Depiction of the Amistad revolt
Sengbe Pieh - or Joseph Cinqué (1814-1879)
The Supreme Court's decision in the Amistad case
March 9th 1841: United States v. The Amistad
On this day in 1841, the Supreme Court issued their decision in United States v. The Amistad on the case of the 1839 mutiny aboard a slave ship. The rebellion occurred on the Spanish ship The Amistad as it was bound for Havana, Cuba, where captured men would be sold to a Caribbean plantation. The mutiny of fifty-three abducted men from Sierra Leone was led by Joseph Cinqué, and they killed the captain and ordered the sailors to turn the ship around and return to Africa. However, the ship was soon seized by an American ship off the coast of Long Island, New York. The mutineers were imprisoned on murder charges, while a debate over what to do with them gripped the United States. Abolitionists led the effort to free the men, fighting ownership claims of the Spanish government which were supported by President Martin van Buren. A state court referred the Amistad case to the federal judicial system, and it reached the Supreme Court in 1841. In a landmark decision, the Court ruled in favour of the Africans - who were defended by former President John Quincy Adams. The Court declared that the men were illegally held as slaves, and decreed that they were free to return to their homeland. While slavery was legal in the United States, the importation of slaves had been banned in 1808, thus ruling that the men had been kidnapped and were justified in using violence to escape their condition.
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