View Document Frames
Amistad Africans and the Law,"New York Commercial Advertiser , 13 Sept. 1839.
N.Y. COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER.
Friday Evening, September 13.
THE AFRICANS OF THE AMISTAD.--On the first page we have placed an interesting communication from Mr. Tappan, respecting the poor fellows at New Haven. It does much toward setting aside the crudities and inventions that have been set afloat by some of the newspapers, and furnishes some valuable materials for a correct moral judgment on the remarkable and important case presented by the capture of these injured foreigners. By way of helping toward a corect legal judgment, also, we take leave to offer some facts which appear to have been totally overlooked by all who have as yet written upon the subject. If we do not very much mistake, they have an essential bearing on the questions at issue. There is one point of view in which the influence of the American Colonization Society, upon the suppression of the slave trade, has been overlooked, or at least not duly appreciated. We refer to its influence upon our national legislation, and to its influence upon our national legislation, and to its co-operation with our national government, under laws of which it was instrumental in securing the passage. The law of the United States passed in 1807, for the suppression of the slave trade, made no provision for the disposition of the slaves introduced into this country contrary to its provisions, but left them to be disposed of by the legislatures of the states into which they might be brought. The state of Virginia had previously passed a law for the suppression of the slave trade, and declaring slaves introduced into that state contrary to its provisions, free. The states of Georgia and Louisiana passed laws directing negroes imported into those states in contravention of the slave trade act to be sold as slaves, and the proceeds to be paid into the state Treasury, and the sale of a considerable number of Africans took place under those laws. The State of Georgia, however, passed a law recognizing the existence of the American Colonization Society, and offering to deliver into their hands such Africans as might be introduced into that state in contravention of the laws against the slave trade, provided the society would restore them to their native land without expense to the state. And in 1818 Bishop Meade of Virginia, who was the first agent of the American Colonization Society, proceeded to the state of Georgia, and received from the proper officers of the state a number of recaptured Africans, who had been advertised to be sold on a certain day, under the provisions of the above named law. When Congress convened in 1818 a memorial was presented from the board of managers of the Colonization Society, setting forth the facts above stated, and praying for such legal enactment upon the subject as might secure to the Africans illegally introduced into the United States the enjoyment of their freedom and their rights. In conformity with the request of the Colonization Society an act was passed at the same session, to wit on the 3rd of March 1819, entitled "an act in addition to the acts prohibiting the slave trade" declaring Africans introduced into any part of the United States contrary to said acts, to be at the disposal of the President of the United States, under the guardianship of our laws, and providing for their restoration to their native land, and, where practicable, to their homes. Also providing for the appointment of agents on the coast of Africa, to receive and protect them on their arrival there, and to place them in a situation to obtain a comfortable subistence for themselves. Mr. Monroe, who was then President, in carrying into effect the above named law, wisely sought to secure the co-operation of the Colonization Society in the restoration of the recaptured Africans to their homes, and to secure the protection and other advantages that would accrue to the agents of the government, from a residence in the colony which the Colonization Society contemplated founding on the coast of Africa. The society, perceiving that a co-operation with the government in their benevolent intentions toward the recaptured Africans would be mutually advantageous to the society and the government, readily consented to the proposition of President Monroe to make the colony of Liberia the place of residence of the government agents, and the place for the reception and location of such recaptured Africans as could not be sent to their homes. The first Africans who were sent out under this arrangement to Liberia were from the state of Georgia, and the place where they were settled is called New Georgia. It is now the most thriving agricultural settlement in Liberia. Others were sent out by the United States at different times from Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana, amounting in the whole to several hundreds. The last considerable number that were sent to Liberia by the United States, under the above named arrangement, were sent from New Orleans in 1835. They are here brought into notice because of an important principle of law involved in their capture and restoration to liberty and to their homes --(for most of them were of mature age--had families in Africa, and upon their arrival at Monrovia, some of them found their friends and kindred there, and proceeded with them to their proper homes). The Spanish schooner Fenix, in which they were imported from Africa, was taken by a United States vessel of war, off the coast of Cuba, on the charge of piracy, and carried into New Orleans for adjudication. Upon their arrival at New Orleans the Africans were demanded by the Spanish claimants as their property, on the ground that they were improperly brought into the United States. But the Court decided that the Africans should be protected in their rights by the laws of this country, no matter how they came within the jurisdiction; and that inasmuch as the slave trade was contrary to the laws of Spain, the Spanish claimants had no property in them, and they were therefore under the guardianship of the United States, to be restored to Africa under the supplementary law of 1819, for the suppression of the slave trade.
