Amistad:
The Federal Courts and the Challenge to Slavery
Historical Documents
The Treaty between Spain and the United States, 1795 (The Treaty of San Lorenzo, also known as Pinckney’s Treaty) (excerpts)
The Spanish ambassador to the United States insisted that the treaty between the two countries required the United States to deliver the
Amistad
, its cargo, and the Mende captives to the proper Spanish authorities. In early September 1839, Calde
rón de la Barca informed Secretary of State John Forsyth that the Spanish government expected that all property would be returned to its owners and that the Africans would be delivered for trial in Cuba. According to the ambassador’s reading of Articles Eight, Nine, and Ten of the treaty, no court in the United States had authority to grant salvage or to try the Mende for crimes committed on a Spanish ship.
In an opinion written for the President’s cabinet in October 1839, Attorney General Felix Grundy agreed that Article Nine of the treaty obligated the United States to return the Mende captives and all property, but with the case already in federal court, the Van Buren administration waited for the outcome of the district court trial. Judge Judson ruled that the treaty did not prevent a salvage award in a case like the
Amistad
,
since the award for the rescue of the threatened ship fell within the
“reasonable rates” of compensation provided by Article Eight of the treaty. The Supreme Court denied that Article Nine applied to this case. The Mende were not merchandise under Spanish law, kidnapped Africans who resisted their captors could not be considered pirates, and the planters had no proof of ownership of the property demanded.
[Document Source:
Statutes at Large of the United States of America, 1789-1873
vol. 8 (1845): 138-53.]
Article VIII.
In case the subjects and inhabitants of either party, with their shipping, whether public and of war, or private and of merchants, be forced, through stress of weather, pursuit of pirates or enemies, or any other urgent necessity, for seeking of shelter and harbour, to retreat and enter into any of the rivers, bays, roads, or ports belonging to the other party, they shall be received and treated with all humanity, and enjoy all favor, protection and help, and they shall be permitted to refresh and provide themselves, at reasonable rates, with victuals and all things needful for the sustenance of their persons or reparation of their ships and prosecution of their voyage; and they shall no ways be hindered from returning out of the said ports, or roads, but may remove and depart when and whither they please, without any let or hindrance.
Article IX.
All ships and merchandise of what nature soever, which shall be rescued out of the hands of any pirates or robbers on the high seas, shall be brought into some port of either state, and shall be delivered to the custody of the officers of that Port, in order to be taken care of, and restored entire to the true proprietor, as soon as due and sufficient proof shall be made concerning the property thereof.
Article X.
When any vessel of either party shall be wrecked, foundered, or otherwise damaged, on the coasts or within the dominion of the other, their respective subjects or citizens shall receive, as well for themselves as for their vessels and effects, the same assistance which would be due to the inhabitants of the country where the damage happens, and shall pay the same charges and dues only as the said inhabitants would be subject to pay in a like case: And if the operations of repair would require that the whole or any part of the cargo be unladen, they shall pay not duties, charges or fees on the part which they shall relade and carry away.