Both United States v. the Amistad and Dred Scott v. Sandford was significant cases related to slavery. In both cases, black people alleged to be legally enslaved protested these allegations and declared their freedom, and, in both cases, it was eventually up to the Supreme Court to decide their fate. In legal terms, the key difference between the two was that the Africans from Amistad were freeborn and enslaved in violation of the international agreements, while Dred Scott, despite his sojourn in Illinois, was born as a slave in Virginia.
In the United States v. the Amistad, the matter in question was the fate of several dozen formerly enslaved Africans captured aboard the Spanish ship La Amistad in 1839. Africans have rebelled near the coast of Cuba, killing or chasing away most of the ship’s crew apart from Jose Ruiz and Pedro Montez, Spanish nationals who bought them in the first place (Kaifala, 2017). Ruiz and Montez guided the ship to American waters, where it was seized by Lieutenant Gedney of the US brig Washington (Kaifala, 2017). The legal status of the captured Africans became a matter of debate: Ruiz and Montez (wrongly) insisted they were slaves from Cuba, where bondage was legal, while the Africans themselves maintained they were illegally abducted in Africa in violation of international treaties. International treaties forbade the African slave trade but provided for the return of legal slaves as property (Kaifala, 2017). The US government, urged by President Van Buren, appealed on behalf of Spain and sought to restore slaves as property to Ruiz and Montez. Due to defense by Roger Baldwin and John Quincy Adams, the Supreme Court confirmed that the Amistad Africans were members of their African polity rather than Spanish subjects and, being born free, remained free.
The satiation was different in Dred Scott v. Sandford – largely because the black person in question was born in the United States and, as such, did not have the saving grace of the international agreements protecting his freedom. Born in Virginia as a bondsman, Scott moved to the free territory of Wisconsin with his master John Emerson (Nicholas, n.d.). Scott claimed that prolonged residence in free territory made him free, while his masters argued to the contrary. After suing several times in lower courts for his freedom, Scott appealed to the US Supreme Court in the case against his ownership claimant Sanford, whose name was spelled incorrectly in the case files as with the letter “d” (Nicholas, n.d.). In 1857, the Court ruled that Scott, being born a slave, remained legal property despite his residence where slavery was prohibited. Chief Justice Taney elaborated on the ruling and maintained that a black person whose ancestors were brought to America as slaves could not be a citizen of the United States (Nicholas, n.d.). Hence, the key difference between the Amistad Africans and Scott was in the presumed legal implications of their ancestry.
To explain the rulings, one has to understand their historical context and meaning to their contemporaries. In 1841, it was President Van Buren who suggested that the matter of Amistad should be brought before the Supreme Court. Correspondingly, Adams accused President Van Buren of meddling with the perfectly adequate decision of a lower court for no other reason than to placate Spain (Kaifala, 2017). In 1857, the court didn’t have to go into further detail after establishing that Scott was not a US citizen and, hence, could not file a suit arguing for his freedom. However, Taney still used the opportunity to proclaim that the federal government had no business in establishing the legality of slavery in individual states or territories, which allegedly made Scott’s appeal to the Missouri Compromise null and void (Nicholas, n.d.). Thus, both rulings are best explained in their historical context as the Supreme Court intentionally opposed the extension of federal authority perceived as unconstitutional.
References
Kaifala, J. (2017). Free Slaves, Freetown, and the Sierra Leonean Civil War. Palgrave Macmillan.
Nicholas, M. (N.d). Supreme decision: Roger Taney and the Dred Scott case. The Histories, 5(1), art. 2. Web.