Teaching With Documents:The Amistad Case
Opinion of the Supreme Court in United States v. The Amistad, March 9, 1841
Senior Justice Joseph Story wrote and read the decision of the Supreme Court. The Court ruled that the Africans on board the Amistad were free individuals. Kidnapped and transported illegally, they had never been slaves.
Although Justice Story had written earlier that ". . . it was the ultimate right of all human beings in extreme cases to resist oppression, and to apply force against ruinous injustice," the opinion in this case more narrowly asserted the Africans right to resist "unlawful" slavery.
The Court ordered the immediate release of the Amistad Africans.
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National Archives and
Records Administration,
Records of the Supreme Court
of the United States, RG 267
ARC Identifier: 301672
- Libel of Thomas R. Gedney,
Lieutenant, U.S. Brig Washington
August 29, 1839 - Answer of the Proctors for
the Amistad Africans
January 7, 1840 - John Quincy Adams' request for
papers relating to the lower court trials of the Amistad Africans
January 23, 1841
ARC Identifier: 301671 - Opinion of the Supreme Court in United States v. The Amistad
March 9, 1841
ARC Identifier: 301672 - Statement of the Supreme
Court to Circuit Court
March 9, 1841
