May 15, 2019 Wednesday
Bedtime Story
The Slave Ownership Matter is Disputed by Several Parties
In the waters of United States the Mende
slaves would become the subject of interest of yet another white man’s greed.
The Lieutenant who commanded the cutter
ship when he took note of the Africans on the schooner took custody both of the
ship and the Africans less for sake of law and more for the sake of greed.
He hoped to make profit for himself out of
these slaves by claiming them as his property under the property rights
international admiralty law.
To make the case legally sound for himself
rather than landing the ship in New York where owning slaves had become illegal
he took it to Connecticut where slavery was technically still legal though the
idea of abolition was becoming prevalent and at least beginning to get accepted
by a wide range of people.
The name of the Lieutenant who commanded
the USS Washington was Thomas Gedney and being a law enforcing officer of the
United States he had to ensure that the claim he made on the slaves was legally
sound.
Thomas Gedney simply could not claim the
ship and slaves for himself and in order to to get their legal possession the
only option he had was to file a lawsuit in a civil court.
So Gedney taking the course of law transferred
his captured slaves to the United States District court for the District of
Connecticut and while doing so he filed a libel or lawsuit for his right to the
African captives and cargo on board La Amistad.
He soon realized that he was not the only
one to be making such a claim on his prized captured trophy.
The two Spanish owners (they were Jose Ruiz
and Pedro Montez) and who had initially procured the slave in Havana, Cuba in
the slave market also filed a lawsuit in the same district court of Connecticut
claiming they were the rightful owners of the slaves.
As if these were not enough the Spanish
Government represented by the Office of the United States Attorney (I am not
sure what and how this legal arrangement was made) too contested in this
lawsuit.
Its contention was that since the vessel
was Spanish it along with its contents must be handed over to the government of
Spain (Spain at those times was a nation in turmoil with the Peninsular War
between Napolean’s Empire and the Bourbon Spain assisted by the United Kingdom
and the Kingdom of Portugal had destroyed the social and economic fabric of
both Spain and Portugal).
It is indeed a strange twist of irony that
while the Spaniards were enslaving people of Africa they had themselves not too
long ago fought and resisted from getting enslaved by the Napoleonic French
Empire.
The other argument that the Spanish
government made to the United States was that the jurisdiction to try this case
lay only with the Spanish courts and none other.
The Spanish minister wrote: “I do not, in
fact, understand how a foreign court of justice can be considered competent to
take cognizance of an offence committed on board of a Spanish vessel, by
Spanish subjects, and against Spanish subjects, in the waters of Spanish
territory; for it was…”
Stay tuned to the voice of an
average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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