The Website of Carlos Whitlock Porter
THE AMISTAD – ANOTHER "CHIEF
SEATTLE" HOAX?
I've been reading American history for most of my life. When I was younger,
it certainly formed my favourite topic of reading matter. I was lucky enough
to be encouraged in this by a family which encouraged me to read, and by a
home stuffed with good books, not to mention access to several good public
and school libraries.
I literally grew up reading about Andrew Jackson, Nicholas Biddle, and
the United States Bank; the Panic of 1837; John C. Calhoun and his proposal
for a dual Presidency; John Randolph of Roanoke; Jefferson Davis and the Black
Hawk War, in which both he and Lincoln served as volunteers; Sam Houston,
Santa Anna, San Jacinto; Davy Crocket, Jim Bowie, and the Alamo; Kit Carson
and the Mountain Men; the planter aristocracy and the economics of the slave
plantations; John Quincy Adams and his long years in the House of Representatives
under an anti-abolitionist gag rule; Roger B. Taney and the Dred Scott decision;
Nat Turner, the revolution in Santo Domingo, John Brown and the raid on Harper's
Ferry; Judah P. Benjamin and Confederate finance; Jackson, Bee, Lee, Stuart,
Mosby, Forrest; Civil War Prisons; Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and
the Underground Railway; the Seminoles, Creeks, Cherokees, and the Trail of
Tears; Chief Joseph; Custer and Sitting Bull; Cochise, Crazy Horse; etc. etc.
I also spent many years reading the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica, certainly
the classic scholar's encyclopaedias, the greatest encyclopaedia ever published
in the English language. I skipped around in these volumes absolutely at random,
following no plan, reading as much for the style as the subject matter, but
with a preference for history, biography, and literary, legal and technical
subjects. (I'm an insomniac and read boring literature to try to sleep.)
In the 1980s, I thought it strange that everybody was
talking about "Chief Seattle", when in the 1950s and 60s, nobody
had ever heard of him. The reason, of course, was that "Seattle",
in his modern form, was invented in 1971 by a white man in California ("Ted
Speaks").
It seemed similarly strange to me, in 1998, that I had never heard of
the Amistad. Nor, it seems, had
anyone else – or very few people, it would appear, for at least 100, or even
150 years. It is not mentioned, for example, in the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica
article on "Slavery"; it is not mentioned in the biographical article
on John Quincy Adams; there is no article under the heading "Amistad".
It is not mentioned in The American
Past, by Roger Butterfield; it is not mentioned, unless I am hallucinating,
in The Coming of the Civil War, by
Avery Craven; it is not mentioned, with the reservation aforesaid, in American Statesmen on Slavery and the Negro,
by Nathaniel Weyl. It is not mentioned, ditto, in Hudson Strode's biography
of Jefferson Davis, or any other book on the period that I read when I was
younger.
Of course, there is nothing intrinsically improbable about this – at least
superficially. There were numerous slave revolts, both on land and sea, most
of them mere footnotes in the history books. There was a slave revolt at New
Iberia, Louisiana, apparently without loss of life, just as there were at
many other locations. There is nothing to prevent academics, or movie makers,
from suddenly taking an interest in the New Iberia episode, digging up some
documentation, and blowing it up into one of the major events of the 19th
century.
Given the "publish or perish" mania of our universities – in
reality, a "garbage-in, garbage-out"
policy – such a development is absolutely inevitable. What is more, with the
rise of Political Correctness, marginal (and deservedly forgotten) phenomena
are routinely disinterred (or invented) and assigned a transcendental significance
and prominence which they never remotely possessed (for example: black, gay,
and/or bisexual cowboys; lesbians among the pioneers, etc. etc. ad nauseam ad infinitum).
In this way, the purveyors
and practitioners of Political Correctness act rather like those Europeans
one occasionally has the misfortune of meeting who seem to believe that America
consists of only three cities, Miami, Hollywood, and New York, with a total
population of perhaps 10 or 12 people, all of whom know each other ("Hey,
do you know my cousin? He lives in Miami. Is Miami near Hollywood?")
More recently, in connection with other matters, I acquired a fair-sized
collection of standard texts on international law, published between 1866
and 1948. To my surprise, I found that they contained no mention whatsoever
of the Amistad. None.
The principal slave trading cases mentioned in most texts on international
law are the Antelope, Le Louis, La Jeune Eugenie, the Amedie, the Amelia, the Africa, the Fortuna, and the Diana. The Amistad, so
far as I know, is never mentioned. John Quincy Adams is mentioned solely in
connection with the Monroe Doctrine, and his role in the negotiation of various
international treaties in 1822 and 1842; never, so far as I know, in connection
with the Amistad.
Cases on International Law by Chas. G. Fenwick,
National Case Book Series, Chicago Callaghan and Company, 1935, contains an
Index of Cases on p. xvii. Cases involving ships beginning with the letter
A include the Adula, Alabama, Amelia,
Anna, Anne, Annette, Antelope, and the
Appam, etc. There is no mention of the Amistad.
Slavery is discussed on pp. 7-10 and
pp. 369-274.
The Antelope case, quoted on
pp 7-10, lays the blame for the existence of slavery squarely where it belongs:
on the Africans. The decision, written by Chief Justice John Marshall, says,
more or less, that slavery is legal in Africa because the Africans want it
that way, and that we have no right to force our legal and moral standards
upon them. The only thing we can do is forbid our own nationals from engaging
in the slave trade. We have no right to enforce our laws on the citizens of
other countries.
Slaves belonging to the citizens of nations permitting the slave trade
must therefore be returned to their owners, because of the "absolute
equality of nations".
The decision reads, in part:
THE ANTELOPE, THE VICE-CONSULS
OF SPAIN AND PORTUGAL, LIBELLANTS.
United States, Supreme Court, 1825.
10 Wheaton, 66 [6 L. ed. 268]
"… The Consuls of Spain
and Portugal, respectively, demand these Africans as slaves, who have, in
the regular course of legitimate commerce, been acquired as property by the
subjects of their respective sovereigns, and claim their restitution under
the laws of the United States.
"…this court must not
yield to feelings which might seduce it from the path of duty, and must obey
the mandate of the law.
"That the course of opinion on the slave trade should be unsettled,
ought to excite no surprise. The Christian and civilized nations of the world,
with whom we have most intercourse, have all been engaged in it. However abhorrent
this traffic may be to a mind whose original feelings are not blunted by familiarity
with the practice, it has been sanctioned in modern times by the laws of all
nations who possess distant colonies, each of whom has engaged in it as a
common commercial business which no other could rightfully interrupt. It has
claimed all the sanction which could be derived from long usage and general
acquiescence. That trade could not
be considered as contrary to the law of nations which was authorized and protected
by the laws of all commercial nations, the right to carry on which was claimed
by each, and allowed by each.
"… The question of whether
the slave trade is prohibited by the law of nations has been seriously propounded,
and both the affirmative and negative of the proposition have been maintained
with equal earnestness. That it is contrary to the law of nature will scarcely
be denied. That every man has an equal right to the fruits of his own labour,
is generally admitted; and that no other person can rightfully deprive him
of those fruits, and appropriate them against his will, seems to be the necessary
result of this admission. But from
the earliest times war has existed, and war confers rights in which all have
acquiesced. Among the most enlightened nations of antiquity, one of these
was that the victor might enslave the vanquished. This, which was the
usage of all, could not be pronounced repugnant
to the law of nations, which is certainly to be tried by the test of general
usage. That which has received the assent of all, must be the law of all.
"Slavery, then, has its
origin in force, but as the world has agreed that it is a legitimate result
of force, the state of things which is thus produced by general consent, cannot
be pronounced unlawful.
Throughout
Christendom, this harsh rule has been exploded, and war is no longer considered
as giving a right to enslave captives. But this triumph of humanity has not
been universal. The parties to the modern law of nations do not propagate
their principles by force, and Africa has not yet adopted them. Through the
whole extent of that immense continent, so far as we know its history, it
is still the law of nations that prisoners are slaves. Can those who have
themselves renounced this law, be permitted to participate in its effects
by purchasing the beings who are its victims?
"Whatever might be the answer of a moralist to this question, a jurist
must search for its legal solution in those principles of action which are
sanctioned by the usage, the national acts, and the general assent, of that
portion of the world of which he considers himself a part, and to whose law
the appeal is made. If we resort to this standard of the test of international
law, the question, as has already been observed, must be decided in favour
of the legality of the trade. Both Europe and America embarked in it; and
for nearly two centuries, it was carried on without opposition and without
censure. A jurist could not say that a practice thus supported was illegal,
and that those engaged it might be punished, either personally, or by deprivation
of property.
"In this commerce, thus sanctioned by universal assent, every nation
has an equal right to engage. How is this right to be lost? Each may renounce
it for its own people; but can this renunciation affect others?
"No principle of general law is more universally acknowledged, than the
perfect equality of nations.
Russia and Geneva have equal rights. It results
from this equality, that no one can rightfully impose a rule on another.
Each legislates for itself, but its
legislation can operate on itself alone. A right, then, which is vested
in all by the consent of all, can devested only by consent; and this trade,
in which all have participated, must remain lawful to those who cannot be
induced to relinquish it. As no nation
can prescribe for others, none can make a law of nations; and this traffic
remains lawful to those who governments have not forbidden it."
The "Le Louis" decision
of 1817, quoted on p. 374 of same book, says, flatly:
"It is pressed as a difficulty, what is to be done, if a French ship laden
with slaves for a French port is brought in: I answer, without hesitation,
restore the possession which has been unlawfully divested: rescind the illegal
act done by your own subject; and leave the foreigner to the justice of his
own country…" (Great Britain, High Court
of Admiralty, 1817, 2 Dodson, 210.
The "La Jeune Eugenie"
decision of 1822, mentioned beginning on p. 1 of the same book, concluded
that slavery was illegal under the laws of France -- a highly dubious assertion,
contradicted below at * -- and
ordered the slaves in question, not freed, but turned over to the King of
France.
Since slavery was not, in fact, illegal under the laws of France at all,
it is highly unlikely that the slaves in question were ever freed. By contrast,
the slaves on the Amistad were allegedly transported to Sierra Leone
at the expense of the United States government, and freed, regardless of Spanish
law, the rights or claims of Spanish slave owners, and the "absolute
equality of nations" – at
time when slavery was still legal in the United States! Such a Supreme
Court decision would not only have overruled the Antelope, but would have been absolutely revolutionary in its implications,
and would necessarily have been perceived as a direct threat to slaveholding
interests in the United States. Nobody noticed. I do not see how this is possible.
Henry Wheaton's Elements of
International Law, 1866 edition, number 19 in "The Classics of
International Law" by Clarendon Press, Oxford, England, with notes by
Richard Henry Dana, is an extremely complex and complete classical work of
international law, with numerous, exceedingly lengthy footnotes, in small
print, often occupying an entire page; indeed, 20% of the book is given over
to footnotes. The 1936 commemorative
edition (photographically reproduced from the original), is edited, with notes,
by George Grafton Wilson, with a preface by James Brown Scott, General Editor.
Both men were internationally known authorities on international law, authors
and editors of many textbooks on the subject.
The introductory essay, Henry Wheaton
and International Law, by George Grafton Wilon, says, in part,
"The period of the middle
of the nineteenth century afforded new material for Dana's notes. The Monroe
Doctrine had been somewhat tested and Dana gives it along note and takes up
the related matter of intervention in Mexico under the convention of 1861
to which France, Great Britain, and Spain were parties. The questions of slavery, recognition of belligerency, contraband, blockade,
continuous voyage, convoy, the Trent Affairs, and other questions arising
during the American Civil War, 1861-5, offer Dana much new material for notes,
and many of these topics receive elaborate treatment. The same is true of
matters arising during the period 1840 and 1860 and involving naturalization,
extradition, and recent practice in civil and criminal legislation… Dana's
notes constitute about one-fifth of the volume called the eighth edition…"
The Subject Index states: Adams,
J.Q.: responsibility for the germ of the Monroe Doctrine, 82 n.; argument
of, on fisheries, 287; on "free
ships, free goods", 485 et seq. There is no mention whatsoever
of Adams in connection with the Amistad.
The Table of Cases, starting on p. xxxiii, mentions, under the letter
A, the following ships, among others: the
Abby, the Abigail, the Acteon, the Actif, the Adeline, the Admiral, the Adventure, the Africa, the Alabama, the Alerta, the Alexander, the Alexandra, the Alfred, the Amedie, La Amistad de Rue (an unrelated case having
nothing to do with the slave trade), the Amy Warwick, the Anna, the Anna Catharina, the Anne, the Antelope, the Antonia Johanna,
the Apollo, the Ariadne, the Arrogante Barcelones, the
Arthur, the Atrea, the Atalanta, the Athol, and the Aurora.
There is no mention of the Amistad.
(Note: In the following, the terms "prize law", and "prize
courts" refer to the wartime crime of blockade running or the recognized
legal seizure of enemy vessels and maritime cargoes during wartime.)
Wheaton quotes the Antelope
case mentioned above, and several of the other maritime slave trading cases.
A lengthy footnote by Dana beginning on page 175, says:
"The Amedie and subsequent cases: A careful examination leads to the belief
that the case of the Amedie, and
those following it, have been misunderstood by the author [i.e., Wheaton],
as well as by others. The proceeding [The Amedie], from beginning to end,
was one of prize of war solely; and her condemnation had nothing to do with
her being engaged in the slave trade… The explanation of the fact, that this
case has so almost universally been cited as one of condemnation of a foreign
vessel for being engaged in the salve trade, may be found in the peculiarity
of the rules which govern courts of prize…The Africa (Acton, ii, i), the Nancy
(Ib.2), [1] and the Anne (Ib. 6),
were all likewise prize causes; and the capture and condemnation in each were
jure belli, and not for being engaged in the slave trade….
"The Fortuna (Dodson, i.81).- This was exclusively
a prize cause. The vessel was captured and condemned as a prize of war… the Diana (Dodson, i. 95)… the vessel
was held to be Swedish, engaged in the slave trade to a Swedish island; and
the court decided that the law of Sweden permitted the trade. The claim was,
therefore, one that the court could entertain, within the rule of the Amedie. The court treated the case as
one of civil forfeiture only; and, no ground, for that appearing, the property
was restored.
"Le Louis (Dodson,
ii. 210). This is the case
which is treated by Mr. Wheaton and most others as having overruled The Amedie. It was a civil cause for forfeiture,
and has no relation to prize law or its presumptions or rules. The grounds
taken by the counsel for the captors were, that the vessel was French, and
engaged in the slave trade, which was prohibited by French law, and, as argued,
by the law of nations; and, further, that the crew had resisted the boarding
and search by the king's ship, and killed some of the crew, and were therefore
guilty of piracy, and out of the protection of the law of nations.
The court held, that the boarding
and search, by the king's cruiser, of a vessel in time of peace, and not on
suspicion of piracy jure gentium, but of being engaged in the slave trade,
were unjustifiable, and consequently that resistance to them was not piratical;
and that the slave trade was not piracy jure gentium, * nor prohibited by the law of France. Therefore
it was clear that the vessel not only could not be decreed forfeited by any
British tribunal, but was illegally seized and brought before the court. The
original taking was illegal.
"In the Amedie, the visit,
search, capture, and bringing in were in the exercise of belligerent right.
In The Louis, they were in time
of peace, and solely for the purpose of suppressing the slave trade. In The
Amedie, the proceedings were in
prize, before a prize court, and governed by the law and rules of prize. In
The Louis, they were civil, and governed
by the law and rules of civil forfeiture. In the Amedie, the condemnation
was as prize of war. In The Louis,
if the vessel had been condemned, it could have been only for being engaged
in the slave trade. In the Amedie,
the capture and bringing in were justifiable, and the court had clear jurisdiction.
In The Louis, the capture and bringing
in were unjustifiable. And the general duty of the court was to restore, if
a proper claimant appeared. In the Amedie, the burden on the claimant to show legal title and a right
to receive the property. In The Louis, the burden was on the seizor to show
cause for [211] forfeiture. In The
Amedie, the claim was rejected because the slave trade, though not universally
illegal or privacy jure gentium, was illegal by the law of the claimant's
country. In The Louis, the claim
was sustained, because the slave trade was neither illegal by the law of nations,
* nor by the law of the claimant's
country [i.e., France].
"It may be, and probably is, true, that British cruisers made use
of the belligerent right of search to delivery slaves, and took advantage
of the severe and summary rules of war tribunals to secure the condemnation
of their prizes, but this is only saying that they made an undue use of opportunities
which the criminality of their antagonists put in their power, and
does not touch the law decided.
"The result is, that the
precedents, from The Amedie to
The Louis, will be found consistent
with each other, and with the rules of prize courts, and with the law of nations
as to the slave trade."
The index, under "Slave trade": reads: piracy
and, 165; 169ff n.; treaties for abolition of, 169; prohibited by various
nations, 169, 170 n.; the treaty of Paris of 1814, 168, 170 n.; course of
the United States as to the right of search, 170 n.; the Quintuple Treaty
of 1814, conceding the right of search, 170 n.; the Ashburton Treaty, 170
n.; treaty between the United States and Great Britain, 1862, conceding a
limited right of search, 170 n.; case of the Amedie, 171, 175 n.; case of
the Fortuna, 172, 176 n.; case of the Diana, 173, 176 n.; case of The Antelope,
177, 178; juridical aspects of, 179 n;. opinion of statesmen and jurists on,
180 n.; conventions and practice of nations in regard to, 182 n.
Under "Slaves", the index states: on brig Creole, in British port, 139 n.;
extradition of, 157; emancipation of, in United States Civil War, 369, n.;
status of captured, during civil war, 370.
The Amistad is not mentioned.
The Sources of Modern International
Law, by George A. Finch, published by the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace, 1937, mentions the Antelope on pp. 26-28. The Amistad
is not mentioned.
Fenwick's International Law,
3rd edition, Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc. 1948, mentions Le Louis and the Antelope on pp. 327-8. The Amistad
is not mentioned.
International Law, W.E. Hall, 7th
edition, Oxford, 1917. No mention.
A Handbook on International
Law, T.J. Lawrence, 11 edition, 1938. No mention.
International Law, Oppenheim-Lauerpacht,
5th edition, Longman and Green, 1935. No mention.
Wheaton's International Law, A. Barriedale
Keith, vol 2, War, Stevens & Sons, 1944. No mention.
Handbook on International Law, George Grafton Wilson (see above), 3rd edition, Hornbook
Series, West Publishing Co., 1939, mentions the Antelope on p. 74, note. 3, and p. 344, note. 1. There is no mention
of the Amistad.
QUESTION: Slavery and the
slave trade, like piracy, are classic topics of international law. Is it conceivable – can one imagine for an instant -- that a "landmark case", argued
before the "Supreme Court of the United States", by a "former
President of the United States", and also involving -- or so we are told
-- an incumbent President, Martin A. Van Buren, as well as John C. Calhoun,
and many other famous people; a case overturning, or at least modifying, the Antelope case – even the nationality
of the slave owners is identical -- could be ignored in Henry Dana Gibson's
extremely detailed notes, in a classic text on international law, written
in the United States, in 1866, only 25 years later? Is it conceivable that
a "landmark" case at international law could be ignored by all succeeding
works on the subject, so far as I know, for over one hundred years, only to
become, on retrospect, one hundred and fifty years later, one of the most
sensational events of the nineteenth century?
Question: If the Amistad was
not deemed worthy of mention in 1911, or in the 1930s, why should the same
case be of earth-shaking importance in the 1990s?
One of the cases quoted by Dana, and mentioned in all texts on international
law, the Anna (although not always
mentioned by name) involved the question of whether the banks of the Mississippi,
and therefore the national territory and three-mile limit, began at terra
firma, or at the outer reaches of some insignificant mud banks. "… a question arose as to what
was to be deemed the shore, since there are a number of little mud islands,
composed of earth and trees, drifted down by the river, which form a kind
of portico to the main land. It was contended that these were not to be considered
as any part of the American territory – that they were a sort of 'no man's
land' not of consistency enough to support the purposes of life, uninhabited,
and resorted to only for shooting and taking birds' nests. It was argued that
the line of territory was to have been taken only from the Balize, which is
a fort raised on made-land by the former Spanish possessors. But the learned
judge was of a different opinion…" (Wheaton/Dana, pp. 215-6.). The Anna case was,
and is, considered to be of crucial importance to international law. But not
the Amistad.
The Amistad, therefore, far
from being a "landmark" case,
was, quite literally a "non-event" until the 1990s.
DISCLAIMER: I understand that if a history book fails to mention
Steve Brodie jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge, this doesn't constitute proof
that he didn't do it (although many people deny that he did); only that the
author knew nothing about it and/or thought it not worth mentioning. If Steve
Brodie wasn't famous for well over a century, why should be suddenly become
world-famous tomorrow morning?
It is obvious, then, that, whatever happened on the
Amistad in 1839 and/or later, no one thought it worth mentioning for over
one hundred years – including the legal writers and specialists, experts on
the subject. In view of the intrinsic interest of the case both legally and
historically, this seems very strange. There must be some reason for it. Can
anyone explain it?
CARLOS W. PORTER
4 JULY 2001
Perhaps the moral of the story is that an incident
which might arguably be said to illustrate the essential humanitarianism of
Christian white Americans, both North and South, will be ignored -- or at
least kept within reasonable proportions -- until it can be blown up into
earth-shaking proportions in a "Hate Whitey" screen
epic produced by a Hoaxoco$t con-artist.
I
am waiting for a Hollywood screen epic depicting the Africans slaughtering
whole families of missionaries; necklacing, mutilating and torturing each other; raping nurses, nuns, and children; wrecking everything the white humanitarians
were ever idiot enough to give them for centuries; and/or Zionists murdering,
maiming and crippling the children of Gaza while lecturing the rest of us
on "hatred" and "tolerance". Whatever "hatred" is, Jews are the world's foremost practitioners and experts. While I'm waiting
-- since it will be forever -- give me EWIGE JUDE.
CARLOS W. PORTER
AUGUST
2001
Solution to the conundrum
In actual
MADE IN RUSSIA - THE HOLOCO$T
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