When the Spanish cargo schooner La Amistad came aground off the coast of
Long Island, New York in August 1839, the United
States found itself with an explosive legal and diplomatic case that would pit
the American system's ability to provide justice for all on its shores against
the federal government's ability to enforce its treaty obligations where the
jurisdiction of states is involved. Officers of the United States survey ship
Washington found the Amistad in a state of distress, bearing 53 Africans and the
two Spaniards who purchased them in Cuba with the intention of trading them into
slavery there. The Africans had mutinied, however, and attempted to have the
Spanish owners sail them back to Africa. After the American naval officers
helped the owners recover control of the ship and arranged for the guarded
detention of the Africans in
Connecticut, procuring the
Africans' freedom became the cause celebre of the burgeoning abolitionist and
missionary movement.
Joseph Cinqué of the Amistad (Nathaniel Jocelyn, 1840)
Two lawsuits ensued. The Washington officers brought the first case to federal
district court over salvage claims while the second case began in a Connecticut
court after the state arrested the Spanish traders on charges of enslaving free
Africans. The Spanish foreign minister, however, demanded that the Amistad and
its cargo be released from custody and the "slaves" sent to Cuba for punishment
by Spanish authorities. While the
Van Buren
administration accepted the Spanish crown's argument, Secretary of State
John Forsyth
explained, the president could not order the release of the Amistad and its
cargo because the executive could not interfere with the judiciary under
American law. He could also not release the Spanish traders from imprisonment in
Connecticut because that would constitute federal intervention in a matter of
state jurisdiction. Less interested in the separation of powers or the division
of sovereignty in a federal state than in procuring immediate satisfaction for
the Queen's honor, the Spanish minister retorted that the arrest of Spaniards
and the holding of their "Negro property" were violations of the treaty of 1795
between Spain and the United States. Thus, at Forsyth's direction, an attorney
for the United States government appeared before the U. S. District Court and
presented Spain's argument that since a federally owned ship rescued the
Amistad, the United States was obligated by international treaty to return the
ship and its cargo to the Spanish owners.
The district court judge ruled that the Africans were not Spanish slaves, being
captured as free men in Africa, and he ordered the U.S. to release them from
prison and transport them back to Africa. Rejecting the argument that the
Africans were the Spanish traders' private property and their sale subject to
salvage claims, the judge ruled that the Washington officers' salvage payments
be taken from the remaining cargo of the Amistad. The U.S. Government, feeling
pressure from Spain and fearing Southern outcry against the court's advocacy of
African freedom, appealed the decision to the Supreme Court. To argue against
the U.S. Government for the Africans' freedom, the Christian Missionary
Association convinced former President and Secretary of State
John Quincy Adams
to come out of retirement and face the predominantly southern Supreme Court
bench. In a masterpiece of American law, Adams presented the case of the
Africans' freedom as a test of the American republic's sincerity in the ideals
it espoused abroad. The Supreme Court ruled for the Africans, accepting the
argument that they were never citizens of Spain and were illegally taken from
Africa where they lived in a state of freedom. The court acknowledged that the
United States' argument that it had obligations to Spain under the treaty, but
said that the treaty "never could have been intended to take away the equal
rights of [the Africans]." The 53 Africans returned to their homeland and the
job of resisting Spain's continued demand for damages passed onto incoming
Secretary of State
Daniel
Webster.
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