Appeal to the Friends of Liberty (page 1)

On the morning of June 28, 1839, the schooner La Amistad set sail from Havana, Cuba, beginning an adventure of far-reaching historical consequences. On board were 53 Africans who had been abducted from West Africa and sold in violation of international law. Their intended fate was enslavement on plantations down the coast from Havana. On the third day out, the Africans revolted and ordered that the ship be guided toward the rising sun back to Africa, but each night the two surviving Cubans reversed direction. Zigzagging for two months, the ship eventually was brought by northerly winds and currents to Long Island. The Amistad was seized by a U.S. surveying ship and the Africans were jailed in New London, Connecticut, and charged with piracy and murder. A group of Christian abolitionists, headed by Lewis Tappan, formed a defense committee. Attorney Roger Sherman Baldwin, with help from former President John Quincy Adams, took the case to the United States Supreme Court, which ruled that the Africans were free. This flyer announced the formation of the “Amistad Committee,” led by Lewis Tappan, Rev. Joshua Leavitt, and Rev. Simeon Jocelyn, to raise funds for the legal counsel of the Africans.