Amistad Accounting – Tale of two Supreme Court cases

• Notable Amistad Case Profoundly Impacted Slavery in USA • Commentary

Bruce William Deckert

Editor-in-Chief

Today Magazine Online

• This commentary essay is the second feature in a two-part series

The stunning and sensational case of the slave ship Amistad stands as a key episode in the history of race relations and civil rights in the United States — and the significance of the momentous event reverberates to this day. Further, the Amistad legacy is rooted in Connecticut’s Farmington Valley.

The inception of the case can be traced to the illegal enslavement of free African people in February 1839. Portuguese slave hunters kidnapped men and women in eastern Africa and shipped them to Havana, Cuba, an epicenter for the slave trade.

SEO: Tale Two Supreme Court Cases

Magna PT website – Click This Ad

SEO: Tale Two Supreme Court Cases

“This abduction violated all of the treaties then in existence,” according to the U.S. National Archives.

In Havana, the Africans were falsely classified as native Cuban slaves and purchased at auction by two Spanish plantation owners. About 50 unlawfully enslaved African men were then chained and placed on the cargo schooner La Amistad for a coastal voyage to a Cuban plantation.

Three days into this voyage, the men revolted and commandeered the Amistad — led by Sengbe Pieh aka Cinque — and killed most of the crew in the process. After an unsuccessful attempt to return to their African homeland, the Amistad was ultimately intercepted off the U.S. coast, near Long Island, New York. The African men were captured, charged with murder and imprisoned in New London, Connecticut.

The legal battle that ensued focused on a key legal question: Were these men the legally enslaved property of Spanish citizens, or were they free people who had been kidnapped and illegally enslaved?

The case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, where lawyer and former president John Quincy Adams defended the African men. In March 1841, over two years after the original illicit kidnapping, the court ruled that the men were free and authorized a return to their African homeland.

SEO: Tale Two Supreme Court Cases

CB website — Click This Ad

SEO: Tale Two Supreme Court Cases

From March to November 1841, the men lived in the town of Farmington — the namesake of Connecticut’s Farmington Valley — while abolitionists raised funds for their homegoing voyage, according to the Farmington Historical Society. The African men were mostly of Mendi ancestry from current-day Sierra Leone.

Supreme Court senior justice Joseph Story wrote the court’s opinion, declaring the African men were justified in their insurrection against illegitimate slavery — he affirmed “the ultimate right of all human beings in extreme cases to resist oppression, and to apply force against ruinous injustice.”

The prosecution in the Amistad case accused the African men of an unlawful mutiny. However, the Supreme Court ruled that the insurrection was lawful and ethical and legal, rendering a historic 19th-century verdict that echoed two decades later in the American Civil War — and still resonates nearly two centuries later, here in the third decade of the 21st century.

Indeed, our nation's highest court essentially viewed these illegally abducted men not as horrific murderers — per the prosecution's opinion — but instead as heroic freedom fighters, comparable to the Sons of Liberty.

U.S. historians have documented the Sons of Liberty as a patriotic and sometimes-violent paramilitary organization whose actions and tactics, including the legendary Boston Tea Party, cemented the American colonists' resistance to British authority and taxation, ultimately leading to the Revolutionary War and U.S. independence.

SEO: Tale Two Supreme Court Cases

Maher's website – Click This Ad

SEO: Tale Two Supreme Court Cases

TALE OF TWO CASES

The Supreme Court's Amistad opinion was decidedly different than the prevailing view of slavery in the United States from the nation's founding until the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 at the height of the Civil War.

Historically, the Amistad ruling occurred less than two decades before another significant Supreme Court decision connected to slavery: the Dred Scott decision of 1857.

If novelist Charles Dickens wrote about these two events, perhaps the book would be titled: A Tale of Two Supreme Court Cases. Dickens penned the classic historical novel A Tale of Two Cities, set in London and Paris against the backdrop of the French Revolution that raged from 1787 to 1799.

The American Revolution took place from 1775 to 1783 — and this year American citizens are poised to celebrate the nation's 250th birthday on the legendary Fourth of July holiday that marks the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

In 1846, an enslaved man named Dred Scott sued for his freedom in the St. Louis Circuit Court. He based his lawsuit on a Missouri statute that had been invoked in hundreds of other cases, so initially the case was unremarkable. But nearly a decade later, when the lawsuit reached the Supreme Court, the case had become a lightning rod for North-South hostility that brought the United States a giant step closer to Civil War.

SEO: Tale Two Supreme Court Cases

Sarah Heath Photography website – Click This Ad

Serving CT & Western MA

SEO: Tale Two Supreme Court Cases

In 1857, the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision "stunned the nation," according to the Missouri State Archives website — the high court "denied the legality of black citizenship in America," ruling that enslaved people were not U.S. citizens and thus could not receive legal protection from the federal government or federal courts. The decision also upheld slavery in U.S. territories.

Some legal scholars consider the ruling the worst decision ever rendered by the Supreme Court. Soon after the Civil War, the decision was overturned by the 13th and 14th amendments to the Constitution that abolished slavery and granted citizenship to black people born in the United States.

Comparing the Amistad and Dred Scott decisions, there are at least two key differences.

First, Scott was born in Virginia, the son of enslaved parents, so he was enslaved when he filed his lawsuit. In the Amistad case, the Supreme Court ruled that the African men were free persons who had been illegally kidnapped and unlawfully enslaved.

Second, the Amistad decision went beyond U.S. law, appealing to international treaties that banned the slave trade. Domestic law was also clear — the United States had enacted the Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves from other countries back in 1808. However, a domestic slave trade between U.S. ports persisted legally.

The Amistad ruling helped galvanize the abolitionist movement and served as a rallying point for abolitionists, among other anti-slavery milestones, until slavery was finally abolished.

Brookside Bagels website – Click This Ad

Simsbury • Hopmeadow Street • 860-651-1492

SEO: Tale Two Supreme Court Cases

MOVIE AND MONTH ACCLAIM

Acclaimed director Steven Spielberg produced a historical movie released in 1997 based on the Amistad story.

The "Amistad" film graphically depicted the horrific nature of the slave trade and chronicled the ultimate Supreme Court victory — relying on riveting performances by Morgan Freeman, Anthony Hopkins, Djimon Hounsou and Matthew McConaughey.

The film concluded on a sad note, communicated in three on-screen messages:

• "Cinque returned to Sierra Leone to find his own people engaged in civil war."

• "His village was destroyed and his family gone."

• "It is believed they were sold into slavery." 

Numerous other movies address the history of slavery and the American Civil War — including: 12 Years ​A Slave​, Amazing Grace​, Django Unchained​, Emancipation​,​ Free State of Jones​, Glory​​ and Lincoln​. Meanwhile, Roots ​is an acclaimed TV miniseries based on Alex Haley's​ book that traces his family's slavery-and-freedom story​.

SEO: Tale Two Supreme Court Cases

Fitzgerald’s Foods website – Click This Ad

Simsbury • Hopmeadow Street • 860-658-2271

SEO: Tale Two Supreme Court Cases

A related sad irony is connected to the English translation of the slave ship's name: Amistad is the Spanish word for friendship. Safe to say, the Amistad ship's purpose and function was the antithesis of friendship in every conceivable way.

The timing of this Amistad news coverage coincides with Black History Month — and this year is the 40th anniversary of the law enacted by Congress in 1986 that officially established Black History Month in America. However, the national celebration of black history actually dates back a full century: Historian and author Dr. Carter G. Woodson initiated the first Negro History Week in February 1926, per the Library of Congress website.

Over time, that single week blossomed into a monthlong celebration.

A case can be made that the achievements and contributions of black Americans are worth noting and observing month by month, all year long. Still, it seems appropriate to set aside a month to specifically honor the legacy of all the black men and women who have graced and enhanced American history. + 

• This is the second article in a two-part series — here is the first:

  Freedom Refound – True tale of Amistad rooted in CT history 

SEO: Tale Two Supreme Court Cases

Granby-Simsbury Chamber of Commerce website – Click This Ad

860-651-7307 • info@simsburycoc. org

SEO: Tale Two Supreme Court Cases

Featuring community news that matters nationwide, Today Magazine Online aims to record Connecticut’s underreported upside — covering the heart of the Farmington Valley and beyond

Today editor-in-chief Bruce Deckert is a multi-award-winning journalist who believes all people merit awards when we leverage our various God-given gifts for good

Related Today News

• Birthday Bash – Reborn museum preps for America 250 

• In The Black – ShopBlackCT seeks better business equity 

• Open Book – School choice in CT cuts both ways 

• Discovering Amistad website — New Haven-based nonprofit

• Sources — Farmington Historical Society: FHS-CT.org • Library of Congress: LoC.gov • Missouri State Archives: SoS.Mo.gov • U.S. Census Bureau: Census.gov • U.S. National Archives: Archives.gov • U.S. Senate site: Senate. gov •

Today Magazine and Today Online are produced by Today Publishing

• 5 Farmington Valley Towns • 1 Aim — Exceptional Community Journalism

• Avon • Canton • Farmington • Granby • Simsbury • Connecticut • USA