United States V. The Amistad - British Pressure

British Pressure

The British had entered into a treaty with Spain eliminating the slave trade south of the equator and saw it as a matter of International Law that the United States release the Africans. They applied diplomatic pressure to achieve this including invoking their own treaty with the United States.

While the legal battle continued, Irishman Dr. Richard R. Madden "who served on behalf of the British commission to suppress the African slave trade in Havana" arrived to testify. He made a deposition "that some twenty-five thousand slaves were brought into Cuba every year – with the wrongful compliance of, and personal profit by, Spanish officials" Madden also "told the court that his examinations revealed that the defendants were brought directly from Africa and could not have been residents of Cuba" Madden (who would later have an audience with Queen Victoria concerning the case) conferred with the British Minister in Washington, D.C., Henry Stephen Fox who began pressuring U.S. Secretary of State John Forsyth on behalf "of her Majesty's Government"

Fox wrote "...Great Britain is also bound to remember that the law of Spain, which finally prohibited the slave-trade throughout the Spanish dominions, from the date of the 30th of May, 1820, the provisions of which law are contained in the King of Spain's royal cedula of the 19th December, was passed, in compliance with a treaty obligation to that effect, by which the Crown of Spain had bound itself to the Crown of Great Britain, and for which a valuable compensation, in return, was given by Great Britain to Spain; as may be seen by reference to the 2d, 3d, and 4th articles of a public treaty concluded between Great Britain and Spain on the 23d of September, 1817.

"It is next to be observed, that Great Britain and the United States have mutually engaged themselves to each other, by the 10th article of the treaty of Ghent, to use their best endeavors for the entire abolition of the African slave-trade; and there can be no doubt of the firm intention of both parties religiously to fulfill the terms of that engagement.

"Now, the unfortunate Africans whose case is the subject of the present representation, have been thrown by accidental circumstances into the hands of the authorities of the United States Government whether these persons shall recover the freedom to which they are entitled, or whether they shall be reduced to slavery, in violation of known laws and contracts publicly passed, prohibiting the continuance of the African slave-trade by Spanish subjects.

"It is under these circumstance that her Majesty's Government anxiously hope that the President of the United States will find himself empowered to take such measures, in behalf of the aforesaid Africans, as shall secure to them the possession of their liberty, to which, without doubt they are by law entitled."

Forsyth responded that under the U.S. Constitution it was not in the President's powers to affect the case. Forsyth went further saying that the question of whether the "negroes of the Amistad" had been enslaved in violation of the Treaty was still an open one "and this Government would with great reluctance erect itself into a tribunal to investigate such questions between two friendly sovereigns." If such facts could be determined "they cannot be without their force and effect in the proper time and place." If they were not determined before the end of the trial and the Court finds for Spain "it is the intention of the Spanish minister to restore these negroes...to the island of Cuba...It is there that questions arising under the Spanish laws, and the treaties of Spain with Great Britain, may be appropriately discussed and decided; and where a full opportunity will be presented to the Government of her Majesty, the Queen of Great Britain, to appeal to the treaty stipulations applicable to the subject of your letter."