'A' is for 'Amistad'

NOTE:  Those who have been with me awhile have (hopefully) read some of my history posts.  For those who may be unfamiliar with the "way I roll," though, I don't do a whole lot of research with these.  Now before you go accusing me of being a know-it-all, some sort of Stephen Hawking (without the "being dead" part) savant, just know that I pretty much wing most of these.  Some facts are absolutely true.  Others?  Yeah, not so much.  Under no circumstances should you use these things to study for the History SAT.  On the other hand, some remarkably stupid people get jobs in Congress so being a knucklehead ain't necessarily a deal-breaker.  Carry on. 

    On the 24th of February 1841, lawyer and former U.S. president, John Quincy Adams began his defense of Africans who had taken control of the Spanish slave ship, La Amistad.

And here you thought John Q. Adams was just
a son of a president who rocked some killer facial hair. 
Well, he was that and did that. 

 

NOTE:  Ironically, "La Amistad" is Spanish for "friendship." 

    In 1839, the Amistad had been sailing from Havana, Cuba to Port-Au-Prince, Haiti (both killer vacation destinations) with a cargo of formerly free Africans meant to be sold to the highest bidder from some hellish sugar-cane plantation.  Caught by slavers in Sierra Leone, they rose up and killed the captain and cook before they could reach the aforementioned garden spot.   

    They demanded that the remaining crew sail them home to Africa.  Since GPS hadn't been invented and the Sierra Leone office of AAA hadn't implemented the Trip-Tik system yet, they didn't notice when the ship sailed northward instead.

    Intercepted by a U.S. Navy ship off the coast of New York, the Africans were taken into custody and charged with murder.  Spain demanded return of the ship and the prospective slaves, but abolitionists intervened and retained Adams for the defense.

    After a trial before the Supreme Court which lasted two days, the former president won acquittal of the men who were then returned to their native land.  

    Thus, a victory against the evils of slavery was won by the abolitionists.

    Little did they know that something much worse would follow twenty years later.

   

But, that's another story for another day.