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Amistad Revolt
What Should the U.S. Do with the Slaves Who Revolted Aboard the Schooner Amistad?
By Jill Kauffman
The issue: On July 1, 1839, a group of Africans who had been captured in northwestern Africa and sold into slavery in Cuba mutinied aboard the Spanish schooner Amistad, killing its captain and cook, as they were being transported to their new home in Puerto Principe, Cuba. The ship traveled up the U.S. coast, where it was apprehended by a U.S. Navy ship. Should the U.S. return the Amistad and the Africans aboard it to Spanish custody in Cuba? Or should it free the Africans?
· Arguments against freeing the Africans: The U.S. has no jurisdiction over the matter. The Africans committed a crime on a Spanish vessel in Spanish waters, and should therefore be returned to Cuba to face Spanish justice for mutiny and murder. The Africans are slaves, and therefore property; they enjoy no natural rights, especially not the right to stage a violent uprising. Furthermore, treaties with Spain mandate that when the U.S. rescues a Spanish ship in U.S. waters, it is obligated to return the ship and its cargo--including slaves--to Spain.
· Arguments in favor of freeing the Africans: By revolting aboard the Amistad, the Africans were simply trying to secure their natural rights. They had been kidnapped by slave traders after the slave trade was banned, and are therefore free men, not slaves. As free men who had been deprived of their freedom, they had every right to use violence to liberate themselves. And because they are free men and not slaves, the treaties with Spain did not apply to their situation; free men cannot be returned as property.
Slaves rebel on the Amistad, a Spanish schooner, in 1839.
Introduction
In the summer of 1839, rumors of a mysterious ship with a strange crew of black men sailing up the U.S. coast sparked excitement throughout the Northeast. Many people speculated that it was a pirate ship. However, it turned out that the men were not pirates but Africans who had been illegally captured by slave-traders and had mutinied in an attempt to win their freedom. The revolt had occurred on a Spanish ship, the Amistad, off the coast of the Spanish colony of Cuba, making it unclear what the U.S. government should do with the Africans. Should it return them to Spanish officials in Cuba? Or should the U.S. set them free? Those questions renewed debate over the divisive issue of slavery in the U.S.
Great Britain and Spain had outlawed the African slave trade in an 1817 pact, but the slave trade continued illegally due to the high demand for slaves. The Africans aboard the Amistad had been captured by Portuguese slave traders in Mendi (also Mende), on Africa's northwestern coast, and transported aboard the Tecora to Cuba, a Spanish colony, where they were sold as slaves. Fifty-three of them were purchased by two Spanish planters, who then set sail with them aboard the Amistad to their plantations in Puerto Principe, about 300 miles southeast of Havana, the Cuban capital.
En route to Puerto Principe, the desperate Africans fought for their freedom. They killed the captain and the cook, while two other crewmen disappeared and were believed to have drowned after escaping overboard. The Mendians spared the fifth member of the crew, the captain's slave boy. They also spared the two planters, who would be needed to steer the ship back to Africa.
However, the navigators deceived them, sailing toward Africa by day but veering back toward Caribbean waters at night, hoping the ship would be discovered by a British patrol ship and rescued. After a storm blew the Amistad out of Caribbean waters, it began making its way up the North American coast; the ship zigzagged along the coast for two months until a U.S. Navy ship apprehended it off the coast of Long Island, New York.
The question of what to do with the Africans captured the nation's attention and was viewed in the context of the wider debate over slavery. Spain demanded that the ship and its human cargo be returned to Cuba, where the men would stand trial for mutiny and murder. Southerners in the U.S., who depended heavily on slave labor to work their plantations, advocated this plan, since they worried that if the Amistad slaves were allowed to get away with insurrection and murder, slaves who subsequently revolted in the U.S. would also go unpunished.
However, abolitionists fighting to end slavery in the U.S. took up the Mendians' cause. They argued that the men had a natural right to their liberty. If the Amistad Africans were granted their freedom, abolitionists reasoned, it would be an admission that slavery was wrong, and facilitate their efforts to outlaw slavery in the U.S.
The case was brought to trial after various parties filed claims related to the Amistad. Several people claimed a right to the ship and its cargo for their "meritorious service" in aiding the vessel; the owners of the Africans demanded the return of their property; and the U.S. government filed suit on behalf of Spain seeking the return of the Amistad and its African crew to Cuba.
At the heart of the case was the status of the Amistad passengers. Were they slaves, and therefore simply property that belonged to Spain? Or were they free men who had been kidnapped as part of the illegal slave trade? The case went all the way to the Supreme Court. In March 1841, the Supreme Court said that the Africans were free men who had been illegally enslaved, and should therefore be allowed to go free.
Critics of freeing the Mendians argued that the men had committed a crime on a Spanish vessel in Spanish waters, and should therefore be returned to Cuba to face Spanish justice for mutiny and murder. The Africans were slaves, and therefore property, critics argued; they had no "natural rights," especially not the right to stage a violent uprising. Furthermore, opponents insisted, treaties between Spain and the U.S. dictated that when either country recovered a vessel belonging to the other in its waters, it was obligated to return that property, including slaves.
Supporters countered that in mutinying, the Mendians had simply been trying to secure their natural rights to freedom. They asserted that the Africans were free men, not slaves, having in essence been kidnapped. As free men who had been illegally confined, they had every right to resort to violence to liberate themselves from their captors, supporters declared. And because they were free men and not slaves, supporters said, the treaties with Spain did not apply to their situation; the Africans were not property that had to be returned.
Revolt aboard the Amistad
In early 1839, Portuguese slave traders rounded up dozens of Africans in and around the colony of Sierra Leone, intending to sell them into slavery in Cuba. Their action was illegal, since an 1817 Anglo-Spanish treaty had outlawed the African slave trade (although it still permitted the institution of slavery itself). However, if the slave traders succeeded in evading the patrols and illegally transporting the Africans to Cuba, the enslaved Africans would have no means of attaining their freedom.
In April 1839, Portuguese slave traders captured dozens of Africans from Mendi, in northwestern Africa, to be sold into slavery in Cuba. The slaves revolted aboard the schooner Amistad off the coast of Cuba.
Although it was illegal, the slave trade was lucrative, since slaves were an important source of cheap labor for Cuban plantation owners. Furthermore, Britain did not have many ships available to patrol for slave ships, which were not easily detected in the busy port at Havana. Therefore, some ships persisted in the illegal trade. Officially, Cuba maintained a strict stance against the slave trade to appease Spain. However, the Cuban government could not afford to alienate the island's powerful planters who relied on slave labor, so Cuban officials often accepted bribes to get them to ignore the importation of slaves.
Once they arrived in Havana, the Mendians were sold at a slave market. Plantation owner Jose Ruiz purchased 49 adult males, including a 25-year-old slave named Sengbe Pieh—renamed Joseph Cinque by the Spanish—while Pedro Montes purchased four children, three girls and a boy. After putting the slaves aboard the schooner Amistad, the two men set sail for Puerto Principe, normally a two-day journey along Cuba's coast.
Although the Mendians had just arrived in Cuba, where recently imported slaves were known as bozales, Ruiz and Montes had secured official travel documents for them indicating that they were landinos, the term used for slaves who had lived in Cuba long enough to be Spanish subjects. While it was illegal to own bozales, because of the ban on the slave trade, landinos were legal.
In late June 1839, the Amistad, owned and captained by Ramon Ferrer, left Havana. Because of poor weather conditions, which lengthened the voyage, the ship did not stop to resupply and food was strictly rationed. At one point, Cinque used hand motions to ask the ship's cook, Celestino, what the Spaniards intended to do with the Africans. In reply, Celestino motioned that the Mendians would be killed and eaten.
The New York Sun published a portrait of Joseph Cinque (also spelled Cinquez), leader of the Amistad revolt, in its August 31, 1839, issue.
After several days at sea, in the early hours of July 1, Cinque used a nail that he had found to free himself from the iron collar around his neck. He then freed a fellow captive, who helped him liberate the other Africans. They armed themselves with cane knives and killed Ferrer and Celestino. The revolt, in which several Africans were killed, ended with the surrender of Ruiz and Montes.
The Mendians were now in control of a vessel on which they wished to sail back to Africa, but not knowing how to steer it, they decided to keep Ruiz and Montes alive for that purpose. They ordered the Spaniards to sail into the rising sun, reasoning that since the sun had been at their backs on their voyage to Cuba, they should sail into the sun to return home. While Ruiz and Montes would do the Africans' bidding by day, at night they would veer back toward Cuba, seeking to remain in Spanish waters until they could be discovered and rescued by a patrol ship.
After a fierce storm blew the Amistad northward, it followed a jagged course along the U.S. coast for two months. The ship's progress and its condition (the ship's sails were in tatters, barnacles covered the hull and the blacks on board were nearly naked or dressed in rags) elicited many rumors. Many newspapers remarked on "the long, low black schooner" and determined that it was likely a pirate ship. On August 24, in an article titled "A Suspicious Sail—a Pirate," the New York Morning Herald reported that "a vessel was discovered off our coast on Wednesday under very mysterious circumstances," and speculated that it was the Cuban slave ship that had gone missing.
Amistad Apprehended
On August 25, the Mendians anchored the Amistad off the coast of Long Island, and a group of nine went ashore to purchase provisions with Spanish doubloons they had found on board. The group was met by five seamen who had noticed the ship anchored there. The Amistad crew requested that the men, led by Henry Green, transport them to Africa, but the Mendians became suspicious after the five men asked to board the Amistad, so they told the men they would return the following day.
However, the next day, Lieutenant Thomas Gedney, commander of the navy survey ship USS Washington, seized the Amistad. Ruiz and Montes excitedly welcomed the men as rescuers, and explained that they had been transporting their slaves legally within Cuba when the group mutinied. The initial reports and speculation that the Amistad was a pirate ship were proven wrong by an inspection of the ship, which turned up nothing more than a few doubloons.
Although Gedney recovered the ship off the coast of New York, he towed it to New London, Connecticut. It was widely speculated that he did so because he hoped to be awarded custody of the ship, since he had rescued it and its crew. New York prohibited slavery while Connecticut allowed it, and it was believed that a Connecticut court would be more likely to award him possession of the Amistad slaves.
Upon reaching port in Connecticut, Gedney reported the incident to the U.S. marshal in New Haven, who informed Connecticut District Judge Andrew Judson of the situation. After holding an inquiry aboard the Washington on August 29, Judson decided to bring the Amistad crew before a grand jury of the U.S. Circuit Court for the Connecticut District (today known as the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals), scheduled to meet in September, to consider the charges of mutiny and murder.
Before the court met, Spain's minister in Washington, D.C., Angel Calderon de la Barca, demanded, in a letter to U.S. Secretary of State John Forsyth, that the U.S. return the ship and crew to Spanish authorities. He claimed that the U.S. was obligated to do so in accordance with Pinckney's Treaty of 1795 between the U.S. and Spain and the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819, which reaffirmed the provisions of the 1795 treaty. Under the treaties, if a Spanish ship was forced into U.S. waters, or vice versa, because of weather, pirates or some other emergency, the host country would be required to return it and its cargo.
After consulting with his cabinet about de la Barca's letter, President Martin Van Buren (D, 1837-41) decided to officially support Spain's claim. Pinckney's Treaty and the Adams-Onis Treaty mandated the return of Spanish property under such circumstances, and the Africans were Spanish property, the administration reasoned. The men should therefore be returned to Cuba, where they would be tried for mutiny and murder. On behalf of the Spanish government, the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Connecticut District filed a suit seeking the return of the Amistad and the Africans to Cuba.
President Martin Van Buren supported Spain's position that the Amistad slaves were Spanish property and should therefore be returned to Spanish possession.
In the meantime, several other parties filed suits with regard to the Amistad. Gedney filed a "salvage" claim on the ship and cargo, including the slaves, as compensation for "meritorious service" in rescuing them. Green and his fellow seaman Pelatiah Fordham also filed a salvage claim, based on the fact that they had been the first people to meet with the Amistad crew on shore. Ruiz and Montes filed their own claim demanding that the ship and its human cargo be "delivered to them, or to the representatives of her Catholic Majesty, as might be most proper." Cuban merchants Jose Antonio Tellincas and the house of Aspe & Laca, owners of (nonhuman) cargo aboard the Amistad, filed a separate claim to have their own goods returned.
Prominent abolitionists—including merchant Lewis Tappan, engraver Simeon Jocelyn and Reverend Joshua Leavitt, editor of the antislavery journal Emancipator—took up the Africans' cause. They formed the Amistad Committee to support them and raise funds for their defense. If they could convince the court to uphold the Africans' "natural right" to freedom, the abolitionists reasoned, those principles would have to be applied to slavery in general, which would help lead to the abolition of the institution in the U.S.
A Two-Year Legal Odyssey
On September 19, 1839, the trial of the Mendians on charges of piracy and murder began in Circuit Court in Hartford, Connecticut. Three prominent lawyers volunteered for the defense: Roger Baldwin, Theodore Sedgwick and Seth Staples. The U.S. government was represented by U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut William Holabird, who sought to have the case dismissed and moved to a Cuban court. Associate Justice Smith Thompson agreed with the government's position, ruling that the U.S. had no right to try the men since the crime had occurred on a Spanish vessel in Spanish waters.
The District Court was then convened to consider the other claims arising from the case. The trial began in Hartford on November 19, but was postponed until January after the interpreter for the Mendians became ill. The trial was then moved to New Haven District Court, where it resumed on January 7, 1840.
The claims in the Amistad case—by Gedney and Green, Ruiz and Montes, and the U.S. government—essentially came down to whether the Amistad Africans were Spanish property or free men. The defense argued that although the institution of slavery was legal in the U.S. and Spain, the slave trade was illegal, and the Mendians had been victims of the illegal slave trade. The defense claimed that travel documents issued for them in Cuba, stating that they were longtime Cuban residents (landinos), were fraudulent; the Mendians were in fact bozales, they insisted, hence illegal property because of the ban on the slave trade. Because the Africans were not slaves but free men who had been kidnapped, the defense argued, they could not be considered property that needed to be returned to Spain.
The government, led by Holabird, countered that the Africans' documents, issued by the governor general of Cuba, declared them to be landinos. The U.S. had no right to question another country's official documents, he insisted. The Africans were therefore legally Cuban slaves, Holabird argued, and the U.S. was obligated to return them to Spain as Spanish property.
The administration reportedly expected the court to agree with its position and rule that the Mendians were property and should be returned to Spain. With that in mind, the U.S. administration had a ship, the USS Grampus, waiting in New Haven harbor to immediately transport the Mendians back to Cuba before the abolitionists had time to appeal the court's decision.
Upon learning of the administration's action, critics widely assailed it as illegal interference in the judicial proceedings. Such a move would deny the Mendians their legal rights, abolitionists argued. However, there was also rumored to be a ship in the harbor hired by abolitionists; if the court ruled against the Mendians, the abolitionists reportedly planned to spirit them to safety in Canada.
However, Judge Judson, in a decision issued on January 13, 1840, ruled against Spain, determining that the Africans were bozales rather than landinos, nullifying their status as slaves, and hence as property. Since the men were not property, they should not be returned to Spain. The exception was one landino (Antonio), who had been on the ship at the time of the revolt. (Before Antonio could be sent back to Cuba, abolitionists helped smuggle him into Canada.)
Judson ordered the men to be turned over to the U.S. government for eventual return to Africa. He cited an 1819 anti-slave trade law, which stated that if any slave were imported into the U.S., it was the president's duty to remove "all such negroes, mulattoes, or persons of color, as may be delivered and brought within their jurisdiction." The law applied in the Amistad case, Judson determined, since it had been the original intent of Ruiz and Montes to hold the Africans as slaves.
With regard to the salvage claims, Judson first affirmed that the Connecticut court had jurisdiction over the case. He determined that Gedney had apprehended the Amistad on the high seas, and was thus allowed to tow the ship to any port he chose. Judson upheld Gedney's salvage claim, granting him one-third of the value of the ship and its cargo. (Because the Mendians were deemed to be free men and not property, they were not considered part of the cargo.) Tellincas and Aspe & Laca were also awarded shares of the cargo, but the judge denied the claim of Green and Fordham, since neither man had set foot on the Amistad.
Former President John Q. Adams defended the right of the Amistad slaves to their freedom during a Supreme Court trial in 1841.
Abolitionists welcomed the victory, but considered it only a partial one. While the court ruled that the Africans were not property, it had granted them just a degree of freedom, since the Mendians were required to return to Africa, instead of remaining as free men in the U.S. The U.S. government responded by immediately appealing the decision to the Circuit Court, which began hearing the case on April 29, 1840.
Circuit Court Justice Thompson upheld Judson's findings pro forma (as a formality), which allowed the U.S. to immediately appeal the case to the Supreme Court. The court began hearing the case on February 22, 1841. Attorney General Henry Gilpin had replaced Holabird for the prosecution while Baldwin still led the defense, joined by another prominent attorney, former president John Quincy Adams (Democratic Republican, 1825-29).
The court, which had adjourned during the last days of February after the death of Justice Philip Barbour, issued its ruling on March 9. In a 7-1 decision, the court upheld Judson's ruling, except for the part of it obliging the president to return the Mendians to Africa. According to the Supreme Court, under the 1819 law, the president was only obligated to return slaves, and the Africans on the Amistad were not slaves. Furthermore, the court stated, they had not been imported into the U.S., but had sailed there under their own power.
The Case Against Freeing the Amistad Crew
Opponents of freeing the Mendians began by arguing that the Africans were slaves, making them the rightful property of Spain. They pointed out that slavery was legal in both the U.S. and Spanish territory, and that papers issued by the Cuban governor general certified that the Africans were landinos—legal slaves. The U.S. had no right to question the official documents of another country, opponents insisted.
Even if there were doubts about the status of the Africans aboard the Amistad, critics continued, the issue needed to be settled between Britain and Spain under the Anglo-Spanish treaty banning the slave trade. The U.S. had no reason to become involved, they insisted. Secretary of State Forsyth made that point in a legal brief in the Amistad case: "It is true, by the treaty between Great Britain and Spain, the slave trade is prohibited to the subjects of each; but the parties to this treaty or agreement are the proper judges of any infraction of it, and they have created special tribunals to decide questions arising under the treaty; nor does it belong to any other nation to adjudicate upon it, or to enforce it."
Furthermore, critics said, the U.S. had an obligation to return the Amistad and its crew to Spain under Pinckney's Treaty and the Adams-Onis Treaty, since the terms of those treaties obligated the U.S. and Spain to return all ships and their cargoes rescued in each other's waters. They pointed out that under Article 8 of Pinckney's Treaty, ships "forced through stress of weather, pursuit of pirates, or enemies, or any other urgent necessity" into the other's waters "shall no ways be hindered from returning out of the said Ports." They further cited Article 9, which stated, "All Ships and merchandise of what nature soever which shall be rescued out of the hands of any Pirates or Robbers on the high seas shall be...taken care of and restored entire to the true proprietor as soon as due and sufficient proof shall be made concerning the property there of."
The Africans aboard the Amistad were not only slaves, critics insisted, but also mutineers and murderers, and deserved to be brought to justice. Spanish minister Caballero de Argaiz emphasized that point in November 1840, stating that "Spain does not demand the delivery of slaves but of assassins." Critics also pointed out that slaves did not enjoy a legal right to resort to violence to free themselves. "No nation recognizing slavery admits the sufficiency of forcible emancipation," Gilpin declared during his argument before the Supreme Court.
Critics argued that since the crime had been committed aboard a Spanish vessel in Spanish waters, it did not fall under U.S. jurisdiction. Therefore, they said, the U.S. could not administer justice to the Amistad's Africans. "In the case now before me, the vessel is a Spanish vessel, belonging exclusively to Spaniards, navigated by Spaniards, and sailing under Spanish papers and flag, from one Spanish port to another. It therefore follows, unquestionably, that any offence committed on board is cognizable before the Spanish tribunals, and not elsewhere," Forsyth declared in his brief.
Overall, critics insisted, the U.S. had a legal, judicial and moral obligation to return the Amistad's Africans to Spanish territory. They warned that ignoring existing laws and treaties would risk damaging U.S.-Spanish relations. In his letter to Forsyth, Calderon invoked "the law of nations, the stipulations of existing treaties, and those good feelings so necessary to the maintenance of the friendly relations that subsist between the two countries," in requesting that Spain's property be returned.
The only reason the Amistad mutineers were being given preferential treatment was that they were black, and the abolitionists were using them to further their antislavery agenda, critics charged. If whites had committed the murders, they would have been turned over to Spain immediately, opponents insisted. In response to Judson's January ruling, the Washington Globe printed a letter from an unidentified Southern political leader who decried the injustice of the ruling:
This is the justice of an American Court, bowed down in disgraceful subserviency before the bigoted mandates of that blind fanaticism, which prompted the Judge upon the bench to declare in his decree, in reference to one of these Negroes, that, although he might be stained with crime, yet he should not sigh in vain for Africa; and all because his hands were reeking with the blood of murdered white men. It is a base outrage (I can use no milder language) upon all the sympathies of civilized life.
The Case in Favor of Freeing the Amistad Crew
Supporters of freeing the Mendians argued that the only consideration in the ruling was natural law. The Africans had a basic right to their freedom, they insisted. "I know of no other law that reaches the case of my clients, but the law of Nature and of Nature's God on which our fathers placed our national existence," Adams declared during the Supreme Court trial. Pointing to a copy of the Declaration of Independence hanging on the courtroom wall, he continued, "That Declaration, says that every man is 'endowed by his Creator with certain inalienable rights,' and that 'among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...'. The moment you come to the Declaration of Independence...this case is decided. I ask nothing more on behalf of these unfortunate men than this Declaration."
The Mendians had been free men in Africa, supporters pointed out, and had been kidnapped by slave traders in violation of the 1817 treaty banning the slave trade. For the court to rule against them would essentially be to commit free men to slavery, they insisted. During his Supreme Court arguments, Baldwin stated that the question was "whether men and children who were born free, & who have never been held as slaves for a moment, except as the victims of piracy and fraud, shall when they have escaped from bondage and sought an asylum in our country, be reduced to slavery by the active interference of the Executive, or of the Judicial tribunals of our country."
Supporters insisted that the Amistad mutiny was justified, because all free men had a basic right to resort to violence to protect their liberty. The Supreme Court recognized that principle in its decision in the Amistad case. Writing for the majority, Justice Joseph Storey affirmed the "ultimate right of all human beings in extreme cases to resist oppression, and to apply force against ruinous injustice."
Supporters compared Africans aboard the Amistad to the American colonists who had resorted to violence to gain their independence from Britain during the Revolutionary War (1775-83). In a March 27, 1841, article, the Colored American wrote of Cinque: "This noble hero, by his defence of liberty, has placed himself side by side with Patrick Henry, John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson, and Samuel and John Adams, fathers of the Revolution. The justice of the nation has stood up in vindication of his deeds, in defence of his course, and decreed them right."
Supporters acknowledged the treaties with Spain. However, they argued that they did not apply in the Amistad case, since the Africans were free men who had been kidnapped, rather than slaves. Pinckney's Treaty required that a country show "due and sufficient proof" of ownership of the goods in question, they pointed out; each country's courts could establish whether the claim was valid. In the Amistad case, the only proof of ownership was the Africans' travel documents claiming that they were landinos, but those papers were fraudulent, supporters claimed.
For one thing, they said, the Africans spoke no Spanish at all, so they could not have lived in Cuba long enough to become landinos. In addition, they continued, the four children were too young to have been imported legally into Cuba before the slave-trade law went into effect in 1820. Therefore, the Africans must have been bozales, and Spain could claim no right of ownership of them, they insisted. Judson quickly recognized that difference during the trial. When a linguistic expert testified for the defense about the language of the Africans, the judge stated that there was no need for that testimony because he was "fully convinced that the men were recently taken from Africa, and it was idle to deny it."
As critics had done, supporters insisted that people's opinions on the case were based on the color of the Mendians' skin. "Cinque is no pirate, no murderer, no felon. His homicide is justifiable. Had a white man done it, it would have been glorious. It would have immortalized him," the New York newspaper the Herald Freedom declared.
Aftermath of the Amistad Affair
Two years after the Africans mutinied aboard the Amistad off the coast of Cuba, the Supreme Court in March 1841 officially granted them their freedom. Responses to the ruling echoed the terms of the debate over slavery. While Southern slaveholders decried the ruling, abolitionists in the North praised it.
However, while abolitionists had initially expressed hope that a positive outcome in the case would advance their cause, the ruling was too narrow to do so. Rather than condemning the institution of slavery, the ruling applied only to the specific case of the Mendians, who the court concluded were not slaves but free men who had been kidnapped in violation of the treaty banning the slave trade.
Following the Supreme Court's decision, the Mendians were finally free to return home. However, they could not afford to charter a ship to take them to Africa, and the U.S. government declined to provide transportation for them. Meanwhile, abolitionists continued to support the Mendians, providing housing for them, teaching them English and helping them to raise enough money to return to Africa.
To raise the money, the Mendians traveled throughout the Northeast discussing their experiences. They had sparked great public interest while in jail during their trial. More than five thousand people every day had paid the jailer a small fee to observe the Africans in order to, in Tappan's words, "acquaint themselves with the African character, as developed before the natives have been corrupted by intercourse with the white man." They finally raised enough money to charter a ship, and left for Africa aboard the Gentleman in November 1841. They reached Africa the following January.
In the wake of the Supreme Court's ruling, Spain demanded a $47,405 indemnity from the U.S. for the combined value of what had been given to Gedney and the lost human cargo. However, while Congress considered legislation meant to comply with Spain's request—and help keep the U.S. on friendly terms with Spain—no such legislation was ever passed because of the wider dispute over slavery. Critics of Spain's claim argued that indemnifying Spain would constitute an admission by the U.S. government that slavery was acceptable. The dispute persisted until Spain finally dropped its claim in the 1860s.
Overall, although the Amistad episode did not lead to the immediate abolition of slavery in the U.S., it did fuel the debate over slavery. Many historians view the Amistad dispute as having contributed to the heightening of tensions between North and South, which eventually erupted into the Civil War (1861-65). Tappan had been correct when, after the first Circuit Court ruling, he predicted that the Amistad case would give rise to debates "that will bring up the whole subject matter of slavery as well as the slave trade."
Bibliography
Barber, John. A History of the Amistad Captives: Being a Circumstantial Account of the Capture of the Spanish Schooner Amistad, by the Africans on Board. New Haven, Conn.: E.L. & J.W. Barber, 1840.
Cable, Mary. Black Odyssey: The Case of the Slave Ship Amistad. New York: Viking Press, 1971.
Chiasson, Lloyd Jr. Illusive Shadows: Justice, Media, and Socially Significant American Trials. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003.
Hathaway, Jane. Rebellion, Repression, Reinvention: Mutiny in Comparative Perspective. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2001.
Jones, Howard. Mutiny on the Amistad: The Saga of a Slave Revolt and Its Impact on American Abolition, Law and Diplomacy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
Martin, Christopher. The Amistad Affair. New York: Abelard-Schuman, 1970.
Montesinos Sale, Maggie. The Slumbering Volcano: American Slave Ship Revolts and the Production of Rebellious Masculinity. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1997.
Owens, William. Black Mutiny: The Revolt on the Schooner Amistad. New York: Penguin Group, 1953.
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