Amistad, The

Slave ship bound from Africa to the Americas on which slaves rebelled against the crew, and a court later ruled that the blacks were free and should be returned to Africa.

On August 26, 1839, two American sea captains hunting on Long Island were startled to meet four black men clothed only in blankets and unable to speak English. The black men took the captains to a place where a ship was visible offshore. Through sign language, the blacks offered the captains gold if they would sail the men back to Africa. The ship was the Spanish schooner Amistad, and the story of it and its cargo of slaves would fascinate and divide Americans over the next year.

The captains agreed to return the men to Africa, but before they could do so, the U.S. Coast Guard vessel Washington appeared and approached the slave ship. The captain of the Washington boarded the Amistad, seizing its crew of slaves and two Spanish crewmen who were being held captive.

Upon questioning, a Spanish crewman named Ruiz revealed that the slaves had been bought in Havana, Cuba, but that they had freed themselves, seized the ship, killed the captain, and then demanded to be returned to Africa. The crew decided to sail slowly for Africa during daylight hours but then reverse course each night, taking them toward the coast of the United States. After six weeks, the Amistad sailed into the waters off the coast of New York. Ruiz failed to reveal, however, that the slaves had come to Cuba directly from Africa in violation of a treaty that forbade the importing of slaves to Spanish colonies.

The Amistad was towed to Connecticut, where the U.S. Attorney General for the state, William Holabird, ordered a hearing to determine who, if anyone, owned the slaves. As a result of the hearing, the presiding judge ordered a trial to be held to settle the matter. The slaves were detained at the county jail until the trial, and local townspeople paid the jailer for closer looks at the Africans.

A small group of abolitionists seized on the opportunity to use the case as a platform to attack slavery. They arranged for legal help to argue the case for freeing the slaves. The defense also brought in a language specialist from Yale University, Dr. Josiah Gibbs, to determine what part of Africa the slaves called home. Gibbs and other experts concluded that the Africans hailed from Mendeland, an area near Freetown in Sierra Leone, a colony of freed slaves. Authorities then located Mende speakers in New England to translate the captives' story.

Spain, whose Cuban subjects owned and operated the Amistad, pressed the U.S. government to return the ship and slaves to their Spanish owners. President Martin Van Buren, who wished to accommodate the Spanish, had District Attorney Holabird prepare legal arguments to support the Spanish position. Van Buren also issued secret orders to seize the slaves in case the decision went against the Spanish and to put them back aboard the ship in chains before any appeal could be filed.

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