The Amistad Conflict
In January 1839, fifty-three African natives were kidnapped from eastern Africa and sold into the Spanish slave trade. They were then placed aboard a Spanish slave ship bound for Havana, Cuba. Once in Havana, the Africans were classified as native Cuban slaves and purchased at auction by two Spaniards, Don Jose Ruiz and Don Pedro Montez. The two planned to move the slaves to another part of Cuba. The slaves were shackled and loaded aboard the cargo ship Amistad (Spanish for "friendship") for the brief coastal voyage. However, three days into the journey, a 25-year-old slave named Sengbe Pieh (or "Cinque" to his Spanish captors) broke out of his shackles and released the other Africans. The slaves then revolted, killing most of the crew of the Amistad, including the cook and captain. The Africans then forced Montez and Ruiz to return the ship to Africa. During the day, the ship sailed due east, using the sun to navigate. However, at night Montez and Ruiz would change course, attempting to return to Cuba. The zigzag journey continued for 63 days. The ship finally grounded near Montauk Point, Long Island, in New York State. The United States federal government seized the ship and its African occupants -- who under U.S. law were "property" and therefore cargo of the ship. On August 29, 1839, the Amistad was towed into New London, Connecticut. The government charged the slaves with piracy and murder, and classified them as salvage property. The fifty-three Africans were sent to prison, pending hearing of their case before the U.S. Circuit Court in Hartford, Connecticut. The stage was set for an important, controversial, and highly politicized case. Local abolitionist groups rallied around the Africans' cause, o...
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...al limits of a free and sovereign state? (http://amistad.mysticseaport.org/library/court/supreme/1841.01decision.2.html), 34.
The Amistad case gave the nation a wake up call. The United States realized that there is an evident conflict on the issue of slavery. This conflict escalated years later into the bloodiest war in American history, the Civil War. The result of the war was the most significant legal development since the first Amistad case. It was, of course, the abolition of slavery. With the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, the U.S. Constitution guaranteed that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude . . . shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction."( http://www.nps.gov/malu/frames/amend13.htm),1.
Bibliography:
http://amistad.mysticseaport.org
http://www.nps.gove/malu/frames/amend13.htm
Both, “The Interesting Narrative Life of Olaudah Equiano” and “Amistad” are important stories about slavery in pre-civil war america because they both address the issues of slavery. These gentlemen in the story made a difference in the slave trade. In “The life of Olaudah Equiano”, Olaudah was sold on a slave ship that came to the Barbados. Olaudah worked for his freedom, and in the end became efficient in American language. He worked his way to the free life and in the end it worked out for him, although it leaves scars on his soul. In “Amistad”, Cinque is a slave that leads a revolt on a slave ship after escaping. When they get to america, Baldwin, a lawyer that is representing the slave and the former president Adams helps free the slaves.
From the day, the first European set foot on American soil up until the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, which occurred in 1865. Slavery was a controversial issue. The issue of slavery divided up the United States of America to ultimately put the two against each other. The Northern States who identifies themselves as the Union disapproved of the atrocious actions of the South who condone the crude treatment of slaves and the disturbing practices of slavery. Although slavery was not the sole cause of the Civil war, it played an important part in the disunion of the United States. The battle between states rights and federal rights rubbed more salt in the already enormous wound. Southern States who later considers themselves the confederates disapproved of the idea that the available actions of the states to act upon certain situations were dwindling, reducing the power and rights of the states. The set up of all these complications and disagreements led to the secession of the southern states which initiated the start of the brutal American Civil War which lasted from 1861 to 1865.
... guilty. The high consequences helped the South recapture their runaway slaves and easily bring them back to the South. Sadly, this also made kidnapping easy because the victim had little chance of getting past the jury and could be wrongly accused of being a runaway. Wrongly accused African Americans were most likely sent into slavery with the kidnapper. This left African Americans no way to defend themselves against the prejudiced kidnappers and slave masters.
The after affects of the case spark a huge controversial argument between the north and the south. It angers abolitionists and becomes a contributing factor in starting the Civil War. The major outcome of this case was the fourteenth amendment, which granted citizenship to all natural born United States citizens, including African Americans, as well as the thirteenth amendment which completely abolished slavery.
There were other examples of slave rebellions that are discussed in the book, Slave Rebellions. In the book, authors Robin Doak and Philip Schwarz highlight some of the biggest slave rebellions that occurred within the Caribbean and Latin America. One of the most well known revolts was on the slave ship known as Amistad. The ship had left Havana, Cuba and heading to “Puerto Principe, a part of Cuba about 300 miles (480 km) away. The ship’s cargo included 53 Africans that two men in Cuba claimed as slaves—49 adult males and four children”. One African on the ship named Sengbe Pieh is from Sierra Leone, Africa. Before he had been captured, he was a prince of a village and had a wife. When he is captured, Pieh was given a new name and sent to
Slavery was a practice throughout the American colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries, and through slavery, African-American slaves helped build the economic foundation of which America stands upon today, but this development only occurred with the sacrifice of the blood, sweat, and tears from the slaves that had been pushed into exhaustion by the slave masters. A narrative noting a lifetime of this history was the book The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African written by Olaudah Equiano. Equiano was a prominent African involved in the British movement for the abolition of the slave trade. He was captured and enslaved as a child in his home town of Essaka in what is now known as south eastern Nigeria, later he was shipped to the West Indies, he then moved to England, and eventually purchased his freedom (Equiano). Olaudah Equiano, with many other millions of slaves, faced many hardships and was treated with inconceivable injustices by white slave masters and because of the severity of these cruel and barbarous occurrences, history will never forget these events.
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1948 would have lasting negative effects on Mexican Americans. The Treaty was signed after America had won the Mexican American war. America gained possession of the southwest states that had been part of Mexico for the price of around eighteen million dollars. In Article IX of the Treaty, it states that the Mexicans "shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty and property, and secured in the free exercise of their religion without restriction"(Vargas 139). And as Rachel Rivera points out Article VII promised the Mexicans the right to keep their land which previously belonged to Mexico. However, the Treaty would not grant the Mexicans the rights it offered. For the next hundred and twenty years the Mexicans would be oppressed and discriminated against because of the Treaty. The Treaty was the beginning of the hardships for the Mexicans. They would have to survive in the developing white society. The white society would grow and grow in the southwest, turning the Mexicans into a minority. In Zaragosa Vargas’s book Major Problems in Mexican American History, Vargas delves deeper into the problems of Mexican American History. In our Latinos in the U.S. class, we have discussed the fact that Mexicans in the United States have dealt with many problems which have gone ignored by mainstream society. The website Chicano Park illustrates how Mexican Americans have used art as a collective voice. The documentary Chicano! focuses on how the people found their voice. In the film we see that the social movements of the 1960’s allowed Mexican Americans to raise their voice against the discrimination they had lived with for over a centu...
American ships. The amassed 115 American prisoners were released after the Africans consented to receiving a ransom of 1 million dollars. This put an uncomfortably large dent in the American budget, and some profound change had to be made to put a permanent end to the problem. The Barba...
Slaves had an expanding economic force for the Europeans. “Trade between the Europeans and Africans created the first route of the triangular slave trade”. African citizens were “forcibly removed from their homes to never return”. Sales of Africans were classified as having the full cooperation of the “African kings” in return for various trade and goods. Africans who were exchanged were forced to walk chained to the coast of the Indian Ocean. Once at the coast they were stripped of all their clothes, men, women and children all alike with just a loincloth, or strips of blue tap for women to cover their chest area. Once the Africans boarded the ship they were divided by sex, males in the bowel of the ship and the women on the upper deck. The men would be chained side by side by their necks with barely enough room to move. African women were forced to do the “unmentionable acts”. Neither were fed or watered well, and the men would be forced to sit in their own “excrement, and vomit”. Once in awhile the men would be brought to the deck and rinsed off with cold water. While on deck they would be forced to dance to “entertain the ships crew”. Many Africans would try to “revolt” or commit “suicide”, when revolting against their captors many Africans would die. For as much as “3- 6 months” the Africans would endure these torments. Once the ship ported in the America’s shore, all the Africans would be “cleaned up and stripped naked to be sold”. Once the Africans were sold they were no longer Africans to the Merchants, they were product, and, no longer having rights as humans; they were caught into what is called chattel slavery. For approximately “246 years” African Americans would endure such bondage.
There is no other experience in history where innocent African Americans encountered such a brutal torment. This infamous ordeal is called the Middle Passage or the “middle leg” of the Triangular Trade, which was the forceful voyage of African Americans from Africa to the New World. The Africans were taken from their homeland, boarded onto the dreadful ships, and scattered into the New World as slaves. 10- 16 million Africans were shipped across the Atlantic during the 1500’s to the 1900’s and 10- 15 percent of them died during the voyage. Millions of men, women, and children left behind their personal possessions and loved ones that will never be seen again. Not only were the Africans limited to freedom, but also lost their identity in the process. Kidnapped from their lives that throbbed with numerous possibilities of greatness were now out of sight and thrown into the never-ending pile of waste. The loathsome and inhuman circumstances that the Africans had to face truly describe the great wrongdoing of the Middle Passage.
In 1857, the Dred Scott vs. Sanford case went before a pro-slavery United States Supreme Court. Scott claimed that he had lived as a slave in free state and territory. The high court’s decision was that he was a slave and that the law assuring that slavery would not be allowed in the new territories of the United States was unconstitutional. Because of the court’s decision, it helped accelerate the Civil War. Because of the Supreme Court’s decision, the Northerners tha...
Sixty-three years after these famous words were first written, a significant event occurred that had profound political consequences and propelled our nation on a course that inevitably helped pave the way for Civil War. The case of the “Amistad” ignited the abolitionist movement in the Northeast and caused a political and legal firestorm that ended up going all the way to the Supreme Court. Disturbingly, the case was not about the human beings that were the central focus of the story – it centered solely on the issue of “property rights”. Hundreds of Africans were captured illegally from Mendeland, South Africa by Portuguese slave traders who then transported them to Havana, Cuba which was a busy hub for slave trade. Fifty three of the slaves were bought by the Spanish and transported to the Amistad, a Cuban vessel for transport to the Caribbean. The men, women and children African Americans were stripped ...
Equiano’s enslavement lasted from 1756 – 1766. The number of Africans enslaved and traded varies from source to source, but a good estimate of slaves taken across the Atlantic was around sixty million. Of this number, only 16% survived (Donaldson). Although there were many African’s on the journey, there were many different artifacts
Slavery was the core of the North and South’s conflict. Slavery has existed in the New World since the seventeenth century prior to it being exclusive to race. During those times there were few social and political concerns about slavery. Initially, slaves were considered indentured servants who will eventually be set free after paying their debt(s) to the owner. In some cases, the owners were African with white servants. However, over time the slavery became exclusive to Africans and was no limited to a specific timeframe, but life. In addition, the treatment of slaves worsens from the Atlantic Slave trade to th...
Amistad is about a mutiny in 1839 aboard a slave ship, La Amistad, which eventually comes to port in New England. The West Africans who have commandeered the ship are taken into custody and the plot revolves around who "owns" them or if, indeed, they should be freed. This sets up the main event of the film, a courtroom drama about rights and origins, with the required flashbacks to the voyage and the gruesome conditions aboard the ship. The problem with this approach is that we learn less about the real conditions of slavery and instead focus on the more sanitized conditions surrounding the courtroom. In addition, we get a film which is largely about the efforts of the whites battling the case and much less about the struggles of the Africans themselves.