The mutiny on board the ship La Amistad by the Mendi Africans who were sold into slavery in Cuba, and the three subsequent United States court cases were vivid and compelling events pitting abolitionists against pro-slavery forces in the United States right up until the beginning of the Civil War 20 years later.
This tour covers the nine month period in Farmington after the Africans were found to be free men by the Supreme Court in a case argued on their behalf by former President John Quincy Adams.
Just days after this decision, the surviving Africans traveled from jail in New Haven, along the Farmington Canal, to the prosperous town of Farmington. Here abolitionists provided housing, schooling, and the fundraising necessary for the Mendi's passage back to their native Sierra Leone.
Here's an overview of what preceded this period:
In February of 1839, slave hunters abducted a large group of Africans from Sierra Leone and shipped them to Cuba, a center for the slave trade. This abduction violated all of the treaties then in existence.
Two Spanish plantation owners purchased 53 Africans and put them aboard the Amistad to ship them to a Caribbean plantation. On July 1, 1839, the Africans seized the ship, killed the captain and the cook, and ordered Montes and Ruiz, the plantation owners, to sail to Africa.
The plantation owners secretly steered the ship north; and on August 24, 1839, the Amistad was seized off Long Island, New York, by the U.S. brig Washington. The schooner, its cargo, and all on board were taken to New London, Connecticut. The plantation owners were freed and the Africans were imprisoned on charges of murder.
Although the murder charges were dismissed, the Africans continued to be held in confinement and the case went to trial in the Federal District Court in Connecticut. The plantation owners, government of Spain, and the captain of the Washington each claimed rights to the Africans or compensation.
President Van Buren was in favor of extraditing the Africans to Cuba. However, abolitionists in the North were opposed to this plan and raised money to defend the Africans. Had it not been for the abolitionists, the issues related to the Amistad might have ended quietly in an admiralty court. But the abolitionists used the incident as a way to expose the evils of slavery and generate significant opposition to the practice.
The abolitionists hired lawyers from New Haven as well as two New York attorneys to serve as proctors, or legal representatives, for the Africans. The proctors answered the libels by conveying the position of the Africans: "...each of them are natives of Africa and were born free, and ever since have been and still of right are and ought to be free and not slaves..." It states that they were not a part of the Spanish domestic slave trade, and instead had been forcibly kidnapped from the African coast. And further that, while suffering “great cruelty and oppression” on board the Amistad, they were “incited by the love of liberty natural to all men” to take possession of the ship by force and seek asylum.
The district court ruled that the case fell within Federal jurisdiction, and that the claims to the Africans as property were not legitimate because they were illegally held as slaves. The United States District Attorney filed an appeal to the Supreme Court (yes, it was the government that appealed).
In the trial before the Supreme Court, the Africans were represented by former the U.S. President, and descendant of American revolutionaries, John Quincy Adams. For 8 ½ hours, the 73-year-old Adams passionately defended the Africans' right to freedom on both legal and moral grounds, referring to treaties prohibiting the slave trade and to the Declaration of Independence.
The Supreme Court decided in favor of the Africans, stating that they were free individuals. Kidnapped and transported illegally, they had never been slaves. Senior Justice Joseph Story wrote and read the decision: "...it was the ultimate right of all human beings in extreme cases to resist oppression, and to apply force against ruinous injustice." The opinion asserted the Africans' right to resist "unlawful" slavery.
The Court ordered the immediate release of the Amistad Africans. Thirty-six of the survivors moved to Farmington, Connecticut for about eight months before journeying back to their homeland. Eighteen of the Mendi who died at sea or in prison while awaiting trial were returned to their homeland.
