United States v. Cinque 1841
| Author | Daniel Brannen, Richard Hanes, Elizabeth Shaw |
| Pages | 545-551 |
Page 545
Appellant: United States
Appellees: Joseph Cinque and forty-eight other African captives
Appellant's Claim: That the slaves aboard the Amistad were guilty of murder and piracy for taking over the ship on which they were being transported.
Chief Lawyer for Appellant: Harry D. Gilpin, U.S. Attorney General
Chief Lawyer for Appellees: John Quincy Adams, Roger S. Baldwin
Justices for the Court: Philip P. Barbour, John Catron, John McKinley, John McLean, Joseph Story, Smith Thompson, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, James M. Wayne
Justices Dissenting: Henry Baldwin
Date of Decision: January 1841
Decision: Found Cinque and the other captive Africans not guilty of mutiny since they were held captive in violation of international slave trade laws.
Significance: Abolitionists seeking to end slavery in the United States hailed as a victory the decision not to convict slaves from the schooner Amistad for killing two of their captors in order to gain freedom. Though the ruling did not directly apply to slavery, it served to fuel increasing tensions in the United States over the slavery issue ultimately leading to the American Civil War.
Page 546
The verdict poster from the United States v. Cinque case.
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An extensive slave trade involving the shipping of captured Africans to the New World colonies grew in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. By the Revolutionary War (1776–83) over a half million black slaves lived in the American colonies. Given their importance to the economy of the Southern colonies, the U.S. Constitution did not address slavery. In fact, protection was provided to the Southern states, including a prohibition against Congress from passing legislation outlawing slavery until at least after 1808. In addition, fugitive slaves who escaped from Southern states to the North had to be returned when caught.
Page 547
In 1808 Congress did begin to take action against slavery by banning the importation of new slaves into the country. With the growth throughout Europe and the United States of the abolitionist movement intent on abolishing (ending) slavery, most European nations had also outlawed the shipping of slaves to the New World by the 1830s. Among those was Spain which, under pressure from Great Britain, finally passed its own laws in 1835.
With its international power in decline, Spain was unable to enforce its restrictions. Wealthy landowners who dominated the Spanish colonies, including Cuba, needed a steady supply of slaves to work their large estates. They could not afford to obey the new Spanish law and wait for children of their existing slaves to grow up to meet their growing demand...
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