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Amistad

 

             In 1839 there was 53 African slaves on board a ship called the Amistad.
             The Africans was abducted from West Africa and sold to the Spanish slavers .
             which is in violation of international law. .
             In 1840 the Mendians' trial began in the District Court in Hartford, .
             Connecticut. Tappan helped suppress the illegal slave trade which uncovered .
             evidence to support the Mendians' story. The documents establishing them as .
             ladinos were forged. The judge, persuaded by this evidence, concluded that .
             even under Spanish law, the Mendians were free men, and ordered President .
             Van Buren to have them transported back to Africa. Van Buren ordered the .
             government's lawyers to appeal the case to the Supreme Court.
             Attorney Roger Sherman Baldwin and President John Quincy Adams, took .
             the case to the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court upheld the .
             previous Circuit Court's opinion stating the Africans were free men and .
             women, illegally taken from Africa, were never citizens of Spain and were not .
             guilty of murder for the deaths of the crewmen during the Amistad takeover. .
             By the time the Amistad Case came to an end there was resentful feelings .
             between the anti-slavery North and the slave-holding South that lead as us to .
             the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1860. Even though the Supreme .
             Court's decision in the Amistad Case was not an attack on slavery, it brought .
             together the abolitionists and prevented their movement from breaking up. .
             Furthermore, the missionary work that began with the freedom of the Amistad .
             Africans led to the foundation of the American Missionary Association in .
             1846, which was the largest abolitionist society in the United States before .
             the outbreak of the Civil War. .
             This incident had a extensive impact on both sides, influencing the course .
             of American history and the development of Afro-American culture. They .
             finally received their freedom in 1841, after two years' imprisonment in the .


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