United States v. The Amistad ruling frees enslaved people from Africa.

Supreme Court rules that a group of 53 enslaved Africans being brought to the U.S. from Africa aboard the ship Amistad should be freed. The group had rebelled, killed the ship/s captain, and seized the ship on April 30, 1849, then was captured by U.S. Navy off the coast of Connecticut. They were represented before the court by former President John Quincy Adams.