"260 pages of printed text and documents related to the Amistad slave revolt case, archived on CD-ROM. In 1839 a Portuguese slave trader purchased a cargo of about 50 kidnapped African natives from a Spaniard involved in the slave trade on the Guinea Coast of West Africa. The trade was prohibited by a treaty between Spain, Portugal and Great Britain. Transported to the Caribbean aboard the Portuguese vessel, Tecora, the captives, from the Mendi tribe on the northern border of Nigeria, were not slaves but legally free men who had been illegally enslaved. The Tecora landed in Havana, where the captives were marched to a slave market. Two Cubans, Ruiz and Montes, purchased them and planned to take them by the coastal schooner, Amistad, to Puerto Prìncipe, a Cuban plantation area. The Amistad, a Spanish vessel, set sail June 28, 1839. A few days later, the Africans rebelled, killed the captain and the cook, and ordered Ruiz, Montes and the cabin boy to transport them back to Africa. During the day, the pilots steered the vessel eastward, but at night they headed north, ultimately arriving in August 1839 off Long Island, N.Y. There the ship was seized by U.S. government authorities and the Africans were imprisoned after Ruiz and Montes denounced them as rebellious slaves, pirates and murderers. Almost overnight the incident became a cause célèbre. The Africans, led by the Mende warrior Singbe-Piéh, named Cinquè by the slave traders, insisted that they be freed and returned to their continent. President Martin Van Buren (1782-1862) and the Spanish administrators of Cuba claimed that they should be extradited to Cuba to stand trial for mutiny. A series of complex legal maneuvers then ensued, involving the federal district court in Connecticut and the court of appeals. As a result, it was ruled that the Africans had been illegally captured, illegally transported and illegally enslaved, and that the United States should not become involved in such proceedings. Unwilling to accept the judge's decision, the United States appealed the case to the Supreme Court, where former President John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) defended the Africans. In his lengthy argument he stated that all the sympathy seemed to be for the Spaniards rather than for the Africans. He argued it was the Africans who should be treated sympathetically because they were free people who had been kidnapped and illegally enslaved and "were entitled to all the kindness and good offices due from a humane and Christian nation." His argument prevailed, and the surviving Africans were sent home as free men. Wrote Adams in the brief that was to help undermine the Van Buren administration: " ... The charge I make against the present Executive Administration is that in all their proceedings relating to these unfortunate men, instead of that Justice to which they were bound not less than this honorable court itself to observe, they have substituted Sympathy: -- Sympathy with one of the parties in this conflict of justice and Antipathy to the other. Sympathy with the white. Antipathy to the black." CD includes 63 pages of Amistad orignal documents. Including: John Quincy Adams' legal papers; Cinqué and Kimbo affidavids; The Supreme Court opinion by Justice Joseph Story on the Amistad Case; Congressional record of Amistad developments; and witness statements. A History of the Amistad Captives: Being a Circumstantial Account of the Capture of the Spanish Schooner Amistad. A digitaly reprouduced copy of the book, "A History of the Amistad Captives: Being a Circumstantial Account of the Capture of the Spanish Schooner Amistad." This book "compiled from authentic sources" by John W. Barber (1798-1885), was published in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1840, and reports the trials in the lower courts, but not the Supreme Court decision that freed the captives. The book contains biographical statements for each of the surviving Africans, with illustrations, including profile portraits of each captive. This history also provides information on the location of the Africans' homes, their occupations, family, local government, involvement with slavery and the slave trade, and details of their capture and sale. Argument of John Quincy Adams, before the Supreme Court of the United States. A ditigal copy of the publication: Argument of John Quincy Adams, before the Supreme Court of the United States : in the case of the United States, appellants, vs. Cinque, and others, Africans, captured in the schooner Amistad, by Lieut. Gedney, delivered on the 24th of February and 1st of March, 1841 : with a review of the case of the Antelope, reported in the 10th, 11th, and 12th volumes of Wheaton's Reports. Publised in 1841. Argument of Roger S. Baldwin, of New Haven, before the Supreme Court. A ditigal copy of the publication:Argument of Roger S. Baldwin, of New Haven, before the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of the United States, appellants, vs. Cinque, and others, Africans of the Amistad. Baldwin, Roger S. 1793-1863. (Roger Sherman). Published New York : S.W. Benedict, 1841. Included in addition to the material above is a ditigal copy of William E. Channing's The Duty of the Free States or Remarks Suggested by the Case of the Creole. Boston: William Crosby & Company, 1842. In November 1841 the 135 enslaved African Americans on board the ship Creole overpowered the crew, murdering one man, while sailing from Hampton Roads, Virginia, to New Orleans, Louisiana. Led by Madison Washington, they sailed the vessel to Nassau, Bahamas, where the British declared most of them free. This pamphlet's author, William Channing, refutes the American claims that the property of U.S. slave owners should be protected in foreign ports. In the diplomatic controversy that followed, Ohio Congressman Joshua Giddings argued that once the ship was outside of U.S. territorial waters, the African Americans were entitled to their liberty and that any attempt to reenslave them would be unconstitutional. Censured by the House of Representatives, he resigned, but his constituents quickly reelected him and sent him back to Congress."--Http://www.paperlessarchives.com/amistad.html.

Describes the historical context of the 1841 U.S. Supreme Court case United States v. "Amistad" that ruled that illegally enslaved blacks had the right to be free.

This volume presents the first full-scale treatment of the only instance in history where African blacks, seized by slave dealers, won their freedom and returned home. Jones describes how, in 1839, Joseph Cinqué led a revolt on the Spanish slave ship, the Amistad, in the Caribbean. The seizure of the ship by an American naval vessel near Montauk, Long Island, the arrest of the Africans in Connecticut, and the Spanish protest against the violation of their property rights created an international controversy. The Amistad affair united Lewis Tappan and other abolitionists who put the "law of nature" on trial in the United States by their refusal to accept a legal system that claimed to dispense justice while permitting artificial distinctions based on race or color. The mutiny resulted in a trial before the U.S. Supreme Court that pitted former President John Quincy Adams against the federal government. Jones vividly recaptures this compelling drama--the most famous slavery case before Dred Scott--that climaxed in the court's ruling to free the captives and allow them to return to Africa.

Through court documents, supporting details, and narrative language, students will discover how Sengbe Pieh, also known as Joseph Cinqué, staged a mutiny on a slave ship that not only gave him and his fellow captives freedom, but also spurred a court case that began an international debate over the morality and legality of slavery. Readers will gain a deeper understanding of the politics involved in the transatlantic slave trade, as well as a part of history that has shaped our society.

"Vividly drawn . . . this stunning book honors the achievement of the captive Africans who fought for—and won—their freedom.”—The Philadelphia Tribune A unique account of the most successful slave rebellion in American history, now updated with a new epilogue—from the award-winning author of The Slave Ship In this powerful and highly original account, Marcus Rediker reclaims the Amistad rebellion for its true proponents: the enslaved Africans who risked death to stake a claim for freedom. Using newly discovered evidence and featuring vividly drawn portraits of the rebels, their captors, and their abolitionist allies, Rediker reframes the story to show how a small group of courageous men fought and won an epic battle against Spanish and American slaveholders and their governments. The successful Amistad rebellion changed the very nature of the struggle against slavery. As a handful of self-emancipated Africans steered their own course for freedom, they opened a way for millions to follow. This edition includes a new epilogue about the author's trip to Sierra Leona to search for Lomboko, the slave-trading factory where the Amistad Africans were incarcerated, and other relics and connections to the Amistad rebellion, especially living local memory of the uprising and the people who made it.

"Black Mutiny" is the historical retelling of one of our nation's most dramatic national crises. It is one among many historical sources used in the development of the new motion picture "Amistad." Written as a novel in 1953 by William A. Owens, this is one historian's view of the Amistad mutiny. Based on U.S. government documents, court records, official and personal correspondence, diaries, and newspaper accounts, it tells the true story of 53 illegally enslaved Africans who revolted against their captors. After the Amistad was intercepted and seized by the United States Navy, the imprisoned Africans were forced to stand trial for mutiny and murder in a case that reached the Supreme Court. With its impassioned plea for freedom for all people, "Black Mutiny" brilliantly recreates a critical moment in America's racial history more than twenty years before the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation. It is a rousing and unforgettable story of oppression, justice, and the precious cost of human dignity.

Examines the legendary Amistad case which questioned whether or not Africans imported illegally into the United States were free men or slaves.

Using contemporary documents, traces the 1839 revolt of Africans aboard the slave ship Amistad, their subsequent apprehension, and long trial which ended in their acquittal by the Supreme Court.