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Amistad Essay

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The touchiest subject that a person could bring up in the early 19th century was slavery. Many in the north were wholly against it while many in the south could not live properly without it. The Amistad case intensifies the already bitter feelings between these two parts of the country, and it shows how sectionalist our country had become. On one hand there were the northerners who couldn’t believe that these people were being held for freeing themselves, and on the other hand there were the southerners who said that the Negro’s were animals and should be sent back to Cuba to be hung. There were not only two different attitudes on what should happen to the Africans, but each group also had different opinions on how to handle the story. …show more content…

“The New York Express which sided with Ruiz and Montes, wrote, “Cinque is a Congo. Their general character is lazy, mischievous, and apt to run away…”” (39) You wouldn’t expect someone In the north to support two Spanish slave traders, but the thought of losing the Union hurt the abolitionists cause. Also, after the verdict, some people in Farmington, Vermont, started to get sick of the Africans. One of them was pushed into a ditch after buying an oil lamp by some of the citizens of Farmington, and many people blamed what had happened on the Africans. After that even Tappan felt that they had to be sent home soon. They were a sideshow to many curious people, but a burden to many.
The south wouldn’t be able to function right if the government had abolished slavery, and they didn’t even want their citizens to read anything that the abolitionists sent to them. “In 1835 bags full of undelivered antislavery literature were burned at Charleston”… the Postmaster General then said “We owe an obligation to the laws, but a higher one to the community.” (20) President Jackson, who did nothing to help slaves or free blacks in his terms as President, asked congress to propose a law to not even allow these “incendiary publications” from entering Southern states. The south was not only scared of their slaves rebelling, they were also afraid of what my come of the outcome of the

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