Adams begins arguments in the Amistad case. A practicing lawyer and member of the House of Representatives, John Quincy Adams was the son of America’s second president, founding father and avowed abolitionist John Adams. Although John Quincy Adams publicly downplayed his abolitionist stance,...
Abolitionists enlisted former US president John Quincy Adams to represent the Amistad captives’ petition for freedom before the Supreme Court. Adams, then a 73-year-old US congressman from Massachusetts, had in recent years fought tirelessly against Congress’s “gag rule” banning anti-slavery petitions.
Adams, John Quincy, “I appear…on…behalf of thirty-six individuals, the life and liberty of every one…depend on…this court,” Argument of John Quincy Adams, before the Supreme Court of the United States, in the Case of the United States, Appellants, vs. Cinque, and Others, Africans, Captured in the Schooner Amistad.
The captives’ fate rested on his ability to successfully present their case to the Supreme Court. Quincy Adams was born on July 11, 1767 in Braintree, Massachusetts to John and Abigail Adams. He graduated from Harvard University in 1787, and in 1790 was accepted into the Bar Association in Boston.
Abolitionists enlisted former US President John Quincy Adams to represent the Amistad captives' petition for freedom before the Supreme Court. Adams, then a 73-year-old US Congressman from Massachusetts, had in recent years fought tirelessly against Congress's “gag rule” banning anti-slavery petitions.
He knew slavery was immoral and fought throughout his career to advance universal freedom. His advocacy helped lay the groundwork for the abolition movement. Though he was president from 1825-1829, John Quincy Adams became known for his passionate anti-slavery advocacy in Congress.
Roger Baldwin was a Yale-educated forty-six-year old New Haven lawyer with a reputation for defending the unfortunate when he was asked to represent the Africans of the Amistad.
In 1830, former Senator, Secretary of State, and President John Quincy Adams was elected to the House of Representatives. Although he did not embrace radical abolitionism, he believed that slavery was a moral evil that contradicted the ideals of the Declaration of Independence.
Most Respected Sir, The Mendi People give you thanks for all your kindness to them. They will never forget your defence of their rights before the Great Court at Washington. They feel that they owe to you, in a large measure, their deliverance from the Spaniards, and from Slavery or Death.
Adams, despite being opposed to slavery, did not support abolitionism except if it was done in a "gradual" way with "much caution and Circumspection." Adams dismisses radical abolitionist measures as "produc[ing] greater violations of Justice and Humanity, than the continuance of the practice" of slavery itself.
Serving under President Monroe, Adams was one of America's great Secretaries of State, arranging with England for the joint occupation of the Oregon country, obtaining from Spain the cession of the Floridas, and formulating with the President the Monroe Doctrine.
The Verdict On March 9, 1841, the Supreme Court ruled 7-1 to uphold the lower courts' decisions in favor of the Africans of the Amistad. Justice Joseph Story delivered the majority opinion, writing that “There does not seem to us to be any ground for doubt, that these negroes ought to be deemed free.”
Abolitionists hired Roger S. Baldwin, a lawyer from New Haven, and two New York attorneys, Seth Staples and Theodore Sedgewick, to serve as proctors, or legal representatives, for the Africans.
JQA may have developed a sincere affection for the man. The point remains, though, that while Adams never owned enslaved people and is considered by many an antislavery president, he appears to have permitted slavery under his own roof.
John Quincy Adams was born into a family that never owned slaves, and was hostile to the practice. His mother, Abigail Adams, held strong anti-slavery views.
Johnson went on to free all his personal slaves on August 8, 1863. On October 24, 1864, Johnson officially freed all slaves in Tennessee. Although he later served as a general in the Union Army, his wife Julia had control of four slaves during the American Civil War, given to her by her father.
JQA may have developed a sincere affection for the man. The point remains, though, that while Adams never owned enslaved people and is considered by many an antislavery president, he appears to have permitted slavery under his own roof.
Serving under President Monroe, Adams was one of America's great Secretaries of State, arranging with England for the joint occupation of the Oregon country, obtaining from Spain the cession of the Floridas, and formulating with the President the Monroe Doctrine.
John Quincy Adams was born into a family that never owned slaves, and was hostile to the practice. His mother, Abigail Adams, held strong anti-slavery views.
Ulysses S. GrantThe last president to personally own enslaved people was Ulysses S. Grant, who served two terms between 1869 and 1877. The former commanding general of the Union Army had kept a lone Black enslaved man named William Jones in the years before the Civil War, but gave him his freedom in 1859.
Although John Quincy Adams publicly downplayed his abolitionist stance, he too viewed the practice as contrary to the nation’s core principles of freedom and equality. After serving one term as president between 1825 and 1829, Adams was elected to the House of Representatives, in which he served until his death in 1848.
John Quincy Adams begins arguments in Amistad case. On February 24, 1841, former President John Quincy Adams begins to argue the Amistad case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. A practicing lawyer and member of the House of Representatives, John Quincy Adams was the son of America’s second president, founding father and avowed abolitionist John ...
In a seven-hour argument that lasted two days, Adams attacked Van Buren’s abuse of executive power. His case deflated the U.S. attorney’s argument that the treaty with Spain should override U.S. principles of individual rights.
In a dramatic moment, Adams faced the judges, pointed to a copy of the Declaration of Independence hanging on the courtroom wall, and said “ [I know] no law, statute or constitution, no code, no treaty, except that law…which [is] forever before the eyes of your Honors.”.
The capture of the Amistad occurred in an era in which debate over the institution of slavery, its legality within the United States and its role in the American economy became more intense.
In 1839, a Spanish slave ship named La Amistad appeared off the coast of New York. The captives aboard it, who were free Africans kidnapped in Africa and originally bound for sale in Cuba, had rebelled, killing the Spanish ship’s captain and cook.
Spain, backed by a 1795 anti-piracy treaty with the U.S., also claimed rights to the Amistad and her cargo. President Martin Van Buren, personally neutral on the issue of slavery and concerned about his popularity in southern states, supported Spain’s claim.
John Quincy Adams to Roger S. Baldwin, November 11, 1840. (Gilder Lehrman Collection)#N#On July 1, 1839, fifty-three Africans, recently kidnapped into slavery in Sierra Leone and sold at a Havana slave market, revolted on board the schooner Amistad. They killed the captain and other crew and ordered the two Spaniards who had purchased them to sail them back to Africa. Instead, the ship was seized off Long Island by a US revenue cutter on August 24, 1839. The Amistad was then landed in New London, Connecticut, where the American cutter’s captain filed for salvage rights to the Amistad ’s cargo of Africans. The two Spaniards claimed ownership themselves, while Spanish authorities demanded the Africans be extradited to Cuba and tried for murder.
The Amistad case entered the federal courts and caught the nation’s attention. The murder charges against the Amistad captives were quickly dropped, but they remained in custody as the legal focus turned to the property rights claimed by various parties.
Adams, then a 73-year-old US Congressman from Massachusetts, had in recent years fought tirelessly against Congress’s "gag rule" banning anti-slavery petitions. Here, Adams accepted the job of representing the Amistad captives, hoping he would "do justice to their cause.".
Instead, the ship was seized off Long Island by a US revenue cutter on August 24, 1839. The Amistad was then landed in New London, Connecticut, where the American cutter’s captain filed for salvage rights to the Amistad ’s cargo of Africans.
The court ruled that no one owned the Africans because they had been illegally enslaved and transported to the New World. The Van Buren administration appealed the decision, and the case came before the US Supreme Court in January 1841.
Attorney readied arguments to that effect, while a group of wealthy abolitionists, organized by Lewis Tappan, hired a legal team led by New Haven attorney Roger Baldwin to defend the Africans in their bid for freedom.
Adams was then engaged in a long struggle to oppose the “gag rule” that prevented the House from considering petitions to end slavery in Washington, DC, and to stop the annexation of Texas as a slave state. He agreed to represent the Africans to achieve justice and preserve their natural rights, including liberty.
The federal government argued that the Africans should be returned to Cuba as enslaved persons because of treaty obligations with Spain going back to 1795. The defense argued that the Africans were illegally held, and that any documents holding them to be enslaved were forged.
In June 1839, a narrow Spanish ship, the Amistad, coasted along the waters of Cuba headed for a port on the northern end of the island. In its crowded, stifling cargo hold, dozens of Africans were chained together. Like the United States, Spain had banned the international slave trade, but the ban was routinely violated by illicit slave traders, who supplied the insatiable demand of the island’s sugar planters while colonial officials turned a blind eye.
In January 1840, the judge ruled in favor of the Africans, declaring that they were justified in resisting their illegal captivity and were free. He stated they were “natives of Africa and were born free and ever since have been and still of right are free and not slaves.” He ordered them to be returned to Africa. The government appealed the case, and the U.S. Circuit Court affirmed the lower court’s decision. The government appealed again, and the Supreme Court agreed in January 1841 to hear the case.
This 1839 oil paining of La Amistad shows the ship off Long Island, New York, next to the USS Washington.
Cooper, William J. The Lost Founding Father: John Quincy Adams and the Transformation of American Politics. New York: Norton, 2017.
Connecticut jailed the Africans and charged them with murder. The slave trade had been outlawed in the United States since 1808, but the institution of slavery itself thrived in the South. The Amistad case entered the federal courts and caught the nation’s attention. The murder charges against the Amistad captives were quickly dropped, but they remained in custody as the legal focus turned to the property rights claimed by various parties. President Martin Van Buren issued an order of extradition, per Spain’s wishes, but the New Haven federal court’s decision preempted the return of the captives to Cuba. The court ruled that no one owned the Africans because they had been illegally enslaved and transported to the New World. The Van Buren administration appealed the decision, and the case came before the US Supreme Court in January 1841.
On July 1, 1839, fifty-three Africans, recently kidnapped into slavery in Sierra Leone and sold at a Havana slave market, revolted on board the schooner Amistad. They killed the captain and other crew and ordered the two Spaniards who had purchased them to sail them back to Africa. Instead, the ship was seized off Long Island by a US revenue cutter on August 24, 1839. The Amistad was then landed in New London, Connecticut, where the American cutter’s captain filed for salvage rights to the Amistad ’s cargo of Africans. The two Spaniards claimed ownership themselves, while Spanish authorities demanded the Africans be extradited to Cuba and tried for murder.
Aboard the Spanish ship were a group of Africans who had been captured and sold illegally as slaves in Cuba. The enslaved Africans then revolted at sea and won control of the Amistad from their captors. U.S. authorities seized the ship and imprisoned the Africans, beginning a legal and diplomatic drama that would shake the foundations of the nation’s government and bring the explosive issue of slavery to the forefront of American politics.
Armed with knives, they seized control of the Amistad, killing its Spanish captain and the ship’s cook, who had taunted the captives by telling them they would be killed and eaten when they got to the plantation. In need of navigation, the Africans ordered Montes and Ruiz to turn the ship eastward, back to Africa.
Charged with murder and piracy, Cinque and the other Africans of the Amistad were imprisoned in New Haven. Though these criminal charges were quickly dropped, they remained in prison while the courts went about deciding their legal status, as well as the competing property claims by the officers of the Washington, Montes and Ruiz and the Spanish government.
In November 1841 , Cinque and the other 34 surviving Africans of the Amistad (the others had died at sea or in prison awaiting trial) sailed from New York aboard the ship Gentleman, accompanied by several Christian missionaries, to return to their homeland.
On March 9, 1841, the Supreme Court ruled 7-1 to uphold the lower courts’ decisions in favor of the Africans of the Amistad. Justice Joseph Story delivered the majority opinion, writing that “There does not seem to us to be any ground for doubt, that these negroes ought to be deemed free.”.
At the heart of the case, Adams argued, was the willingness of the United States to stand up for the ideals upon which it was founded. “The moment you come to the Declaration of Independence, that every man has a right to life and liberty, an inalienable right, this case is decided," Adams said.
But the Spaniards secretly changed course at night, and instead the Amistad sailed through the Caribbean and up the eastern coast of the United States . On August 26, the U.S. brig Washington found the ship while it was anchored off the tip of Long Island to get provisions.
It went from being a fragmented group to a legitimate movement, and the Amistad case helped centralize their message about the injustice of slavery. This is just one story associated with the Amistad event.
The U.S. vs. Amistad began in February 1841. The U.S. case argued that, under treaty obligations, the captives be returned to Spain. Adams stated that American ideals of freedom demanded that the Pieh and the others be set free and returned to their homes in what is presently Sierra Leone. The Supreme Court ruled 7-1 on the side of the captive Africans. They found that they were not Span ish, were taken illegally from Africa, and should return to Africa. The majority decision stated:
Funds for the trip were raised by the Amistad Committee. The Amistad court case is credited with being the first civil rights case in the United States.
The African captive’s defense was organized by the Amistad Committee- a group of local abolitionists. They argued that Spanish law and international treaty forbade the importation of Africans for the slave trade. Pieh and the others described their kidnap, mistreatment, and sale into slavery.
The U.S. Attorney appealed the decision to the next highest court, the Circuit Court, which upheld the District Court's opinion. The U.S. Attorney then appealed the decision to the Supreme Court. The Amistad Committee approached former President and Secretary of State John Quincy Adamsand asked him to argue the defense before the Supreme Court.
Adams stated that American ideals of freedom demanded that the Pieh and the others be set free and returned to their homes in what is presently Sierra Leone. The Supreme Court ruled 7-1 on the side of the captive Africans.
The brig Washington that seized the Amistad was commanded by Lt. Thomas R. Gedney. In maritime law, compensation is allowed to persons whose assistance saves a ship or its cargo from impending loss. Lt. Gedney claimed that it was with great difficulty and danger that he and his crew were able to recapture the Amistad from the Africans. They claimed that, had they not seized the vessel, it would have been a total loss to its "rightful" owners. Gedney and his crew believed they were entitled to salvage rights (or the full $65,000). At that time in U.S. history, even individuals acting in their official capacity as officials of the government were entitled to salvage rights.
In February of 1839, Portuguese slave hunters abducted a large group of Africans from Sierra Leone and shipped them to Havana, Cuba, a center for the slave trade. This abduction violated all of the treaties then in existence.
The Court ordered the immediate release of the Amistad Africans. Thirty five of the survivors were returned to their homeland (the others died at sea or in prison while awaiting trial). Materials created by the National Archives and Records Administration are in the public domain.
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 U.S. District Attorney filed an appeal to the Supreme Court.
Additional Background Information. Montes and Ruiz actually steered the ship north; and on August 24, 1839, the Amistad was seized off Long Island, NY , by the U.S. brig Washington. The schooner, its cargo, and all on board were taken to New London, CT.
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.
Read More... Warrant for Habeas Corpus Ordering Sengbe Pieh (Joseph Cinque), Leader of the Mutiny, and the Other Africans Who Were Aboard the Amistad to Appear in Court.