In February 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. Two Spanish plantation owners, Pedro Montes and Jose Ruiz, purchased 53 Africans and put them aboard the Cuban schooner 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 to sail to Africa.
Instead, they sailed 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 plantation owners were freed and the Africans were imprisoned on charges of murder.
This document ordered Sengbe Pieh (also known as Joseph Cinque, and written as Jinqua on this document), the leader of the mutiny, and the other Africans who were aboard the Amistad to appear in court.
The murder charges were dismissed, but the Africans continued to be held in confinement and the case went to trial in the Federal District Court in Connecticut. The plantation owners, Spanish government, and captain of the Washington each claimed rights to the Africans or compensation. The 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.
In January 1841, former President John Quincy Adams argued the defendants’ case in the Supreme Court. He defended the right of the accused to fight to regain their freedom. The Supreme Court decided in favor of the Africans, stating that the Africans had never been enslaved but were free individuals, kidnapped and transported illegally. Thirty-five of them were returned to their homeland; the others died at sea or in prison while awaiting trial.
The Amistad Warrant for Habeas Corpus is a part of America’s 100 Docs, an initiative of the National Archives Foundation in partnership with More Perfect that invites the American public to vote on 100 notable documents from the holdings of the National Archives. Visit 100docs.vote today.
