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At the Institute’s core is the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the great archives in American history. More than 85,000 items cover five hundred years of American history, from Columbus’s 1493 letter describing the New World through the end of the twentieth century.

[Testimonies regarding the capture of the Amistad]

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC05636.12 Author/Creator: Place Written: s.l. Type: Manuscript document Date: November 1839 Pagination: 4 p. : Height: 30.2 cm, Width: 20.3 cm Order a Copy

Created at Connecticut District Court in November 1839. At the top, states: "Schooner Amistad plea to jurisdictions & matter of it- Baldwin says most extraordinary objections & c Circuit Court said only that so long as the matter was pending before the District Ct that Court should not dismiss & c..." Relates events that took place 26 August 1839, when Captains Henry Green and Peletiah Fordham, [Fithy?], Sherman, Conklin met the Africans from the Amistad on the shore near Culloden Point, New York. Green would later enter a salvage claim for the ship and its contents. A faint pencil note on the first page states "plea alleges 2 grounds of jurisdiction 1. not property & c. 2. signed within N york district & on shore." On last page, contains statements from General Isham and W. F. Brainard (lawyers for the Connecticut residents' who had claimed salvage) and C. F. [Lister?].

Holabird, William S., 1794-1855
Baldwin, Roger Sherman, 1793-1863

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