United States v. Amistad

Context

In the early days of the Republic many Americans believed that slavery would eventually disappear, and there was some basis for such hope. As early as 1780, Pennsylvania began gradually emancipating all slaves born after that year, and Massachusetts banned slavery. Even Maryland and North Carolina banned the importation of slaves in the 1780s. But after the Revolution, the slave-based economy of the South did not diminish. The invention of the cotton gin and other agricultural advances increased the demand for slave labor. While the northern states had mixed economies based on small farmers and merchants and a growing industrial base, the South’s economy had become even more dependent on slave labor. Instead of becoming more united, the regions grew more polarized.

In 1820 the Missouri Compromise formalized the great divide between the regions on the issue of slavery. Under the terms of the Missouri Compromise, the North would consist of free states, but the South would consist of states where slavery remained legal. The growth of slavery also engendered a growth in antislavery sentiment outside the South. By the 1830s the American Anti-Slavery Society had attracted thousands of abolitionists. While abolitionists enjoyed little early political success, they resorted to aggressive propaganda campaigns and vigorous legal attacks to secure freedom for as many blacks as possible.

In the South, there was less antislavery sentiment among whites. The Denmark Vesey Uprising in South Carolina in 1822 and Nat Turner’s Rebellion in Virginia in 1831 demonstrated that there was strong desire for freedom among the South’s slaves. But this black resistance was met with white resistance. Southern planters drew inward and more strident in their support for slavery. Abolitionist literature was banned in some southern communities, and some states made it illegal to teach slaves to read and write. Throughout the 1830s numerous southern legislatures pleaded with northern states to control the abolitionists.

Slavery was also a troubling issue diplomatically. Even though the U.S. Congress banned the importation of slaves as of January 1, 1808, the slave population in the South grew from about 1 million in 1808 to over 2.4 million in 1840. The increase came primarily through natural population growth, but the illegal Caribbean slave trade provided inexpensive African slaves. Treaties between Spain and other countries prohibited the slave trade, but Cuba, a Spanish colony, became a major source of illegal slaves. With Cuba so close and white Americans so divided, America’s slave trade ban was difficult to enforce and often simply ignored.

In this context it is not surprising that the plight of the Africans from La Amistad became both a national and an international issue. In the spring of 1839, more than five hundred Africans were kidnapped on the west coast of Africa and loaded onto the Portuguese slaver Tecora for the voyage to Cuba. During the 4,500-mile journey fewer than two-thirds survived. From the survivors, forty-nine adult men and four children were purchased by José Ruiz and Pedro Montez. Montez procured passports that permitted him to transport his “slaves” from Havana to Puerto Principe, Cuba, on La Amistad. If the “slaves” had been born in Cuba, these passports would have been legal. However, these blacks were native-born Africans and were free under Spanish law. After the Africans were herded onto La Amistad, the schooner waited until nightfall to set sail, to avoid British patrols. Once the ship was under way, the Africans, under the leadership of a young man named Joseph Cinqué, overpowered the crew and killed the captain, two crewmen, and the cook. They spared the captain’s slave, Antonio, as well as Montez and Ruiz because the two Spaniards promised to sail the Africans back to Africa. But the two men had other plans. At daylight they sailed east, but after dark they reversed course so that the vessel zigzagged west and north for two months. On August 25, 1839, the ship neared the coast of Long Island. When the ship anchored there, Cinqué and three others went ashore to obtain water. There they met two New Yorkers who tried to trick the Africans into bringing the schooner ashore so that the boat and its “cargo” could be claimed as salvage. But a U.S. naval officer spotted the schooner and intervened. The crew of the cutter USS Washington boarded La Amistad and discovered that it was a slave ship. Lieutenant Thomas Gedney ordered the seizure of La Amistad, its passengers, and its cargo and transported the ship to Connecticut. So began the complex legal case that ensued.

U.S. district court judge Andrew T. Judson conducted an inquiry. Montez and Ruiz asserted their claim using the Cuban passports and by informing the court that the Africans were slaves who had mutinied and murdered the captain and crew. Judson ordered that the Africans be held over for grand jury proceedings in September and said that the property claims could be decided then. Formal legal proceedings soon intensified. Numerous claims to salvage rights on the vessel and its cargo were filed on behalf of the crew of the USS Washington. A petition for a writ of habeas corpus was begun on behalf of the Africans. Federal criminal charges were filed against the Africans, and four civil actions in the courts of New York were filed by the Africans against the two Spaniards. Fortunately for the Africans, the seizure drew the interest of American abolitionists, who provided legal counsel and translators. Consequently, the subsequent legal proceedings pitted the Africans against an array of whites. Under admiralty law, the naval officers and the two New Yorkers theoretically had a claim for rescuing the distressed ship and claiming the ship as well as its cargo as salvage. However, if the Africans were not slaves, the claims would be greatly diminished in value. So even at the earliest stages of the case, the fight was over whether the Africans were free or slaves. If they were slaves, they could be seized and sold. If not, the Africans were free.

U.S. Supreme Court justice Smith Thompson, sitting as a circuit court judge, ruled that the alleged offenses had occurred on the high seas beyond the jurisdiction of American courts. However, Thompson refused to release the Africans and referred the matter to the U.S. district court to decide whether the Africans were slaves under Spanish law. Then Judson heard the salvage cases, which were drawn out, contentious, and dramatic. The parties to the cases included the U.S. government headed by President Martin Van Buren, the queen of Spain, the vice-consul of Spain, four Spanish civilians, more than forty Africans, two naval officers, and two white civilians from New York. Each had varying interests. Van Buren was up for reelection in 1840 and needed proslavery, southern votes. Under a treaty with Spain, the administration asserted that the U.S. government was obligated to seize the Africans and return them to Spain. The queen of Spain claimed that the ship and the Africans were property under Spanish law. The two Spaniards claimed the Africans as their property. Three other Spanish residents of Cuba also filed claims to certain goods. The vice-consul of Spain claimed Antonio as a slave on behalf of the deceased captain’s heirs. The naval officers and the two New Yorkers claimed La Amistad, its cargo, and the Africans as salvage.

While the courts had to decide who had rights to the vessel and its nonhuman cargo, the real battle was between the Africans, represented by lawyers recruited by abolitionists, and the Spanish Crown, as represented by the U.S. government. Based on that evidence, the lawyers for the Africans argued that the passports presented by Montez and Ruiz were fraudulent. Sensing that public sentiment seemed to favor the Africans, the Van Buren administration tried to end the case. In an attempt to have the blacks turned over to the administration as quickly as possible, U.S. District Attorney William S. Holabird contended that the Africans were “free men” whom the government must send back to Africa. That concession did not end the matter, because Ruiz and Montez still contended that the Africans were their property. Also, the Africans and their lawyers knew that allowing the Van Buren administration to take custody of them might result in their persecution by the Spanish for murder and piracy. Based on the evidence and the government’s concession, the lower courts determined that the Africans had been born free in Sierra Leone and therefore had been illegally kidnapped into slavery.

By the time the case came to the U.S. Supreme Court, most of the admiralty claims had been resolved. The only parties left were Spain, represented by the government of the United States; Gedney, represented by private counsel; and the Africans, represented by Roger Baldwin and John Quincy Adams. By this time the administration had reversed course and argued that the Africans were slaves and thus that the administration was obligated to return them to Spain. Baldwin argued that international law guaranteed equal rights to all free men. He pointed out that the Africans had never resided in Cuba and never were subject to Spanish law. Baldwin continued to request that the case against the Africans be dismissed and that they be freed from jail. He urged the Supreme Court to reverse the lower court ruling that the Africans should be turned over to the president for return to Africa.