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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Sarah Dowdy and I'm delinea Chruck Rewarding, and today

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Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the Amistad Mutiny. It was

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Speaker 1: actually a listener suggestion, but it's the one that's kind

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Speaker 1: of been on my mind for a little while now.

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Speaker 1: And to most of you, am Stead probably brings to

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Speaker 1: mind that nine seven Steven Spielberg movie. I think just

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Speaker 1: about everybody though. It has Anthony Hopkins in it, He's

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Speaker 1: got some awesome mutton shops because he's playing John Quincy Adams,

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Speaker 1: has Matthew McConaughey, has Jamon Hansu playing the slave leader,

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Speaker 1: who are obviously going to talk about in great detail.

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Speaker 1: But I was thinking about it. I don't remember the

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Speaker 1: movie very well. It's probably been since nine then I

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Speaker 1: saw it. Yeah, same here, It was a long time ago.

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Speaker 1: I was saying, though. There is one scene though that

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Speaker 1: really stands out, and I'm not sure if it it's

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Speaker 1: just because it was so memorable, or if because I

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Speaker 1: saw it later, probably in in high school, you know,

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Speaker 1: as a as a demonstration of what the middle Passage

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Speaker 1: might have looked like, but that scene really stands out

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Speaker 1: in my mind. It's horrific. The slaves are beaten, they're starved,

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Speaker 1: they're murdered, all on the massive trip across the Atlantic.

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Speaker 1: But the interesting thing here is that even though the

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Speaker 1: movie Amstad turns out to be kind of a courtroom drama,

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Speaker 1: that scene the Middle Passage is really crucial, and it's

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Speaker 1: really crucial in the story of the Amistade in general,

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Speaker 1: because the case against the mutineers the slave Uprising, hinged

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Speaker 1: on the lie that they never experienced the Middle Passage. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and that lie was that they were in fact Cuban

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Speaker 1: born ladinos or slaves who were born in Latin America,

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Speaker 1: and most crucially, that they were slaves before Spain had

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Speaker 1: banished trafficking in its empire. Yeah, that they had kind

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Speaker 1: of been grandfathered into the whole slave system. In reality,

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Speaker 1: of course, the eventual Amistad mutineers were born in Africa,

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Speaker 1: so it's Africa where we will start our story. And

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Speaker 1: of course there are lots of mutineers, so they have

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Speaker 1: lots of different backstories, and we have varying degrees of

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Speaker 1: information on different members of the mutiny but fortunately a

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Speaker 1: lot of the backstories are pretty similar to the leader,

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Speaker 1: Joseph Sink, who was Mende tribesmen from what is today

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Speaker 1: Sierra Leone, and in large they were mostly men young

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Speaker 1: men um. They were usually captured when they were walking

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Speaker 1: along a road or in their village, essentially jumped and

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Speaker 1: kidnapped and sold into slavery. Yeah. Sink in particular, who

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Speaker 1: was born sing by Pia. He was a twenty five

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Speaker 1: year old married father of three and a rice farmer

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Speaker 1: when he was captured, and his father was headman in

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Speaker 1: the village of Moni. Now his capture most sources believe

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Speaker 1: may have had something to do with a debt that

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Speaker 1: he But what we do know is that after a

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Speaker 1: three day march to the Portuguese slave factory on the

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Speaker 1: island of Lumboco, Sink was sold to a Spanish slaver

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Speaker 1: and loaded aboard the slave ship to Cora with hundreds

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Speaker 1: of others bound for Havannah. Yeah. In that tripe from

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Speaker 1: Africa to havannahs of course the middle passage. But once

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Speaker 1: the Toakora are landed or arrived in Havannah, Sink and

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Speaker 1: fifty two others were sold to two Cuban sugar planters,

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Speaker 1: and that's Jose Ruiz and Pedro Mantas, And they were

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Speaker 1: packed aboard a second ship, and that is lah Amistad.

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Speaker 1: But there's a catch with this story, and you probably

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Speaker 1: guessed it already with our little introduction there. But the

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Speaker 1: year was eighteen thirty nine, and the slave trade had

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Speaker 1: been illegal in the Spanish Empire for years since eighteen twenty,

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Speaker 1: in fact, due to this eighteen seventeen treaty with Great Britain.

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Speaker 1: But the Spanish don't really try very hard to follow

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Speaker 1: their own ban against slavery. They sort of enforce it haphazardly,

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Speaker 1: and Cuban officials could really easily be bribed to falsify

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Speaker 1: slave documents so they would make them out to be

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Speaker 1: Ladinos instead of Africans. And this is exactly what Ruis

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Speaker 1: and Montes diad. They had fake passports made for the

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Speaker 1: Africans and then set sail from Havannah. Yeah, and they

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Speaker 1: went to all that trouble of making fake passports for

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Speaker 1: their new slaves because they were concerned that if a

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Speaker 1: British patroller stopped them, their slaves might be confiscated. Because

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Speaker 1: even though the Spanish weren't very invested in enforcing their laws.

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Speaker 1: The British definitely were, so they, like you said, they

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Speaker 1: set sail from Havannah and they were headed to Puerto

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Speaker 1: Prince Pe, which was the northwestern Cuban port, and it's

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Speaker 1: there where they would have ultimately settled on the sugar plantations.

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Speaker 1: And they left, you know, trying to be all secret

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Speaker 1: before dawn j thirty nine. On board, just to give

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Speaker 1: you a picture of what the ship looked like before

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Speaker 1: the mutiny went down. There were fifty three slaves, the

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Speaker 1: two slavers Ruis and Montez, Captain Ramon Fairer and Ladino

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Speaker 1: cabin boy, and a mixed race slave cook. Also, judging

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Speaker 1: from later accounts, there are two ship hands on deck,

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Speaker 1: two sailors um Sometimes you see them, sometimes you don't.

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Speaker 1: You see them, sometimes you don't, except they are conspicuously missing.

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Speaker 1: After the rebellion, you would have normally had two and

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Speaker 1: a half to three days that see to make this trip,

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Speaker 1: but storms cause a delay, which means they have to

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Speaker 1: start rationing food. The slaves who are on board only

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Speaker 1: get one banana, two potatoes, and one cup of water

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Speaker 1: per day. They're also flogged by an increasingly abusive crew,

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Speaker 1: so very bad conditions for the slaves on board here.

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Speaker 1: They're also naturally, if you're being flogged every day, really

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Speaker 1: scared about what awaits them when they arrive at their destination.

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Speaker 1: Sink A actually uses signs to communicate with the cook Celestino,

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Speaker 1: who indicates that the slaves will be killed, cut up, salted,

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Speaker 1: and eaten once they've landed, which I'm just imagining, like

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Speaker 1: the signals that they're using and how he would have

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Speaker 1: signaled cut up, salted and eaten. But I'm sure it

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Speaker 1: wasn't pleasant. I think he pointed at barrels and one

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Speaker 1: could assume he used the universal hand across the neck tumble. Yeah. Um,

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Speaker 1: but you know, so Celestino is is playing a prank

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Speaker 1: on on sink essentially trying to put him on. It

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Speaker 1: has a pretty terrible consequence, especially for Celestino, because this news,

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Speaker 1: plus the already bad conditions on board the ship, makes

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Speaker 1: sink A decide to act. You know, he's afraid that

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Speaker 1: his time is running short and what he's seen so

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Speaker 1: far has been so horrific, So before dawn on July two,

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Speaker 1: he uses a hidden nail that he's squirreled away to

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Speaker 1: break out of his iron collar, and then he goes

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Speaker 1: on to free some of the other Africans on board.

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Speaker 1: They arm themselves with Kane knives, which are really big,

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Speaker 1: scary knives, and they immediately kill the captain and the cook.

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Speaker 1: So there's the don't make practical jokes in a dire situation, guys.

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Speaker 1: If the two sailors were on board, as we mentioned before,

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Speaker 1: they disappeared, they weren't on board. The ship later probably

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Speaker 1: drowned right exactly, and the the slaves. They end up

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Speaker 1: sparing the Ladino cabin boy, and they decided to keep

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Speaker 1: Montes and Ruis alive as well so that they can

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Speaker 1: help the slaves navigate back to Africa. But the slavers

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Speaker 1: are pretty tricky. They actually they sail east during the day,

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Speaker 1: but then turn northward at night. So they're thinking maybe

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Speaker 1: the British will spot them and stop the ship. Maybe

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Speaker 1: we'll hit the North American coast and sink a and

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Speaker 1: the other. The other Africans on board just see that

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Speaker 1: they're heading towards the sun, you know, heading east during

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Speaker 1: the morning, and they think they're on their way to Africa.

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Speaker 1: But it just goes on and on and on. Like

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Speaker 1: that for a ventually two months. Uh, they run out

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Speaker 1: of food, there's no water, the sails are in tatters,

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Speaker 1: the rigging is in tatters. Ten Africans die from drinking

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Speaker 1: some unknown liquids aboard the ship, which proved to be poisonous.

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Speaker 1: And finally Sink realizes that he's out of luck too

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Speaker 1: and allows Mantas to land and they anchor on Long Island,

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Speaker 1: and Sinka goes to shore with a few other guys

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Speaker 1: to use the Spanish money on board to buy provisions.

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Speaker 1: But meanwhile, enough small ships have have seen what is

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Speaker 1: essentially a ghost ship at this point, you know, scary

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Speaker 1: tattered sails and all these knife wielding people on board.

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Speaker 1: They've seen it in the waters. They've been too afraid

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Speaker 1: to go close to it themselves, but they've reported back

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Speaker 1: to the United States Revenue Cutter Service about this mystery ship.

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Speaker 1: So while Sinka is going to shore, the US Cutter

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Speaker 1: Service finally catches up with them. Yeah, the USS Washington

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Speaker 1: in fact catches up with them, and they board the

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Speaker 1: Amistade commanding officer here is Lieutenant Thomas Gedney, and he

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Speaker 1: seizes the ship, the cargo, and the Africans. On August

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Speaker 1: thirty nine and tows the boat to New London, Connecticut,

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Speaker 1: where slavery happens to be legal at the time. Once

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Speaker 1: they're there, he alerts US Federal District Justice Andrew T. Judson,

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Speaker 1: But Judson can't get the whole story because the Africans

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Speaker 1: don't speak English, so he decides to refer the case

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Speaker 1: to the U. S. Circuit Court in Hartford, which is

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Speaker 1: meeting in September. Meanwhile, the Africans are sent to jail

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Speaker 1: in New Haven, so they're stuck in Connecticut. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: this epic legal battle starts from this point. The circuit

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Speaker 1: court trial comes first, and it's largely centered on murder

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Speaker 1: and piracy charges against the Africans because in Spanish eyes,

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Speaker 1: they have killed crew members and stolen a and his ship.

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Speaker 1: But this trial, the circuit court trial, only lasts a

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Speaker 1: few days. The judge dismisses those charges of murder and piracy.

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Speaker 1: It says, well, the Africans are not under any U.

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Speaker 1: S jurisdiction for crimes committed against the Cubans, so he

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Speaker 1: refers the case to the U. S. District Court. And

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Speaker 1: by this point the story has really started to get

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Speaker 1: a lot of national attention and abolitionists have sort of

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Speaker 1: taken it up as a great way to fight slavery

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Speaker 1: in the United States as well, or at least draw

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Speaker 1: attention to it um. Some of the abolishists involved, Lewis Tappened,

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Speaker 1: Joshua Lovitt and Simeon Jocelyn formed the Amstad Committee and

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Speaker 1: even raised defense funds for the Africans. And this lets

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Speaker 1: them actually hire an attorney, lead attorney Roger Sherman Baldwin,

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Speaker 1: to defend them, and they get ahold of some translators too,

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Speaker 1: So finally the African side of the story can be told. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and that's key because once the slaves have a void,

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Speaker 1: the sides become quite clear. The Africans argue that they're

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Speaker 1: not slaves, they're freemen who were born in Africa and

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Speaker 1: treated illegally. And Ruis and Montess on the other hand,

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Speaker 1: they argue that the slaves are actually ladinos and murderers

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Speaker 1: to boot. And what's interesting is that they is the

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Speaker 1: people that they have on their side. They are supported

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Speaker 1: by the Spanish government and by US President Martin Van Buren,

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Speaker 1: and he's up for re election soon. He's not necessarily

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Speaker 1: a supporter of slavery, but he wants to impress Southern

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Speaker 1: slave owners, and so he arranges for a Navy ship

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Speaker 1: to come up and be ready to return the slaves

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Speaker 1: to Cuba immediately after the trial, before a possible appeal

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Speaker 1: can be made. Yeah, So his plan is is he's

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Speaker 1: assuming that the court will rule in favor of the Cubans,

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Speaker 1: and as soon as they do, he's going to get

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Speaker 1: the Africans right back to Cuba before anybody can make

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Speaker 1: a fuss. But there's a third element to the story,

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Speaker 1: and it also has to do with property, which is

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Speaker 1: sort of the key here. Under maritime law, compensation would

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Speaker 1: go to the person who helped save a ship or

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Speaker 1: the ship's cargo from loss, even if they were just

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Speaker 1: doing the job that they were supposed to do it

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Speaker 1: for the U. S. Government like Gutney. So Getney has

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Speaker 1: filed a claim to the ship's cargo. You know, he's saying,

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Speaker 1: I risked my life, my crew, my ship to essentially

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Speaker 1: rescue the Amistade and rescue all of its cargo from

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Speaker 1: this mutinous situation. And he files a claim to not

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Speaker 1: just the cargo as in the material goods, but the

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Speaker 1: slaves as well, which he values the whole thing together

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Speaker 1: forty dollars for the slaves, so he is in it

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Speaker 1: for a very substantial profit. Yeah, and there are other

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Speaker 1: people who have things at stake here as well, or

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Speaker 1: at least think they do. Long Island Seaman for example,

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Speaker 1: that Henry Green. He files a competing salvage claim, and

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Speaker 1: Ruis and Montes, of course, with support from the Queen

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Speaker 1: of Spain Sane, are trying to get their money and

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Speaker 1: property back. So there are a lot of people who

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Speaker 1: are vying here for the stuff evolved. It's it's not

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Speaker 1: just about the mutiny and the murders and what happened

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Speaker 1: on the ship. It's about what the ship is worth

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Speaker 1: and that includes the people on it. So obviously this

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Speaker 1: trial turns into a sensation with with so many competing

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Speaker 1: interests and so many high profile people involved and their

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Speaker 1: trial trial spectators who come. They start filling up the galleries.

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Speaker 1: Newspapers cover it. There's gripping testimony from sink A and

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Speaker 1: from others detailing their lives in Africa, you know, their

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Speaker 1: lives before being captured, their capture, the Middle Passage, the

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Speaker 1: sale in Cuba, and the revolt on the ship, to

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Speaker 1: just sort of lay the picture of we're not Ladino,

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Speaker 1: as we are from Africa. So their defense attorney, though

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Speaker 1: pretty crucially, doesn't drift far into the moral arguments. I mean,

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Speaker 1: he lets sink A and the others tell their own

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Speaker 1: gripping stories, but he doesn't get too much into the

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Speaker 1: ethics of slavery, which, of course, this is long before

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Speaker 1: slavery was abolished in the United States. So he keeps

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Speaker 1: it about property, which is something that maybe people could

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Speaker 1: think about a little more clearly, and clearly it's everyone's

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Speaker 1: focus in this trial. Yeah, and his strategy really works.

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Speaker 1: In January, the court does several things. They dismiss green

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Speaker 1: salvage claim, they award some salvage rights to Getney, and

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Speaker 1: they rule most importantly that the Africans were not legally enslaved,

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Speaker 1: so the US government must return them to Africa. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's probably a pretty unexpected verdict for a lot of

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Speaker 1: these high stakes players involved, including Martin van Buren. I mean,

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Speaker 1: he's not expecting this, so he ordered an immediate appeal,

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Speaker 1: and eventually, after a few more stops along the way,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna, you know, skip along a bit. The case

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Speaker 1: eventually gets to the Supreme Court, and at that point

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Speaker 1: the abolitionists who are supporting the Africans knew that they

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Speaker 1: might need to bring in some new blood to to

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Speaker 1: keep up with the high profile nature of the trial.

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Speaker 1: Star power, Yeah, exactly, some celebrity lawyers um to to

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Speaker 1: just keep public interest going and to make it so

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Speaker 1: so high profile that Van Buren couldn't try any funny

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Speaker 1: business like having the slave suddenly disappeared to Cuba. So

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Speaker 1: the Omstuff Committee goes after none other than John Quincy

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Speaker 1: Adams to defend the Africans, along with the original defense attorney,

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Speaker 1: Roger Baldwin. Yeah, John Quincy Adams at this point, he's

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Speaker 1: pretty old. He's seventy three, visually impaired and out of practice.

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Speaker 1: He hasn't really acted as a lawyer in thirty plus

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Speaker 1: years or so. But he's still, as we said, really

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Speaker 1: high profile. He's a congressman, former president UM and known

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Speaker 1: as old man eloquent. So we're ready to hear him

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Speaker 1: give some really compelling speeches here. Yeah, he's a good speaker.

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Speaker 1: So he takes a little convince and saying, you know,

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Speaker 1: he's he's reluctant to get on board for such an

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Speaker 1: intense commitment and something that is again so high profile.

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Speaker 1: We keep using that word, but that's what it is.

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Speaker 1: But eventually he decides to go for it. He kind

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Speaker 1: of thinks it might be his last great achievement as

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Speaker 1: a political man um and he starts. He starts swinging

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Speaker 1: right off the bat. He raises questions about Van Buren

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Speaker 1: and his administration and whether they falsified documents relating to

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Speaker 1: the incident, and this ultimately starts a congressional inquiry, and

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Speaker 1: then by February, the Supreme Court trial US versus Amstad begins.

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Speaker 1: Baldwin actually opens the case, surprisingly, I guess if you're

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Speaker 1: a John Quincy Adam's fan. But Adams eventually does spend

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Speaker 1: eight and a half maybe seven hours making his argument

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Speaker 1: before court, and in that he refers back to the

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Speaker 1: Declaration of Independent be quite moving, I would assume, as

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Speaker 1: the son of one of its signers, definitely, And in

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Speaker 1: the end the court upheld the previous rulings and found

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Speaker 1: for the Africans. Yeah, and by this point, I mean,

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Speaker 1: this is okay. It is it's a victory. It's certainly

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Speaker 1: a victory for the abolitionists, for the Africans. They get

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Speaker 1: to go home. But it's sad too. At this point,

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Speaker 1: they're only thirty five surviving Africans from the Almstade and

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Speaker 1: the committee, the Almstad Committee, raises funds for their return.

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Speaker 1: The survivors actually go on a speaking tour to sort

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Speaker 1: of help out with their own fundraising because I know

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Speaker 1: English now, they've learned English. They've had these several years

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Speaker 1: in prison by this point to learn English, and by

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Speaker 1: January eighty two they land in West Africa. But the mystery,

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Speaker 1: or sort of a sketchy aspect of this story doesn't

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Speaker 1: stop there. And the mystery is in what happens after, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, when Sink returns, he finds that his wife

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Speaker 1: and three children are missing. But supposedly he bounces back

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Speaker 1: from this to become a slave trader himself, or that's

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Speaker 1: what some people say, and a wealthy one at that,

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Speaker 1: a wealthy slaver. Obviously, this is a really contentious claim,

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Speaker 1: one that actually got Spielberg's in flak for not including

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Speaker 1: it or mentioning it in the film. But is it

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Speaker 1: even true? Yeah, so, you know, it is a pretty

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Speaker 1: serious thing to say about somebody. And there's a really

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Speaker 1: interesting article I read in the Journal of American History

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Speaker 1: by Howard Jones that suggests a lot of the story,

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Speaker 1: a lot of the story about sinking the slaver seems

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Speaker 1: based in a work of historical fiction. Very surprising. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: kind of opposite of what you think would happen. Usually

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Speaker 1: you think of history some primary storties, yea, some some

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Speaker 1: primary sources in here um influencing the novel. But instead

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Speaker 1: it was the other way around, and specifically the novel

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Speaker 1: that that they're referring to as The Slave Mutiny by

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Speaker 1: William A. Owens. And it seems that l Owens identified

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Speaker 1: his own work as fiction. He alluded to enough tanalyzing

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Speaker 1: sources in it that historians started to take it up

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Speaker 1: as fact. In nineteen sixty nine, for example, historians see

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Speaker 1: Van Woodward even cited the story and his presentation before

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Speaker 1: the Organization of American Historians, which was something that really

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Speaker 1: stirred up a lot of controversy. Yeah. And in the

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Speaker 1: article I mentioned, Jones notes that Owens himself did not

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Speaker 1: start the rumor in his novel. It was mentioned, for instance,

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Speaker 1: in a nineteen six history of the American Missionary Society,

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Speaker 1: but with no source. But owens novel definitely influenced opinions

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Speaker 1: in pretty crucial ways. The sink A flavor story even

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Speaker 1: made it into three popular historical surveys. So it got

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Speaker 1: into enough stuff that people started thinking that this rumor

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Speaker 1: might have had Surely it must have some basis. In fact,

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Speaker 1: surely there's some primary source out there that that references

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Speaker 1: sink A becoming a flavor. That's what people started to think. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So I guess at this point where we can't really

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Speaker 1: know what to think. I mean, is it rumors? Is

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Speaker 1: there hidden evidence? Ye Owen's talked about evidence being spirited

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Speaker 1: away somehow during a move, but who knows. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: mean we were talking to me a little bit, a

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Speaker 1: little bit about it before, and it seems like doubtful

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Speaker 1: that such a big thing wouldn't have somehow made it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it's way back well and Jones even mentions in

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Speaker 1: the article that had sink A descended into the slave trade,

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Speaker 1: the missionaries in Africa, who reported in pretty great detail

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Speaker 1: about most of what he was doing, would have mentioned

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Speaker 1: that sink A had not only become a flavor, but

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Speaker 1: a wealthy one. I mean, I'd say that's a pretty notable,

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Speaker 1: notable thing. Yeah, you'd probably mention it. I think you've

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Speaker 1: heard that around my letter home, So you know, it's

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Speaker 1: something to think about, but it's it's also maybe sort

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Speaker 1: of a good lesson and not to jump to a

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Speaker 1: huge conclusion. Absolutely, but regardless of what happened in Sink's

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Speaker 1: later life, the Amistad decision was clearly somewhat ironic and

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Speaker 1: that slavery was still much alive in the US. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's the eighteen forties. But it also set

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Speaker 1: a standard for using the justice system to advance causes.

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Speaker 1: So I mean, we can't really say it it helped

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Speaker 1: end slavery when it is so much so long before

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Speaker 1: the Civil War, but it definitely helped using the justice

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Speaker 1: system as as a way to get something done. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so Amistad stuck around in a lot of ways for

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Speaker 1: many years. I mean, Congress would debate the case from

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Speaker 1: time to time for the next twenty years until the

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Speaker 1: Civil War started in eighteen sixty one, and Spain kept

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Speaker 1: kind of they wanted a little bit of money. Know,

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Speaker 1: they didn't want to let it go. They wanted um

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Speaker 1: to be paid for the slaves and the ship and

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Speaker 1: everything that they lost. So they had passed through the

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Speaker 1: US from times time to time about paying up or

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Speaker 1: or working out some deal. But you mentioned this of

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Speaker 1: a war, the start of the Civil War in eighteen

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Speaker 1: sixty one, and that's actually where we're headed next, or

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Speaker 1: kind of in a way. It's not going to be

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Speaker 1: a straight up battle episode, although it is pretty bloody

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Speaker 1: and violent. So yeah, until the next episode. If you

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Speaker 1: have any comments on this one, or if you have

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Speaker 1: any ideas for future ideas you'd like us to research,

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Speaker 1: feel free to write us an email at History Podcast

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Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com, or you can look

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Speaker 1: us up on Facebook or on Twitter at miss industry.

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00:22:31,640 --> 00:22:33,360
Speaker 1: And if you want to learn a little bit more

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Speaker 1: about the eventual freedom of slaves in the United States,

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Speaker 1: we have an article called how the Emancipation Proclamation worked,

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Speaker 1: and you can find it by searching on our home

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00:22:43,359 --> 00:22:48,520
Speaker 1: page for Emancipation Proclamation at www dot how stuff works

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Speaker 1: dot com. For moral this and thousands of other topics,

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00:22:55,760 --> 00:22:58,200
Speaker 1: visit how stuff works dot com. To learn more about

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Speaker 1: the podcast. Click on the podcast icon in the upper

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Speaker 1: right corner of our homepage. Now how stuff Works iPhone

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