“Slavery is a human invention and is not found in nature. Indeed, it was that other human invention, war, which provided the majority of slaves, but they were also the fruit of piracy... or the product of breeding. for purposes aimed at countries like England, Ireland and Scandinavia, and it was an important factor in the lives of the Romans. However, one of the largest slave trading events began in the 1600s and continued until the 1900s. It was called the Atlantic slave trade because hundreds of ships carried their cargo from the across the Atlantic, from Africa to America, where buyers paid around $40,000 for each healthy slave. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay According to what Olaudah Equiano describes in her autobiography, life as a slave on a ship was horrible, "the proximity of the place and the heat of the climate added to the number of passengers on the ship, which was so crowded that everyone had barely room to turn, almost suffocated us. This produced profuse perspiration, so that the air soon became unfit for breathing, from a variety of loathsome odors, and caused disease among the slaves, many of whom died, thus falling victims to improvident avarice , as I can call it. , of their buyers. He was only 11 years old and separated from his family. Olaudah Equiano's quote describes how humans were treated on slave ships, and it was only a matter of time before other nations began to look into how they were treated. This era began in the 1800s, when slavery was outlawed in countries like Britain and North America. Slave traders attempted to evade this new law by shipping slaves to less developed countries, along with humans born into the trade. This would cause one of the greatest upheavals in the history of slavery in the United States. The reason was a Spanish ship called La Amistad that was traveling from the port of Lomboko, Sierra Leone, to Havana, Cuba, where it was still legal to buy and sell slaves. Due to the subsequent actions of the slaves on board, La Amistad played a central role in changing people's minds about slavery. In January 1839, 53 people from West Africa, including Sierra Leone, were captured from their homes by Spanish slave traders. Their goal was to try to transport them to Cuba where it was still legal to unload and sell their cargo. The captured humans were mostly hunters and farmers from the Mende tribe, the larger of the two in this region. One man, in particular, became very well known, his name was Sengbe Pieh, although it was later changed to Joseph Cinqué by the Spanish. In 1839, he was captured at the age of 25 to be drawn into the slave trade. His wife and three children were left without a father and would not see him for a few years. He and the others who were captured were held in small prisons for a time in Lomboko harbor before slave traders sneaked onto boats to escape British anti-slavery ships. During the hard journeys, Sengbe Pieh gathered some of the Mende-speaking men and managed to persuade them to join forces and rebel against the Spaniards who were holding them captive. They managed to escape the chains and kill the entire crew, except Pedro Montes and José Ruiz, who could return home to Africa. Peterand José secretly sailed up the American coast only to be discovered by an American ship off the coast of the Long Island. The Spanish claimed the slaves and accused them of murder, but slavery was already banned in America and the slaves were therefore allowed to leave free. Prior to the Supreme Court case (United States v. La Amistad), slavery had been abolished in the United States. However, civilians are not yet getting used to the fact that slavery is immoral and it didn't help that it was still happening in smaller forms. The President of the United States at the time was Van Buren, who at first was very supportive of the idea of ​​returning slaves to Spain. According to the National Archives, “President Van Buren favored the extradition of Africans to Cuba.” This meant that he wanted them to become slaves again. Van Buren wanted to maintain peace with the Spanish and believed that freeing the slaves would disrupt international relations with the Spanish government. However, on the other side were supporters of slaves, such as abolitionists, who believed that the Spanish did not own these people and that they should be freed. So the case had to go to trial, and little did President Van Buren know that if he had chosen not to take the case all the way to the Supreme Court, and if he let the Spanish off the hook, there might have been many more disruptions in the years to come. “The demands of the planters towards the Africans existed then. The Spanish government and the brig's captain took the case to federal court in Connecticut. This quote from the court described that different people have different beliefs on this subject and that it should be tried and decided in a court of law. The results of the case were that more civilians ended up favoring the slaves and therefore won the case and were involved in the illegal international slave trade. According to history.com, there would be many more such cases to come, and Amistad was one of the first to experience the domino effect of slave rebellions: "Although unusual in the amount of attention that he received, the Amistad was just one of hundreds of slave ships on which uprisings took place. Abolitionist supporters took the survivors – 36 men, boys and three girls – to Farmington, Connecticut, on the Underground Railroad. Their residents had agreed to allow Africans to stay there, but the former slaves did not feel at home in an attic above a grocery store and soon decided to return home. With the help of abolitionists, they eventually created a plan for the return of the 39 Africans to Africa. They were taught English and Christianity, so they returned on a mission boat funded by church donations. Many Americans wanted to help and donate money and time so that Africans would have a chance to return home and start a new life. The simple fact that some native civilians donated time and money to help Africans return was a turning point. However, the fact that they managed to send them all back and also create a missionary in Africa was one of the reasons why it was such a success. great and important victory for America. Overall, the long visit of Mende's men, women and children had brought a lot of information to America and really opened its eyes to Africans. America and other people around the world heard about the Amistad case and began to realize that Africans were not as different as they were. According to the book, people from all over the world often came to pay for the, 1998.