists and for the rule of law over political pressure.

Top Lessons

Freedom as a natural right
The Court treated the Africans as free men who had been wronged, not as goods to be returned. Human beings cannot become property by fraud and force.
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Law over politics
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Christian advocacy
Abolitionists, many of them devout Christians, raised money, found lawyers, taught the captives and later helped them return home. Faith acted through patient work.
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Verified Quotes

“must be decided upon the eternal principles of justice and international law.”

— Joseph Story (opinion of the Court), United States v. The Amistad, Opinion of the Court (Story).Quote card

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“that the said negroes be declared to be free, and be dismissed from the custody of the court, and go without day.”

— Joseph Story (opinion of the Court), United States v. The Amistad, Opinion of the Court (Story), conclusion.Quote card

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United States v. The Amistad

Summary

Top Lessons

Freedom as a natural right

Law over politics

Christian advocacy

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