A very rare survival, shedding additional light on the long tail of the Amistad case. Slip bills were printed in limited numbers for use within Congress and, as such, are rarely seen in commerce.
“During the moonless early hours of July 2, 1839, several captive Africans quietly slipped out of their fetters in the hold of the slave schooner La Amistad. One of them had managed to break a padlock, which made it possible to remove the chain that reeved them together and held them down in the hold below the main deck of the vessel. Forty-nine men and four children made up the human cargo of the Amistad […] In a matter of minutes the Amistad rebels had turned the ship’s wooden world upside down” (Rediker, 1-2). Having taken control of the ship, they naturally wanted to sail home to Sierra Leone. However, none of them knew how to navigate. The schooner was intercepted eight weeks later by a US Navy survey ship and taken to New London, Connecticut. Their astonishing legal battle commenced at this moment.
The United States v. The Amistad trial tested the recently implemented treaty between Britain and Spain abolishing the transatlantic trading of slaves (1817). The African men and women aboard the ship were abducted in Sierra Leone, before being illegally sold in Havana, where at this time the law prohibited the sale of persons not already bonded in slavery. When the captives mutinied and overpowered the ship’s captains, they were acting lawfully as free men fighting to escape illegal confinement. Thus, the case, with a defence supported and funded by American Abolitionists, was ruled in favour of the Amistad captives in the United States Supreme Court in March 1841.
That victory didn’t see the end of legislation surrounding the case. The captain of the Amistad, Ramón Ferrer, was killed in the rebellion. The ship spent eighteen months moored at US Customs House at New London before being auctioned in October, 1840, where it was purchased by Capt. George Hawford. The Spanish government repeatedly pressed the United States for compensation for the lost ship.
This bill, sponsored by Democrat, C.J. Ingersoll, sought to appease Spain. Here, he proposes, to “indemnify the owners of the Spanish schooner Amistad, for the unlawful seizure, detention, and salvage allowed that vessel and her cargo, and liberation of the slaves on board of her, in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty [i.e. 1839], and afterwards, during their detention and by their liberation.” The $70,000 would’ve been paid directly to the Spanish ambassador.
The bill was opposed by amongst others, John Quincy Adams, who had previously made a four-hour speech in the Amistad captives’ defense, and was defeated. It’s nonethless an important reminder that the entire triangular trade was underpinned first and foremost by money.
Rediker, M, The Amistad Rebellion: an Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom. (Verso, 2013).
