Abolitionism in America

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John Warner Barber. A History of the Amistad Captives. New Haven, Conn.: E.L. & J.W. Barber, Hitchcock & Stafford, printers, 1840.
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The Amistad
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In 1839, Joseph Cinque led a bloody revolt on the slave ship Amistad, which had embarked from Cuba. Under the control of Cinque and his fellow Africans, the crew secretly sailed to Long Island, New York, instead of to Sierra Leone, where they were supposed to return. On arrival in New York, the Africans were arrested and charged with murder and piracy. The sensational trial that followed went all the way to the Supreme Court, where the defendants were represented by the former U. S. President, John Quincy Adams. In 1841, the Supreme Court ruled that the Africans were illegally incarcerated and that they must be returned to Africa, which they were, the following year.

Samuel J. May Antislavery Collection

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Cornell University Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections Cornell University Library