Timeline

Apri

• April 1839: Slave ship Tecora leaves Lomboko, West Africa.
  
  
• June 1839: Tecora arrives in Havana. Jose Ruiz buys forty-nine adult males, paying $450 for each, and Pedro Montes buys four children, three girls and one boy.
  
  
• June 28, 1839: La Amistad sets sail for the other end of Cuba with fifty-three African captives, Ruiz, Montes and a crew of five.
  
  
• July 2, 1839: Africans revolt and seize control of La Amistad.
  
  
• July through August 1839: La Amistad sails east by day and north by night, up the U.S. coastline.
  
  
• August 25, 1839: La Amistad anchors off Long Island and lands ashore to obtain provisions.
  
  
• August 26, 1839: La Amistad is seized by U.S.S. Washington.
  
  
• August 27, 1839: La Amistad is brought to New London and the Africans are taken to a New Haven jail to await trial on charges of murder and piracy.
  
  
• September 9, 1839: Yale professor Josiah Gibbs finds British sailor and Mende speaker James Covey on the docks of New York and takes him to New Haven to serve as a translator.
  
  
• September  19, 1839: The first round of trials begins in the U.S. Circuit Court at Hartford.
  
  
• November 19, 1839: The second round of trials begins in Hartford, with Judge Judson presiding.
  
  
• January 8, 1840: Sengbe testifies in court.
  
  
• January 13, 1840: Judge Judson rules that the Africans were illegally enslaved and orders them to be returned to Africa. The Van Buren administration appeals the District Court decision.
  
  
• February 22, 1841: U.S. Supreme Court begins hearing the Amistad case.
  
  
• February 24, 1841: John Quincy Adams begins presenting his argument.
  
  
• March 9, 1841: Justice Story delivers the Supreme Court’s decision, affirming the Africans’ freedom.
  
  
• November 27, 1841: African survivors and American missionaries depart New York for Africa aboard the Gentleman.
  
  
• January 15, 1842: The Gentleman arrives in Sierra Leone.