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During the course of the slave trade millions of Africans became involuntary immigrants to the New World. Some African captives resisted enslavement by fleeing from slave forts on the coast of West African. Others mutinied on board slave trading vessels, or cast themselves into the ocean, rather facing death than enslavement. In the New World there were those who ran away from their owners, ran away among the Indians, formed maroon societies, revolted, feigned sickness, …

…t was the Africans, not the Cubans, who should be treated sympathetically because they were free people illegally enslaved. John Quincy Adams argued the appeal on behalf of the Africans before the Court. He stated that they "were entitled to all kindness and good offices due from a humane and Christian nation." In January 1841, the Supreme Court rendered its decision relating to the Amistad affair. Adams won and the Africans were returned to Africa.