What are the legal principles involved in the case of the Amistad?

legal principle is an idea or statement, that if true, means that a following action is legal or illegal. With the Amistad, there were two basic principles. The primary principle involved was that slaves are property, not persons in the eyes of the law. The Amistad slaves had no more legal right to sue for their freedom than a dog or horse would. From that principle came the competing claims on who owned the slaves. The original owners of the Amistad, the officers commanding the ship that captured the Amistad, the Spanish government, since the Amistad sailed under a Spanish flag, or the government themselves.

Another legal principle of the time was that transport of slaves from Africa to America was illegal. If the Amistad slaves were born in the western hemisphere to other slaves, then their slavery was legal and it was only a matter of who actually owned them. However, if they were from Africa, they were in effect stolen goods. A person is not entitled to hold onto illegal goods once caught at it. So if the Amistad slaves were captured and sold into slavery in Africa, by American law no one had a legal right to own them. And if no one owned them, they were in fact free men and women, not property. This is what the court actually ruled was the case. Once legally granted freedom by the Supreme Court, abolitionist groups arranged for those who wanted to to return to Africa. Others from the Amistad elected to stay in America and begin a new life.