Editing United States v. The Amistad (section)

==Aftermath and significance==
[[File:Joseph Cinque.jpg|thumb|right|225px|A print of Cinqué that appeared in the ''[[The Sun (New York)|New York Sun]]'' on August 31, 1839]]
[[File:Kimbo Amistad 1839 1840.jpg|thumb|right|[[Portrait]] of Kimbo, one of 36 men aboard ''La Amistad'', c. 1839–1840]]
The Africans greeted the news of the Supreme Court's decision with joy. Abolitionist supporters took the survivors – 36 men and boys and three girls – to [[Farmington, Connecticut|Farmington]], a village considered "Grand Central Station" on the [[Underground Railroad]]. Its residents had agreed to have the Africans stay there until they could return to their homeland. Some households took them in; supporters also provided barracks for them.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.charteroaktree.com/farmingtonamistadtour.html |access-date=September 20, 2010 |title=Underground Railroad, Black History Freedom Trail and Amistad Sites Tour in Farmington |publisher=Heritage Trails Sightseeing Tours |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100925013335/http://www.charteroaktree.com/farmingtonamistadtour.html |archive-date=September 25, 2010 |url-status=dead | df=mdy-all }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.farmingtonhistoricalsociety-ct.org/fh_farmhist_pg4.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080828224647/http://www.farmingtonhistoricalsociety-ct.org/fh_farmhist_pg4.html |archive-date=2008-08-28 |website=Farmington Historical Society |access-date=June 21, 2023 |title=History of Farmington}}</ref><ref>{{cite news | title=Underground Railroad stops mark abolitionist milestones |date=February 7, 2010 |url=http://www.boston.com/travel/explorene/articles/2010/02/07/underground_railroad_stops_mark_abolitionist_milestones/?page=2 |url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100213204512/http://www.boston.com/travel/explorene/articles/2010/02/07/underground_railroad_stops_mark_abolitionist_milestones/ |archive-date=2010-02-13 |first=Christopher |last=Klein |work=[[The Boston Globe]] |access-date=June 21, 2023}}{{void|comment|Fabrickator|Note the archive link provided displays the complete newspaper story}} </ref>

The Amistad Committee instructed the Africans in English and Christianity, and raised funds to pay for their return home. One missionary was James Steele, an [[Oberlin College|Oberlin]] graduate, previously one of the [[Lane Rebels]]. In 1841, he joined the Amistad Mission to Mendhi, which returned freed slaves to Africa and worked to establish a mission there. However, Steele soon found that the Amistad captives belonged to seven different tribes, some at war with one another. All of the chiefs were slave traders and authorized to re-enslave freed persons. These findings led to the decision that the mission must start in Sierra Leone, under the protection of the British.<ref>{{cite news
|title=James Steele, a Lane Rebel
|access-date=November 5, 2019
|year=2017
|publisher=Oberlin Sanctuary Project
|url=https://sanctuary.oberlincollegelibrary.org/exhibits/show/the-lane-rebels/item/53
|archive-date=July 29, 2019
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190729112243/https://sanctuary.oberlincollegelibrary.org/exhibits/show/the-lane-rebels/item/53
|url-status=dead
}}</ref>

Along with several [[missionaries]], in 1842 the surviving 35 Africans returned to Sierra Leone, the others having died at sea or while awaiting trial.<ref name="WDL">{{cite web |url = http://www.wdl.org/en/item/3080/ |title = Unidentified Young Man |website = [[World Digital Library]]|publisher=U.S. Library of Congress |date = 1839–1840 |access-date = June 14, 2020}}</ref> The Americans constructed a mission in [[Mendiland]]. Former members of the Amistad Committee later founded the [[American Missionary Association]], an integrated evangelical organization that continued to support both the Mendi mission and the abolitionist movement.

In the following years, the Spanish government continued to press the U.S. for compensation for the ship, cargo, and slaves.  Several Southern lawmakers introduced resolutions into the [[United States Congress]] to appropriate money for such payment but failed to gain passage, although it was supported by presidents [[James K. Polk]] and [[James Buchanan]].

[[Joseph Cinqué]] returned to Africa. In his final years, he was reported to have returned to the mission and re-embraced Christianity.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://amistad.mysticseaport.org/discovery/people/bio.cinque.html|title="Cinque (Sengbe Pieh)", ''Exploring Amistad at Mystic Seaport''|access-date=November 7, 2007|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071117085126/http://amistad.mysticseaport.org/discovery/people/bio.cinque.html|archive-date=November 17, 2007|df=mdy-all}}</ref> Recent historical research suggests that the allegations of Cinqué's later involvement in the slave trade are false.<ref>[http://www.common-place-archives.org/vol-10/no-01/yannielli/ Joseph Yannielli, "Cinqué the Slave Trader: Some New Evidence on an Old Controversy," ''Common-Place'', Vol. 10 (October 2009)]</ref>

In the [[Creole case|''Creole'' case]] of 1841, the United States dealt with another ship rebellion similar to that of ''La Amistad.''

The U.S. had [[Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves|prohibited the international slave trade in 1808]], but ended domestic slavery only in 1865 with the [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Thirteenth Amendment]]. [[History of slavery in Connecticut|Connecticut had a gradual abolition]] law passed in 1797; children born to slaves were free but had to serve apprenticeships until young adulthood; the last slaves were freed in 1848.

===In popular culture===
In 1998, a memorial was installed at the Montauk Point Lighthouse to commemorate the Amistad.[[File:Montauk Point Amistad Memorial; May 11 2008.JPG|right|thumb|Amistad memorial at [[Montauk Point Lighthouse]] on [[Long Island]].]] On August 26, 2023, the Montauk Historical Society, together with the Eastville Community Historical Society and the Southampton African-American Museum, erected a historic marker near Culloden Point in Montauk where the Amistad was anchored in 1839. 
[[File:Amistad Marker Mtk.jpg|thumb]]

The revolt aboard ''La Amistad,'' the background of the slave trade and its subsequent trial is retold in a celebrated<ref>{{cite book|last=Bloom|first=Harold|title=Poets and Poems|year=2005|publisher=Chelsea House Publishers|location=New York|isbn=0791082253|pages=348–351|author-link=Harold Bloom|quote=All this is merely preamble to a rather rapid survey of a few of Hayden's superb sequences, of which ''Middle Passage'' is the most famous.}}</ref> poem by [[Robert Hayden]] entitled "[[Middle Passage (poem)|Middle Passage]]", first published in 1962. Howard Jones published ''[[Mutiny on the Amistad: The Saga of a Slave Revolt and Its Impact on American Abolition, Law, and Diplomacy]]'' in 1987.

A movie, ''[[Amistad (1997 film)|Amistad]]'' (1997), was based on the events of the revolt and court cases, and Howard Jones' 1987 book ''[[Mutiny on the Amistad]]''.

African-American artist [[Hale Woodruff]] painted murals portraying events related to the revolt on ''La Amistad'' in 1938, for [[Talladega College]] in Alabama. A statue of Cinqué was erected beside the City Hall building in [[New Haven, Connecticut]] in 1992.<ref>{{cite web |author=Ed Hamilton |title=Amistad Memorial |url=https://publicartarchive.org/art/Amistad-Memorial/b72a622b |website=Public Art Archive |access-date=19 June 2023}}</ref> There is an ''Amistad'' memorial at [[Montauk Point State Park]] on [[Long Island]].

In 2000, ''[[La Amistad#Replica|Freedom Schooner Amistad]]'', a [[ship replica]], was launched in [[Mystic, Connecticut]]. The Historical Society of [[Farmington, Connecticut]] offers walking tours of village houses that housed the Africans while funds were collected for their return home.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://farmingtonhistoricalsociety-ct.org/events/upcoming-events/|title=Farmington's Freedom Trail|website=Farmington Historical Society|language=en-US|access-date=2017-01-18}}</ref> The [[Amistad Research Center]] at [[Tulane University]] in [[New Orleans, Louisiana]], has numerous resources for research into slavery, abolition, and African Americans.

[[File:Opinion of the Supreme Court in United States v. the Amistad.gif|thumb|Senior Justice Joseph Story wrote and read the decision of the Court. The Supreme Court ruled that the Africans on board ''La Amistad'' were free individuals. Kidnapped and transported illegally, they had never been slaves. The decision affirmed that "... it was the ultimate right of all human beings in extreme cases to resist oppression and to apply force against ruinous injustice." The Court ordered the immediate release of the ''Amistad'' Africans.<ref>{{Cite web|url = https://catalog.archives.gov/id/301672?q=supreme%20court|title = US National Archives Catalog}}</ref>]]