“Slavery is a human invention and does not occur in nature. Indeed, it was the other human invention, war, that provided most of the slaves, but they were also the bounty of piracy... or the product of ranching. purposes to countries such as England, Ireland and Scandinavia, and was an important factor in the life of the Romans. However, one of the largest slave trade events began in the 1600s and continued until 1900. It was called the Atlantic slave trade, as hundreds of ships transported their cargo across the Atlantic, from Africa to America, where buyers paid about $40,000 for each healthy slave. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay According to how Olaudah Equiano described in his autobiography, life on a slave ship was horrible, "The closeness of the place and the heat The climate, added to the number of passengers on the ship, which was so crowded that everyone had barely space to turn around, almost suffocated us. This produced copious perspiration, so much so that the air soon became unfit for breathing, due to a variety of unpleasant odors, and caused a disease among the slaves, of which many died, thus falling victims of the 'imprudent avarice, so to speak, of their buyers.' He was only 11 years old and had been separated from his family. Olaudah Equiano's quote describes how humans on slave ships were treated, and it was only a matter of time before other nations began to look at how they were treated. That period began in the 1800s, when slavery was outlawed in countries like Great Britain and North America. Slave traders tried to escape this new law by shipping slaves to less developed countries, with humans born into the trade. This would cause one of the greatest upheavals in American slave history. The reason for this 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 further actions of the slaves on board, La Amistad became instrumental in changing people's minds about slavery. In January 1839, 53 people from West Africa, namely Sierra Leone, were captured from their homes by Spanish slave sellers. Their aim was to attempt 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 that area. One man, in particular, became well known, his name was Sengbe Pieh, although the Spanish later changed it to Joseph Cinqué. In 1839 he was captured at the age of 25 to be taken into the slave trade. His wife and three children were left fatherless and did not see him for a couple of years. He and others who were captured were held in small prisons for some time in Lomboko harbor before slave traders snuck in and were captured on boats to evade British anti-slavery vessels. During the arduous journeys, Sengbe Pieh gathered some of the Mende-speaking men and managed to convince them to join forces and rebel against the Spanish who were holding them captive. They managed to escape from the chains and kill all the crew except Pedro Montes and Jose Ruiz who would have managed to return home to Africa. Pedro and Jose secretly sailed along the coast of America only to be discovered by an American ship off the Long Island. The Spanish claimed the slaves and accused them of murder, however slavery was already banned in America and therefore the slaves had theright to go free. Prior to the Supreme Court case (United States v. La Amistad), slavery had been abolished in the United States. However, civilians had not yet gotten used to the fact that slavery is immoral, 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 was initially very supportive of the idea of ​​returning the slaves to Spain. According to the National Archives, “President Van Buren favored extraditing Africans to Cuba.” This meant that he wanted them to return to being slave laborers. Van Buren wanted to maintain peace with the Spanish and believed that freeing the slaves would cause disruptions in international relations with the Spanish government. However, on the other side were slave advocates such as abolitionists who believed that the Spanish did not own these people and that they should be freed. The case then had to go to trial, and little did President Van Buren know that if he chose not to move the case to the Supreme Court and let the Spanish get away with it, there could be many more disruptions in the years to come. “Claims against the Africans by the planters, then existing. The Spanish government and the ship's captain took the case to trial in the Federal District Court of Connecticut. This quote from the court described that different people had different beliefs on this topic and that it was necessary to try to decide in a court of law. The results of the case were that more civilians ended up favoring the slaves and thus won the case in court and were involved in the illegal international slave trade. According to History.com, there would be many more cases like these in the future, and Amistad was one of the first in the domino effect of slave rebellions: “Though unusual in the amount of attention it received, the Amistad was only one of hundreds of slave ships on which riots occurred.” Abolitionist supporters took the survivors – 36 men, boys and three girls – to Farmington, Connecticut, on the Underground Railroad. Their residents had agreed to let the Africans stay there, although the former slaves did not feel at home in an attic above a grocery store and soon decided to return home. With the Abolitionist's help, they eventually created a plan to return the 39 Africans to Africa. They learned English and Christianity, then sailed back on a mission ship sponsored by church donations. Many Americans wanted to help and donate time and money so that Africans would have a chance to return home and start a new life. Only that some indigenous civilians gave up the time and money to help the Africans return was a turning point, however, the fact that they managed to repatriate them all and also set up a missionary in Africa was one of the reasons why it was such a great and important victory for America. Overall, the long visit of the Mende men, women and children had taught America a lot of information and had truly opened their eyes to Africans. America and other people around the world learned of the Amistad case and began to realize that Africans were not as different as them. According to the book, people from all over the world often came and paid to see them perform their traditions. and skills, as well as teaching lessons and painting pictures on them. While in America, Sengbe Pieh disapproved of Americans categorizing and acting in such a way that they, Africans, were different. Sengbe, who was a Mende, was thought to be the leader, although he himself did not think he was any different, 1998.