Story of the Amistad Case Airs in February on FJTN

In July 1839, 53 Africans abducted from Sierra Leone were purchased by two Spanish planters in Cuba and put aboard the schooner Amistad for shipment to a Caribbean plantation. Shortly after, the Africans seized the ship, killed the captain and the cook, and ordered the planters to sail to Africa. Barely a month later, the U.S. seized the Amistad off Long Island, NY, freed the planters and imprisoned the Africans on charges of murder. The murder charges were dismissed, but the Africans were held in a case that turned on salvage claims and property rights. Claims to the Africans by the planters, the government of Spain, and even the captain of the U.S. brig that had seized the Amistad, led the case first to trial in the federal district court in Connecticut and then to the Supreme Court in 1841. Former President John Quincy Adams himself argued the defendants' case, defending the right of the accused to fight to regain their freedom.

Portrait of Cinque, Leader of the Amistad's Africans .NathanielJocelyn,c.1840, New Heaven Colony Historical Society

The Amistad case forced the Judiciary to address issues related to the slave trade, the property claims of slaveholders and the enslaved individuals' claim of personal liberty. The FJC's video, "Amistad: the Federal Courts and the Challenge to Slavery," relies on an extensive selection of historical images and documents to tell the story that culminated with the Supreme Court's decision in favor of the Africans. After broadcast on the FJTN in February 2002, the video will be available for distribution to the courts for use in public education programs. Supplementary materials explaining the case and the role of the federal courts will be available on the FJC's web site.