Amistad Argument

The Amistad Argument is John Quincy Adams’s published argument before the United States Supreme Court in the 1841 case United States v. The Amistad. Adams (1767-1848), former President and at the time a member of the House of Representatives, came out of legal retirement to argue the case on behalf of the African captives who had taken over the Spanish slave ship La Amistad in 1839.

The Africans, mostly Mende people from what is now Sierra Leone, had been illegally taken from Africa and were being transported as slaves between Cuban ports when they revolted and took control of the ship. The Amistad was eventually seized by the United States Navy and the legal question of what should happen to the captives produced years of complicated litigation involving Spanish, American, and abolitionist interests.

Adams’s argument before the Supreme Court ran for several days and successfully secured the freedom of the captives, who were eventually returned to Africa. The published argument is one of the great American legal speeches of the nineteenth century.