The Amistad Case: A Chronology
1837 - 1839: 25,000 Africans brought to Cuba as slaves.

April 1839: Cinque captured by other Africans, taken to the slave factory in Lomboko and sold to a Portuguese slave trader.

April - June 1839: Cinque and others resold to another slave trader and put aboard the Tecora which sailed to Cuba.

June 1839: Cinque and others sold to Ruiz and Montes in Havana, Cuba. Amistad leaves Havana for Guanaja with slaves and owners.

July 1839: Mutiny led by Cinque; Amistad's captain and cook killed while two crewmen escape; Africans control Amistad.

July - August 1839: Amistad steered by Montes east by day and northwest by night, toward United States.

August 1839: Amistad captured by crew of U.S.S. Washington off of Long Island, New York; Africans held and taken with Amistad to New London, Connecticut; Judicial hearing, presided over by Judge Judson, on the U.S. S. Washington; Africans await trial in a New Haven, Connecticut jail.

September 1839: Lewis Tappan forms Friend of Amistad Africans Committee; Judge Thompson presides in Circuit Court hearing on Amistad criminal case; case dismissed by Judge Thompson for jurisdictional reasons; civil case left for District Court resolution.

October 1839: Professor Josiah Gibbs locates interpreter, James Covey, and the Africans are able to tell their story; teaching Africans the English language and Christianity began; Cinque and others file charges of assault and false imprisonment against Ruiz and Montes.

November 1839: District Court meets and postpones case.

December 1839: Slave factory at Lomboko, Sierra Leone raided by British and all slaves there liberated.

January 8, 1840: The Amistad civil trial begins in New Haven.

January 15, 1840: Judge Hudson presiding in District Court rules the Africans are to be turned over to the President for return to Africa.

August 1840: Africans taken to Westville.

September 1840: Judge Thompson of the Circuit Court upholds District Court decision; government appeals to U.S. Supreme Court.

October 1840: John Quincy Adams convinces to join Roger Baldwin in arguing the case for the Africans before the Supreme Court.

Feb. - March 1841: Baldwin and Adams argue case before Supreme Court; Court orders Africans to be freed immediately.

Mar. - Nov. 1841: Freed Africans go to Farmington for further English and religious education; local committee plans mission establishment in Africa.

November 1841: African survivors leave with missionaries for Africa aboard Gentleman.

January 1842: Arrive in Sierra Leone; mission experiences problems; many of the Africans abandon missionaries.

1846: Brother Raymond, founder of the mission in Sierra Leone dies of yellow fever and is replaced by George Thomas; 68 students attend the mission; efforts to compensate Spain for the Amistad are opposed in the House by John Quincy Adams.

1860: With the election of Abraham Lincoln as President, efforts to compensate Spain for the Amistad incident come to an end.

1879: Cinque, old and emaciated, comes to the mission to die and is buried among the graves of American missionaries.

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