This Day in History (March 9, 1841)-  The Court Declares Freedom for those on the Amistad

On this day in 1841, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that the Africans slaves who had mutinied on a ship (The Amistad) in Cuba and sailed to Long Island, NY, had been enslaved illegally, and were thus free men and women.

In almost all of the Western world at the time, the importation of slaves had been banned.   Cuba was one of the few exceptions, using slaves for its sugar plantations.  When the Amistad was brought into U.S. waters, the slaves, with the help of abolitionists like former president John Quincy Adams, made the case that they were legally free.  The Cubans slaveholders who had purchased them were on the ship with them, and demanded that they be allowed to transport all the Africans back to Cuba in chains.  The court however, had ruled that the Africans were free, they were released from prison where they were being held, and allowed to return to Africa. 

There is a parallel application here for the Christian today.  As believers in Jesus Christ, we have a legal ruling from the highest authority that we are free.  We are free from the penalty of sin, free from the enslavement of the devil, and even free from the domination of the flesh in our lives. 

The only obstacle is that there are still taskmasters present, who will insist that you are nothing more than a slave, destined to serve their purposes.  Those taskmasters (the world, the flesh, and the devil) have no authority for those who in Christ.  Those who the Son has set free are free indeed. (John 8:38).  In the case of the Amistad, the Cuban slaveholders could have demanded, stomped their feet, and ordered the Africans  to remain in chains and follow them back into servitude, however a greater authority had already declared their freedom.

The Word of God provides the surety that Christ has fully ransomed us, and we now have the true rights as sons and daughters of the Most High God, never again to be entangled in the yoke of slavery to anything (Galatians 5:1).  It is for freedom that Christ has set up free.  Whether it is an addiction, compulsion, an attitude, or anything else that would hinder us from achieving our high calling in Christ, they are negated by the final declaration that we are free in Christ.

As a postscript to the story of the Amistad, all of the Africans returned to Africa.  Some went to Sierra Leone and worked for a Christian Mission.  One in particular, Sarah Magru Kinson, was trained as a missionary at Oberlin College, and went back to Africa with the Gospel.  She used her freedom to bring freedom in Christ to a continent in need of the Good News.  That is why God has empowered and commissioned us.  We are to use our freedom to serve others and advance the Kingdom of God. 

"The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor .. and to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners"

EWF.