Video: 'A Legal Slave Uprising? | United States v. The Amistad'

(Tuesday, March 9, 1841) — The U.S. Supreme Court, in United States v. Schooner Amistad, ruled 7-1 in favor of a group of illegally enslaved Africans who were captured off the U.S. coast after seizing control of a Spanish schooner, La Amistad; the justices ruled that the Africans should be set free.