Editing United States v. The Amistad (section)

==Initial court proceedings==
[[File:James Covey deposition on Amistad captives held in New Haven jail page 1.jpg|thumb|left|upright|First page of the [[deposition (law)|deposition]] of [[James Covey]] concerning ''La&nbsp;Amistad'' prisoners held in the [[New Haven, Connecticut]] jail, October 4, 1839.]]
{{Events leading to US Civil War}}

A case before the [[United States circuit court|circuit court]] in [[Hartford, Connecticut|Hartford]], Connecticut, was filed in September&nbsp;1839, charging the Africans with [[mutiny]] and murder on ''La&nbsp;Amistad''. [[Roger Sherman Baldwin]], an attorney from New Haven who had served on that city's town board as well as in the state legislature, represented the Africans.

The court ruled that it lacked [[jurisdiction]], because the alleged acts took place on a Spanish ship in Spanish waters.{{Citation needed|date=March 2010}} It was entered into the docket books of the federal court as ''United States'' v. ''Cinque, et al.''<ref>{{cite web |last = Ragsdale |first = Bruce |date = Spring 2003 |title = "Incited by the Love of Liberty": The ''Amistad'' captives and the federal courts |via = archives.gov |publisher=[[National Archives and Records Administration|U.S. National Archives]] |place=Washington, DC |url = https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2003/spring/amistad-1.html |access-date = 2015-12-11 |df=dmy-all}}</ref>

Various parties filed property claims with the [[United States district court|district court]] to many of the African captives, to the ship, and to its cargo: Ruiz and Montez, Lieutenant Gedney, and Captain Henry Green (who had met the Africans while on shore on [[Long Island]] and claimed to have helped in their capture). The Spanish government asked that the ship, cargo, and African captives be restored to Spain under the [[Pinckney treaty]] of 1795 between Spain and the United States. Article&nbsp;9 of the treaty held that
: "all ships and merchandises of what nature soever, which shall be rescued out of the hands of pirates or robbers on the high seas, ... shall be restored, entire, to the true proprietor."
The [[U.S. Attorney|United States]] filed a claim on behalf of Spain.{{citation needed|date=March 2010}}

[[File:Lewis Tappan portrait.jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[Lewis Tappan]], American evangelical [[abolitionist]] and founder of the "''Amistad'' committee"]]
The [[abolitionist movement]] had formed the "''Amistad'' Committee," headed by the New York City merchant [[Lewis Tappan]], and had collected money to mount a defense of the Africans. Initially, communication with the Africans was difficult since they spoke neither English nor Spanish. Professor [[Willard Gibbs (linguist)|J.W.&nbsp;Gibbs]] learned from the Africans to count to ten in their [[Mende language]]. He went to the docks of New York City and counted aloud in front of sailors until he located a person able to understand and translate. He found [[James Covey]], a twenty-year-old sailor on the British man-of-war {{HMS|Buzzard|1834|6}}. Covey was a formerly enslaved person from [[West Africa]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Barber |first=John Warner |orig-year=1840 |year=1999 |title=A History of the ''Amistad'' Captives |edition=1st e‑print |series=Academic Affairs Library, UNC-CH digitization project |page=15 |publisher=(1999 ed.) [[University of North Carolina]] |place=Chapel Hill, NC |quote=Being a circumstantial account of the capture of the Spanish schooner ''Amistad'', by the Africans on board; their voyage, and capture near [[Long Island, New York]]; with biographical sketches of each of the surviving Africans; also, an account of the trials had on their case, before the [[United States district court|district]] and [[United States circuit court|circuit courts of the United States]], for the [[District of Connecticut]]. |url=http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/barber/barber.html }}</ref>

The abolitionists filed charges of assault, [[kidnapping]], and [[false imprisonment]] against Ruiz and Montes. Their arrest in New York City in October&nbsp;1839 outraged [[slavery as a positive good in the United States|pro-slavery advocates]] and the Spanish government. Montes immediately posted bail and went to Cuba. Ruiz, being
: "more comfortable in a New England setting (and entitled to many amenities not available to the Africans), hoped to garner further public support by staying in jail. ... Ruiz, however, soon tired of his martyred lifestyle in jail and posted bond. Like Montes, he returned to Cuba."<ref name=Revolt/>{{page needed|date=March 2013}}
Outraged, the Spanish minister, Cavallero Pedro Alcántara Argaiz, made
: "caustic accusations against America's judicial system and continued to condemn the abolitionist affront. Ruiz's imprisonment only added to Alcántara's anger, and Alcántara pressured Forsyth to seek ways to throw out the case altogether."<ref name=Revolt/>{{page needed|date=March 2013}}
The Spanish held that the bailbonds that the men had to acquire so that they could leave jail and return to Cuba caused them a grave financial burden, and
: "by the treaty of 1795, no obstacle or impediment [to leave the U.S.] should have [been] placed" [in their way].<ref name=Congress/>

On January 7, 1840, all of the parties, with the Spanish minister representing Ruiz and Montes, appeared before the [[United States District Court for the District of Connecticut|U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut]] and presented their arguments.<ref name=amistad590>''U.S.'' v. ''The Amistad'', p.&nbsp;590</ref>

The abolitionists' main argument before the district court was that a treaty between Britain and Spain in 1817 and a subsequent pronouncement by the Spanish government had outlawed the slave trade across the Atlantic. They established that the slaves had been captured in [[Mendiland]] (also spelled Mendeland, now [[Sierra Leone]]) in Africa, sold to a Portuguese trader in [[Lomboko]] (south of [[Freetown]]) in April 1839, and taken to [[Havana]] illegally on a Portuguese ship. The Africans were victims of illegal kidnapping and so, the abolitionists argued, were not slaves but free to return to Africa. They further argued that the documents for the Africans, provided by the Spanish government of Cuba, falsely identified Africans as slaves who had been in Cuba since before 1820, and hence were considered to have been born there as slaves. They contended that government officials in Cuba criminally condoned the fraudulent classification of the Africans from the ''Amistad''.{{Citation needed|date=March 2010}}

Concerned about relations with Spain and his re-election prospects in the South, U.S. President [[Martin Van Buren]], a Democrat, sided with the Spanish position. He ordered the schooner [[USS Grampus (1821)|USS ''Grampus'']] to [[New Haven Harbor]] to return the Africans to Cuba immediately after a favorable decision, before any appeals could be decided.<ref name=Davis>{{cite book |first=D.B. |last=Davis |author-link=David Brion Davis |year=2006 |title=Inhuman Bondage: The rise and fall of slavery in the New World |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0195140736 |page=18 }}</ref>

Contrary to Van Buren's plan, the district court, led by judge [[Andrew T. Judson]], ruled in favor of the abolitionists and the Africans' position. In January 1840, Judson ordered for the Africans to be returned to their homeland by the U.S. government, and for one third of ''La&nbsp;Amistad'' and its cargo to be given to Lieutenant Gedney as salvage property. (The federal government had outlawed the slave trade between the U.S. and other countries in 1808; an 1818 law, as amended in 1819, provided for the return of all illegally-traded slaves.{{Citation needed|date=March 2010}})

Antonio, the deceased captain's personal slave, was declared the rightful property of the captain's heirs and was ordered restored to Cuba. Contrary to Sterne's 1953 fictional account that describes Antonio willingly returning to Cuba,<ref>{{cite book |last=Sterne |first=Emma Gelders |orig-year=1953 |year=1990 |title=The Slave Ship |edition=pbk. reprint |type=young adult fiction |place=New York, NY |publisher=Scholastic Books |isbn=978-0590443609 |oclc=33040752 |page= |url=https://archive.org/details/slaveship0000ster |via=archive.org }} 1953: {{isbn|0590443607}}.</ref>{{page needed|date=March 2013}} [[Smithsonian]] sources report that he escaped to New York,<ref>{{cite web |title=Smithsonian Institution |url=http://www.ngb.si.edu }}{{Dead link |date=November 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>{{full citation |date=October 2024 |reason=Aside from being a dead link, what appears to be a vague reference to some near top-level Smithsonian web-page is uncheckable / deficient citation: Just "Smithsonial sources" is inadequately non-specific. }} or to Canada, with the help of an abolitionist group.{{citation needed|date=March 2013}}

In detail, the District Court ruled as follows:
* It rejected the claim of the [[U.S. Attorney]], who argued on behalf of the Spanish minister for the restoration of the "slaves".<ref name=amistad590/>
* It dismissed the claims of Ruiz and Montez.<ref name=amistad590/>
* It ordered that the captives be delivered to the custody of the U.S. president for transportation to Africa since they were in fact legally free.<ref name=amistad590/>
* It allowed the Spanish vice-consul to claim the slave Antonio.<ref name=amistad590/>
* It allowed Lt.&nbsp;Gedney to claim one third of the property on board ''La Amistad''.<ref name=amistad590/>
* It allowed Tellincas, Aspe, and Laca to claim one third of the property.<ref name=amistad590/>
* It dismissed the claims made by Green and Fordham for salvage rights.<ref name=amistad590/>

The [[U.S. Attorney]] for the District of Connecticut, by order of [[Martin van Buren|Van Buren]], immediately appealed to the [[United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit|U.S. circuit court for the Connecticut district]]. He challenged every part of the district court's ruling, except the concession of the slave Antonio to the Spanish vice-consul. Tellincas, Aspe, and Laca also appealed to gain a greater portion of the salvage value. Ruiz and Montez and the owners of ''La Amistad'' did not appeal.<ref name=amistad590/>

In April 1840 the [[United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit|Circuit Court of Appeals]], in turn, upheld the district court's decision.<ref name=amistad590/> The U.S. Attorney appealed the federal government's case to the [[U.S. Supreme Court]].<ref name=amistad590/>