| The Amistad | ||||||
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Supreme Court of the United States |
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| Argued February 22 – March 2, 1841 Decided March 9, 1841 |
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| Full case name | Amistad (1841) | |||||
| Citations | 40 U.S. 518 (more) 15 Pet. 518; 10 L. Ed. 826; 1841 U.S. LEXIS 279 |
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| Prior history | United States District Court for the District of Connecticut rules for the Africans; United States appeals to the United States Circuit Court for the District of Connecticut, lower court affirmed; United States appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court | |||||
| Subsequent history | Africans returned to Africa not by way of the President, but by way of abolitionists; United States Circuit Court for the District of Connecticut dispenses monetary awards mandated by the Supreme Court; United States Circuit Court for the District of Connecticut hears a petition by Ramon Bermejo, in 1845, for the unclaimed monetary sum retained by the court in 1841; petition granted in the amount of $631 | |||||
| Holding | ||||||
| The Africans are free, and are remanded to be released; Lt. Gedney’s claims of salvage are granted, remanded to the United States Circuit Court for the District of Connecticut for further proceedings in monetary manners. | ||||||
| Court membership | ||||||
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| Case opinions | ||||||
| Majority | Story, joined by Taney, Thompson, McLean, Wayne, Catron, McKinley | |||||
| Dissent | Baldwin | |||||
| Barbour took no part in the consideration or decision of the case. | ||||||
| Laws applied | ||||||
| Pinckney's Treaty, art. IX; Adams-Onís Treaty | ||||||
| Part of a series of articles on... |
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1712 New York Slave Revolt |
The Amistad, also known as United States v. Libellants and Claimants of the Schooner Amistad, 40 U.S. (15 Pet.) 518 (1841), was a United States Supreme Court case resulting from the rebellion of slaves on board the Spanish schooner Amistad in 1839. It was an unusual "freedom suit", as it involved international issues and parties, as well as United States law.
The rebellion broke out when the schooner, traveling along the coast of Cuba, was taken over by a group of captives who had earlier been kidnapped in Africa and sold into slavery. The Africans were later apprehended on the vessel near Long Island, New York, by the United States Revenue Cutter Service and taken into custody. The ensuing, widely publicized court cases in the United States helped the abolitionist movement.
In 1840, a federal trial court found that the initial transport of the Africans across the Atlantic (which did not involve the Amistad) had been illegal, because the international slave trade had been abolished, and the captives were thus not legally slaves but free. Given that they were illegally confined, the Africans were entitled to take whatever legal measures necessary to secure their freedom, including the use of force. After the US Supreme Court affirmed this finding on March 9, 1841, supporters arranged transportation for the Africans back to Africa in 1842. The case influenced numerous succeeding laws in the United States.
Contents |
On June 27, 1839, La Amistad (“Friendship”), a Spanish vessel, departed from the port of Havana, Cuba (then a Spanish colony), for Puerto Principe, also in Cuba. The masters of La Amistad were the captain, Ramón Ferrer, José Ruiz, and Pedro Montez, all of Spanish origin. With Ferrer was his personal slave Antonio. Ruiz was transporting 49 African slaves, entrusted to him by the governor-general of Cuba. Montez held four additional African slaves, also entrusted to him by the governor-general.[2] As the voyage normally took only four days, the crew had brought only four days’ worth of rations, not anticipating the strong headwind that slowed the schooner. On July 2, 1839, one of the Africans, Cinqué, who had learned metalworking, managed to free himself and the other captives using a file that had been found and kept by a woman on the Tecora (the ship that had transported them illegally as slaves from Africa to Cuba).
The Mende Africans killed the ship's cook, Celestino, who had told them that they were to be killed and eaten by their captors. The slaves also killed the vessel's captain in a struggle in which two of the rebelling slaves were killed. Two sailors escaped in a lifeboat. The slaves spared the lives of the two crew members who could navigate the ship, José Ruiz and Pedro Montez, upon the condition that they would return the ship to Africa. They also spared the captain's personal slave, Antonio, using him as an interpreter between themselves and Ruiz and Montez.[3]
The crew deceived the Africans and steered the Amistad north along the coast of the United States, where the ship was sighted repeatedly. They dropped anchor half a mile off eastern Long Island, New York, on August 26, 1839, at Culloden Point. Some of the Africans went on shore to procure water and provisions from the hamlet of Montauk. The vessel was discovered by the United States revenue cutter USRC Washington. Lieutenant Thomas R. Gedney,[4] commanding the cutter, saw some of the slaves on shore and, assisted by his officers and crew, took custody of the Amistad and the rebel slaves. He took them to the state of Connecticut and presented a written claim under admiralty law for salvage of the vessel, the cargo, and the Africans. Gedney allegedly chose to land in Connecticut because slavery was still technically legal there, unlike in New York. He hoped to profit from sale of the slaves.[5] Gedney transferred all captured slaves into the custody of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, at which time legal proceedings began.[2]
The British had entered into a treaty with Spain eliminating the slave trade south of the equator and saw it as a matter of International Law that the United States release the Africans. They applied diplomatic pressure to achieve this including invoking their own treaty with the United States.
While the legal battle continued, Irishman Dr. Richard R. Madden "who served on behalf of the British commission to suppress the African slave trade in Havana" arrived to testify. He made a deposition "that some twenty-five thousand slaves were brought into Cuba every year – with the wrongful compliance of, and personal profit by, Spanish officials"[9] Madden also "told the court that his examinations revealed that the defendants were brought directly from Africa and could not have been residents of Cuba"[9] Madden (who would later have an audience with Queen Victoria concerning the case) conferred with the British Minister in Washington, D.C., Henry Stephen Fox who began pressuring U.S. Secretary of State John Forsyth on behalf "of her Majesty's Government"[10]
Fox wrote "...Great Britain is also bound to remember that the law of Spain, which finally prohibited the slave-trade throughout the Spanish dominions, from the date of the 30th of May, 1820, the provisions of which law are contained in the King of Spain's royal cedula of the 19th December, was passed, in compliance with a treaty obligation to that effect, by which the Crown of Spain had bound itself to the Crown of Great Britain, and for which a valuable compensation, in return, was given by Great Britain to Spain; as may be seen by reference to the 2d, 3d, and 4th articles of a public treaty concluded between great Britain and Spain on the 23d of September, 1817.
"It is next to be observed, that Great Britain and the United States have mutually engaged themselves to each other, by the 10th article of the treaty of Ghent, to use their best endeavors for the entire abolition of the African slave-trade; and there can be no doubt of the firm intention of both parties religiously to fulfill the terms of that engagement.
"Now, the unfortunate Africans whose case is the subject of the present representation, have been thrown by accidental circumstances into the hands of the authorities of the United States Government whether these persons shall recover the freedom to which they are entitled, or whether they shall be reduced to slavery, in violation of known laws and contracts publicly passed, prohibiting the continuance of the African slave-trade by Spanish subjects.
"It is under these circumstance that her Majesty's Government anxiously hope that the President of the United States will find himself empowered to take such measures, in behalf of the aforesaid Africans, as shall secure to them the possession of their liberty, to which, without doubt they are by law entitled."[10]
Forsyth responded that under the U.S. Constitution it was not in the President's powers to affect the case. Forsyth went further saying that the question of whether the "negroes of the Amistad" had been enslaved in violation of the Treaty was still an open one "and this Government would with great reluctance erect itself into a tribunal to investigate such questions between two friendly sovereigns."[10] If such facts could be determined "they cannot be without their force and effect in the proper time and place."[10] If they were not determined before the end of the trial and the Court finds for Spain "it is the intention of the Spanish minister to restore these negroes...to the island of Cuba...It is there that questions arising under the Spanish laws, and the treaties of Spain with Great Britain, may be appropriately discussed and decided; and where a full opportunity will be presented to the Government of her Majesty, the Queen of Great Britain, to appeal to the treaty stipulations applicable to the subject of your letter."[10]
Secretary of State Forsyth requested from the Spanish Minister, Chevalier de Argaiz, "a copy of the laws now in force in the island of Cuba relative to slavery."[10] In response the Captain General of Cuba sent Argaiz "everything on the subject, which had been determined since the treaty concluded in 1818 between Spain and England".[10]
Included was a statement of the Minister's dismay that despite the early American assurances that the men aboard the Amistad would be returned to Spanish control, Spain was astonished with "a resolution so contrary to the hopes which had been excited".[10]
The Spanish maintained that none but a Spanish court could have jurisdiction over the case. The Spanish minister stated "I do not, in fact, understand how a foreign court of justice can be considered competent to take cognizance of an offence committed on board of a Spanish vessel, by Spanish subjects, and against Spanish subjects, in the waters of a Spanish territory; for it was committed on the coasts of this island, and under the flag of this nation."[10] The Minister pointed out that only recently the Spanish had turned over American sailors "belonging to the crew of the American vessel William Engs", whom it had tried by request of their captain and the American consul. The sailors had been found guilty of mutiny and sentenced to "four years' confinement in a fortress."[10] Other American sailors had protested this and when the American ambassador raised the issue with the Spaniards, on March 20, 1839 "her Majesty, having taken into consideration all the circumstances, decided that the said seamen should be placed at the disposition of the American consul, seeing that the offence was committed in one of the vessels and under the flag of his nation, and not on shore."[10] The Spaniards asked how, if America had demanded that these sailors in an American ship be turned over to them despite being in a Spanish port, they could now try the Spanish mutineers.
The Spaniards held that just as America had ended its importation of African slaves but maintained a legal domestic population, so too had Cuba. Therefore it was the right of the Spanish courts to determine "whether the Negroes in question" were legal or illegal slaves under Spanish law, "but never can this right justly belong to a foreign country."[10]
The Spaniards further maintained that even if one assumed that the Africans were being held as slaves in violation of "the celebrated treaty of humanity concluded between Spain and Great Britain in 1835", this would be a violation of "the laws of Spain; and the Spanish Government, being as scrupulous as any other in maintaining the strict observance of the prohibitions imposed on, or the liberties allowed to, its subjects by itself, will severely chastise those of them who fail in their duties."[10]
The Spaniards pointed out that by American law the jurisdiction over a "vessel on the high seas, in time of peace, engaged in a lawful voyage, is, according to the laws of nations, under the exclusive jurisdiction of the State to which her flag belongs; as much so as if constituting a part of its own domain. ...if such ship or vessel should be forced, by stress of weather, or other unavoidable cause, into the port and under the jurisdiction of a friendly Power, she, and her cargo, and persons on board, with their property, and all the rights belonging to their personal relations as established by the laws of the State to which they belong, would be placed under the protection which the laws of nations extend to the unfortunate under such circumstances."[10] The Spaniards demanded that the U.S. "apply these proper principles to the case of the schooner Amistad."[10]
The Spanish were further encouraged that their view would win out when U.S. Senator John C. Calhoun and the Senate's Committee of Foreign Relations on April 15, 1840 issued a statement announcing complete "conformity between the views entertained by the Senate, and the arguments urged by the [Spanish Minister] Chevalier de Argaiz" concerning the Amistad.[10]
The Spanish were careful to distinguish the Africans as property so that their fate would fall under the treaty of 1795. They went so far as to protest when Judge William Jay construed a statement by their Minister as seeming to demand "the surrender of the negroes apprehended on board the schooner Amistad, as murderers, and not as property; that is to say founding his demand on the law of nations, and not on the treaty of 1795."[10]
The Spanish pointed out that the statement Jay was referring to was one where the Spanish minister was "speaking of the crime committed by the negroes [slave revolt], and the punishment which they merit". They went on to point out that the Minister had stated that a payment to compensate the owners "would be a slender compensation; for though the property should remain, as it ought to remain, unimpaired, public vengeance would be frustrated".[10]
Jay also took issue with the Minister's request that the Africans be turned over to Spanish authorities (which seemed to imply that they were fugitives instead of misbehaving property), because the 1795 treaty said that property should be restored directly to the control of its owners. The Spanish denied that this meant that the Minister had waived the contention that they were property.
By insisting that the case fell under the treaty of 1795 the Spanish were invoking the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which would put the clauses of the treaty above the state laws of Connecticut or New York where the ship had been taken into custody, "no one who respects the laws of the country ought to oppose the execution of the treaty, which is the supreme law of the country."[10]
The Spanish also sought to avoid talk about the Law of Nations, as some of their opponents argued that America had a duty under the Law of Nations to treat the Africans with the same deference they would accord any other foreign sailors. This is precisely what John Quincy Adams argued, saying "The Africans were in possession, and had the presumptive right of ownership; they were in peace with the United States:...they were not pirates; they were on a voyage to their native homes...the ship was theirs, and being in immediate communication with the shore, was in the territory of the State of New York; or, if not, at least half the number were actually on the soil of New York, and entitled to all the provisions of the law of nations, and the protection and comfort which the laws of that State secure to every human being within its limits."[11]
Still, when pressed with questions concerning the Law of Nations the Spanish did maintain that an idea of Hugo Grotius (hailed as one of the originators of the Law of Nations) applied in this case. That "the usage, then, of demanding fugitives from a foreign Government, is confined...to crimes which affect the Government and such as are of extreme atrocity."[10]
A case before the Circuit Court in Hartford, Connecticut, was filed in September 1839, alleging mutiny and murder. The court ruled that it lacked jurisdiction, because the alleged acts took place on a Spanish ship in Spanish waters.
Various parties then filed property claims to many of the captives, to the ship, and to its cargo before the lower District Court: 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 this treaty holds 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 this claim on behalf of Spain.
The abolitionist movement had formed the "Amistad Committee", headed by 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 to count to ten in the Mende language, went to the harbor of New York City, and counted aloud in front of sailors until he located a person able to understand and translate. That person was James Covey, a twenty-year-old sailor of the British man-of-war HMS Buzzard. Covey was himself a former slave from West Africa.[12]
The abolitionists filed charges of assault, kidnapping, and false imprisonment against Ruiz and Montez. Their arrest in New York City in October 1839 outraged pro-slavery rights advocates and the Spanish government. Montes immediately posted bail and went to Cuba, while Ruiz "more comfortable in a New England setting (and entitled to many amneities 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".[9] Outraged, Spanish minister Cavallero Pedro Alcantara Argaiz made "caustic accusations against America's judicial system and continued to condemn the abolitionist affront. Ruiz's imprisonment only added to Argaiz's anger, and he pressured Forsyth to seek ways to throw out the case altogether."[9] The Spanish also 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.[10]
On January 7, 1840, all the parties (except for Ruiz and Montez, who were represented by the Spanish minister) appeared before the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut and presented their arguments.[13]
The abolitionists' main argument before the District Court was that a treaty between Britain and Spain of 1817 and a subsequent pronouncement by the Spanish government had outlawed the slave trade across the Atlantic. It was established that the slaves had been captured in Mendiland (also spelled Mendeland, current 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 therefore not slaves, but victims of illegal kidnapping and free to go. Their papers wrongly identified them as slaves who had been in Cuba since before 1820, a common practice in Cuba condoned by government officials.
U.S. President Martin Van Buren, who did not have strong opinions on the slavery question but was concerned about relations with Spain and about his re-election prospects in the southern states, sided with the Spanish position; he ordered a U.S. schooner to New Haven Harbor to return the Africans to Cuba immediately after a favorable decision, before any appeals could be decided.
The District Court, however, agreed with the abolitionists, ordering in January 1840 that the Amistad and its cargo be given to Lieutenant Gedney; and the Africans be returned to their homeland by the U.S. government. (The federal government had outlawed the slave trade between the U.S. and other countries in 1808, and a law from 1818, amended in 1819, provided for the return of all illegally traded slaves.) The captain's slave Antonio was declared the rightful property of the captain's heirs and was ordered restored to Cuba (some sources say he willingly returned to Cuba,[14] while other sources claim that he escaped to New York,[15] or to Canada, with the help of an abolitionist group).
In detail, the District Court ruled as follows:
The U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut, on 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 the denial of their salvage. Ruiz and Montez, as well as the owners of La Amistad, did not appeal.[13]
This court affirmed (upheld) the District Court's decision in April 1840.[13] From there, the U.S. Attorney appealed to the United States Supreme Court.[13]
On February 23, 1841, 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. The documents being in order, Gilpin argued that the Court had no authority to rule against their validity. Gilpin contended that if the Africans were slaves (as evidenced by the documents), then they must be returned to their rightful owner, in this case, the Spanish government. Gilpin's argument lasted two hours.[16]
John Quincy Adams, former President of the United States and at that time a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts, had agreed to argue for the Africans, but when it was time for him to argue, felt ill-prepared. Roger Sherman Baldwin, who had already represented the captives in the lower cases, opened in his place.[16]
Baldwin, a prominent attorney (who was no relation to Justice Baldwin, the lone dissenter on the Court) contended that the Spanish government was attempting to manipulate the Court to return "fugitives". In actuality, Baldwin argued, the Spanish government sought the return of slaves, who had been freed by the District Court, a fact that the Spanish government was not appealing. Covering all the facts of the case, Baldwin spoke for four hours over the course of the 22nd and the 23rd.[16]
John Quincy Adams rose to speak on February 24. First, he reminded the court that it was a part of the judicial branch, and not part of the executive. Adams introduced correspondence between the Spanish government and the Secretary of State, criticizing President Martin van Buren for his assumption of unconstitutional powers in the case.[16]
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.[16]
Adams argued that neither Pinckney's Treaty nor the Adams-Onís Treaty were applicable 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",[17] Adams said that did not apply either, since the precedent there was established prior to the prohibition of the foreign slave trade in the United States. Adams concluded after eight and one-half hours of speaking on March 1 (the Court had taken a recess following the death of Associate Justice Barbour).[16]
Attorney General Gilpin concluded oral argument with a three-hour rebuttal on March 2.[16] 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 off topic since the Africans in question were never 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".[18] The documents submitted by Attorney General Gilpin were not evidence 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".[19]
When La Amistad came into Long Island, however, the Court believed it to be in the possession of the Africans on board, who had no intent to become slaves. Therefore, the Adams-Onís Treaty did not apply, and the President was not required to return the slaves to Africa.[16]
| “ | 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.[19] | ” |
The Africans greeted the news of the Supreme Court's decision with joy. Abolitionist supporters took the survivors – 35 men and boys and three girls – to Farmington, a village considered "Grand Central Station" on the Underground Railroad.[20][21][22] Then a child in Farmington, the author Charles Ledyard Norton wrote later about the arrival of the Africans:
| “ | Barracks were erected and here the former captives made their home. Cinqué was a born ruler. Ably seconded by his lieutenant, Grabeau, he maintained a very creditable degree of discipline among his followers. They were, for the most part, free to roam about, except for regular school hours, and townsfolk soon ceased to fear them. Anxious mamas at first trembled and kept their children behind bolted doors, but before long it was no uncommon sight to see the big grown-up blacks playing with little white children in village dooryards. | ” |
The Amistad committee continued to instruct the Africans in English and Christianity and collected donations to pay for their return home. Along with several missionaries, the surviving 36 Africans sailed back to Africa early in 1842. A mission was erected in Mendiland. Numerous members of the Amistad committee later founded the American Missionary Association, an evangelical organization which continued to support the Mendi mission. Made up of black and white ministers from mostly Presbyterian and Congregational denominations, it was active in arguing for abolitionism and for education of blacks. After the American Civil War, it founded numerous schools and colleges for freedmen in the Southern U.S.
In the following years, the Spanish government continued to press the US for compensation. Several lawmakers from southern states introduced resolutions into the United States Congress to pay. These efforts were supported by presidents James K. Polk and James Buchanan, but they all failed to gain passage.
Joseph Cinqué returned to Africa. One rumor held that he later went to Jamaica.[23] Another account holds that he returned to the mission and re-embraced Christianity in his final years.[24] Other rumors alleged that Cinqué became involved in slavery. Although some of the Africans associated with the Amistad probably did engage in the slave trade upon their return, recent historical research suggests that the allegations of Cinqué's involvement are false.[25]
The United States dealt with another ship rebellion similar to the Amistad case in the Creole case of 1841.
Some of the laws related to the Amistad case were:
Applicable as it was to the issues of slavery and abolitionism, the Amistad case gained a measure of renown. A number of memorials and commemorations were instituted.