United States v. The Amistad - Wikipedia

Today in American Military History - 1839. This one is for our Coast Guard brethren…

US Revenue Cutter 'Washington' seizes the Spanish ship 'Amistad', manned by self-liberated slaves, off Montauk Point.

The schooner was traveling along the coast of Cuba on its way to a port for re-sale of the slaves. The African captives, Mende people who had been kidnapped in the area of Sierra Leone in West Africa, illegally sold into slavery, and shipped to Cuba, escaped their shackles and took over the ship. They killed the captain and the cook; two other crew members escaped in a lifeboat. The Mende directed the two Spanish navigator survivors to return them to Africa. The crew tricked them, sailing north at night. La Amistad was later apprehended near Long Island, New York, by the United States Revenue Cutter Service (the predecessor of the U.S. Coast Guard) and taken into custody. The widely publicized court cases in the United States federal district court and eventually the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., in 1841, which addressed international issues, helped the abolitionist anti-slavery movement.