Norwich bulletin., 1921-10-22
WHEN THE AMIsTAD LANDED AT MoNrAUK.

the criminal proceedings against Pru- | dence Crandall for setting up a board | ing school for colored girls at Canter- bury. His decision, after trial which | lasted a week, was that the prisoners were free-b born and only kidnapped in- to slavery, were free by the law of Spain itself, and that they should be delivered to the President of the Uni ted States to be by him transported back to Africa. The claimants of the Africans had one more chance. Appeal to the superior court at Washington could not be denied them. John Quin- cy Adams was added to the counsel in behalf of the Nergoes, and with Roger s. Baldwin, father of ex-chief justice and former governor Simeon E. Baldwin the case went to the Su-l preme court for decision. The hearing was reached in February, 1S41, and in March the captives were declared free
 to be dismissed from the custody. of
 the court and go without delay.
 It had been great battle. Adams had brought his learning and ability with supreme earnestness, Roger s. Baldwin had argued with resistless
 power; but while the captives were free their freedom" as Baldwin said
 was a barren gift. They were here separated from their homes by the dis tance of half the globe and in state where, they might be pitied but were not wanted" The united committee re- solved not to relinquish their labors | until the Africans had been safely re- ! stored to their native land and, three years after their strange departure from Africa, some forty of these cap- tives were landed again in Africa. With l them went some American friends, who l started MQr1di Cbricfiap 1 AS everybody knows the free and the l slave among blacks was live politi- ] cal and social question in the forties. l Out of this 'tAmistad" incident, and 1 the founding of the Mission at Men l di, grew movement which culminat- 1 ed at Albany in 1S46 and resulted in
 the American Missionary Association, a centre of the anti-slavery agitation until the Civil war, and the greatest champion of the Negro after President
 Lincoln issued his proclamation.
 Did you ever know how Hampton 1 Institute got it's start, and who it was 1 that discovered General Armstrong, 1 Institute and General now known as far as the world extends? It was this l same movement, with its child, famous l Tuskegee and perhaps even more fa- nous Booker Washington Hampton "0S D0SuAl CNSA OSlOI6 ApDOIudIlOA $ l date. There followed great institutions not forgetting the Fisk Jubilee sing CTS, and including Fisk University, Att
 lanta university, Talledega, Tougalee Tillotson and Straight colleges. Into
 the work the American Missionary As sociation has put nearly $30,000. 900 oi Christian money to aid members of the l race that killed 8 cook and q slave \ driver, steered frail craft for Africa and landed on Montauk Point went
 through United States supreme court
 hearing, and landed again in a home
 land, bringing Christian mission witt
 them.
 Right now we know much of unrest II We have recently terminated with vic tory World War. And yet all wil
 agree that slaves may not be captured
 in Africa, brought to the West Indies
 and sold to Americans, and that nc Adamses and Baldwins are needed tC
 day to argue against human property | rights before Chief Justice Taft arc
 his associate justices. So setting LII stakes to indicate marks we do se'
 the world is growing better. Thert is yet much room for more growth This American Missionary Association . is going back to New London, to who's,
 narbor the "Amistad' was brought t
 celebrate its diamond jubilee-seventy five years of service, not for the gooC , of the Negro race alone, but for tn, } good of all of us-the common good O
 the world