The Freedom That Was Already Theirs

Sengbe Pieh was born free. A rice farmer from Mende country in Sierra Leone, he was seized by slave traders in early 1839, shipped across the Atlantic on the illegal slave ship Tecora, and sold in Havana. But Pieh — known in American courts as Joseph Cinqué — never accepted the lie that he was property. On July 2, 1839, he led fifty-two fellow captives in revolt aboard the schooner La Amistad off the coast of Cuba, seizing the ship and demanding to be sailed home.

What followed was not a quick rescue but a grueling twenty-month legal battle. Captured off Long Island and jailed in New Haven, Connecticut, the Africans endured trial after trial while abolitionists raised funds and former President John Quincy Adams prepared their case. On March 9, 1841, the Supreme Court ruled in their favor. Justice Joseph Story declared they were free individuals, illegally kidnapped, who had every right to fight for their liberty.

Here is what strikes the soul: Cinqué did not need the Court to make him free. He was born free. The Court simply confirmed what was already true.

Paul wrote to the Galatians, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." Believer, your freedom was purchased before you ever entered the courtroom of this world's accusations. The verdict has already been rendered. Stand firm in it — not because the struggle is easy, but because the outcome was settled at the cross.