Chapter 7: The Amistad Trial

Chapter Summary: 

     This chapter outlines the struggle for justice in a battle against oppressive political authority and the "slavocracy," as well as the personal struggle for John Quincy Adams to find the time and willpower to defend the African captives of the Amistad. The chapter begins with the background of the trial: Africans on a Spanish slave ship to Cuba seized control of the ship by murdering much of the crew, but then were misled by surviving crew members to the American shores, where they were taken captive and imprisoned while "they awaited a decision by the United States government on their fate-would it be slavery or freedom?" On one hand, the Spanish and the South wanted the slaves to be declared property and returned to their Spanish owners. This was heavily opposed by abolitionists who argued that they were free human beings by the law of nature, which upset the states where slavery was legal. Martin Van Buren, president at the time, needed to gain Southern support, so his party demanded that they surrender to slavery. Opposition by antislavery activists caused a trial in the Supreme Court. The defendants recruited John Quincy Adams as their spokesperson. Adams fervently opposed Van Buren's "slavocracy," but he had much trouble making the time, amid his multitude of other commitments, to devote to the case. He was "sure of the justice of [his] cause, and deeply desponding of [his] ability to sustain it." While the trial kept getting postponed, Adams became more and more anxious about his upcoming address. Once the trial finally began, with the help of his colleague Roger S. Baldwin, Adams spent 2 days "denouncing Van Buren's administration for seeing to rush the Amistad's captives into the arms of Spain and the chains of slavery." He also emphasized the importance of freedom for all humans under natural law. The Court's decision was eventually in favor of Adams' and Baldwin's defense, and the captives were declared free persons. 

Chapter Reflection:

Adams' internal struggle was really interesting to me because I felt his passion on the issue that he was defending, but it seemed that he had a whirlwind of things going on in his world and in his mind that it seemed so hard for him to concentrate his passion and his zeal onto one thing. He seemed to be pulled in too many different directions. He knew the weight of his task, and he felt strongly about the freedom and rights of humans in America, but I think his motivations were guided mostly by his hatred of the Van Buren administration's oppression and corruption. I was a little bit lost during JQA's final address to the court, I would like to have that explained a little bit more so that I could really understand what made it so moving.