The U.S. Supreme Court rules in the United States v. The Amistad case that captive Africans who had seized control of the ship carrying them had been taken into slavery illegally.
United States v. Schooner Amistad, 40 U.S. (15 Pet.) 518 (1841), was a United States Supreme Court case resulting from the rebellion of Africans on board the Spanish schooner La Amistad in 1839. It was an unusual freedom suit that involved international issues and parties as well as United States law. The historian Samuel Eliot Morison described it in 1969 as the most important court case involving slavery before being eclipsed by that of Dred Scott in 1857.La Amistad was traveling along the coast of Cuba on her way to a port for re-sale of the slaves. The African captives, Mende people who had been kidnapped in the area of Sierra Leone, in West Africa, illegally sold into slavery, and shipped to Cuba, escaped their shackles and took over the ship. They killed the captain and the cook; two other crew members escaped in a lifeboat. The Mende directed the two Spanish navigator survivors to return them to Africa. The crew tricked them by sailing north at night. La Amistad was later apprehended near Long Island, New York, by the United States Revenue Cutter Service (the predecessor of the U.S. Coast Guard) and taken into custody. The widely-publicized court cases in the U.S. federal district court and eventually the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., in 1841, which addressed international issues, helped the abolitionist movement.
In 1840, a federal district court found that the transport of the kidnapped Africans across the Atlantic Ocean on the Portuguese slave ship Tecora was in violation of US laws against slave trade. The captives were ruled to have acted as free men when they fought to escape their kidnapping and illegal confinement. The court ruled the Africans were entitled to take whatever legal measures necessary to secure their freedom, including the use of force. Under international and Southern sectional pressure, U.S. President Martin Van Buren ordered the case appealed to the Supreme Court. It affirmed the lower district court ruling on March 9, 1841, and authorized the release of the Mende, but it overturned the additional order of the lower court to return them to Africa at government expense.
Supporters arranged for temporary housing of the Africans in Farmington, Connecticut, as well as funds for travel. In 1842, the 35 who wanted to return to Africa, together with U.S. Christian missionaries, were transported by ship to Sierra Leone.
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