navigating the potential of human achievement
History and Philosophy
THE AMISTAD STORY EXPLAINED
By 1839, many nations, including the United States, Britain and Spain, had made the slave trade illegal. However, trading was still lucrative. Fueled by economics and greed, it continued to flourish. In March 1839, a wealthy slaver , Pedro Blanco, completed the purchase of his latest group of 500 Africans, who were housed at the notorious West African slave trading port of Lomboko in the country now known as Sierra Leone. He marched them onto the slave ship Tecora, and, with his human cargo chained together and packed into the cramped, dark and stifling hold, set out across the Atlantic.
After a grueling ten-week voyage, the Tecora, like many slave ships before and after it, slipped by anti-slavery patrol ships and landed near Havana, Cuba.
In Havana, two Spaniards - Jose Ruiz and Pedro Montez- purchased forty-nine men, one boy and three girls to work on Cuban sugar plantations. On June 28, 1839 the 53 captives, Ruiz, Montez and a five-man crew boarded, La Amistadand left Havana, for Puerto Principe. On the morning of July 2, Sengbe Pieh, a 25 year old rice farmer led a revolt. Using a loose spike he had removed from the ship's deck he managed to unlock his shackles and free the other African captives. Armed with sugar cane knives they found in the hold, the Africans crept on deck and took over the ship. Two Africans and two Spaniards were killed in the struggle. Two crew escaped in a small boat. Ruiz , Montez and Antonio, the cabin boy were taken captive.
For the next 63 days, La Amistad zigzagged through the Bahamas and into the Atlantic Ocean. The Africans obviously wanted to sail back to their homeland in West Africa, but knew little about operating and navigating a schooner. However, since the Tecora had sailed west towards the setting sun, Sengbe instructed Ruiz and Montez to sail the vessel towards the east and the rising sun. During the day, Sengbe's instructions were followed. At night, however, with no sun and only unfamiliar stars to guide the Africans, the Spaniards changed course and sailed the ship northwest. With only a week's supply of provisions on board, food and water grew scarce. The long unexpected voyage began to take its toll: eight Africans fell sick and died.
All the while, Ruiz and Montes secretly hoped that another ship would spot La Amistad and rescue them. In fact, the vessel was spotted. Rumors of a "long, low black schooner" with shredded sails and a suspicious looking crew of heavily armed black men, "buccaneers," circulated along the Eastern seaboard.
On August 26th, the Washington, a U.S. Navy vessel captained by T.R. Gedney, spotted La Amistad off the coast of Long Island, New York, where the captives had anchored her in order to search for food and water. Gedney took control of the schooner, seizing the ship and her "cargo" as salvage and sailed into New London, Connecticut, where La Amistad was soon docked at the wharf near the U.S. Custom House.
Once in Connecticut, the schooner, the people aboard, their story and the long legal battle that followed became the center of a huge media storm. It ignited fierce controversy and public debate about issue at issue at its core--- the brutal institution of slavery itself. The legal firestorm grew, involving national and international interests, pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces.
For nineteen months, the captives having been arrested and charged with murder, waited in custody. The African men and little boy were housed in the New Haven jail. The three little girls were housed with the jailer and his wife. Conditions were bare and their days were filled with fear of the unknown. They spoke no English and had no way to communicate their side of the story.
As the battle was waged in the courts of public and legal opinion the Africans remained in prison and endured a series of trials and appeals. People came from everywhere to catch a glimpse of them. Legally, the cards seemed stacked against them. The first judge to hear the case ordered that they be tried for murder and piracy.
However, the captives also had people on their side: abolitionists who rallied to the cause. In fact, a New London grocer, abolitionist Dwight Janes had been aboard the vessel moored near New London and immediately alerted his allies that none of the Africans aboard the ship were could be legally classified as slaves. Lawyers Joshua Leavitt, of New York, editor of the antislavery paper, the Emancipator and Roger S. Baldwin, a New Haven lawyer and friend of abolition. Leavitt was asked to investigate the ship's papers and to go to New York to find someone who could speak the African's language and get their side of the story. Attorney Baldwin agreed to take the African's case. Eventually it was Yale Professor Josiah GIbbs who learned to count to ten from three of the Amistad captives. He then travelled to New York where he walked along the waterfront counting loudly until someone understood and approached. James Covey and Charles Pratt, both sailors employed on the British Warship Buzzard, were Mende from west Africa. They helped to translate in great detail, the testimony of the African captives.
As the case moved through the courts it continued to touch sensitive political and international nerves. President Van Buren's administration feared retailiation from Spain if the ship and its "cargo" ere not returned to Cuba. Pro-slavery judge Andrew Judson was assigned to hear the case. On January 30, 1840, despite his views and based on teh evidence, Judge Judson ruled that the Africans had been illegally obtained and transported and were not therefore anyone's property. They were free people and should remain so.
The Van Buren administration immediately appealed the New Haven Court's decision. The case would now go to the Supreme Court: the first human rights case argued on behalf of Africans.
Attorney Roger Sherman Baldwin and former U. S. President, John Quincy Adams were to represent them. The Africans themselves were not allowed to go to D.C. They continued to await their fate in their Connecticut jail. In his argument before the court, the 73-year old Adams, an outspoken anti-slavery advocate, referred repeatedly to the copy of the Declaration of Independence hanging on the wall of the courtroom. Wre inalienable rights guaranteed to all men or not?
The justices deliberated. The decision? The kidnapping of the Mende was illegal. Ruiz and Montes' documents had been falsified. The Africans were free people. Though Adams' appeal to American ideals was emotional and persuasive, the case was won on legal grounds and evidence. It was the first civil rights case argued successfully behalf of Africans in the U.S. Supreme Court.
After the court's decision, the Africans found that freedom, literally, had a price. It took eight months for the abolitionists to raise enough money to send the Africans home. In the meantime, once released from jail, they were sent to live in Farmington, Connecticut, home to a number of influential abolitionists and anti-slavery sympathizers.
On November 27th, 1841, the ship, Gentleman, set sail from New York carrying the surviving Africans - four children and thirty one men home to West Africa and the country today known as Sierra Leone. Several white and black Christian missionaries accompanied the Africans in order to set up a mission in Mendeland.
Finally on January 15, 1842, two years and nine months after their ordeal began, the Amistad Africans arrived in Freetown. Little is known of the fates after their return. Many found their families gone - probably victims of the slave trade just as they had been. Several kept up sporadic contact with the missionaries over the years. One of the little girls, Margru, eventually returned to America to study at Oberlin College in Ohio, the first institution of higher education in the U.S. to admit African and African American students. She later returned to Africa to teach at the mission.