signed Unbound
by GEDNEY, Thomas R.
Unbound. Near Fine. Group of 16 letters, each Signed by Thomas R. Gedney to his commanding officer, addressed as "Dear Commodore," several headed by Gedney "Ship Plymouth" or "U.S. Flag Ship Plymouth." Each is one or two pages on a bifolium, various dates between August 1849 and January 1850. The letters seem to be both in Gedney's and other secretarial hands, each Signed by Gedney (often with additional Initialed postscripts). Old folds from mailing, small tears or nicks, overall near fine.
Gedney became a central figure in the Amistad Affair, when he re-took the ship from the slaves who had wrested it from Spanish slavers. His decision to apply for compensation for the salvage value of the slaves was, at least legally, the precipitating incident of the legal case that surrounded and largely defined the event. The website of the Federal Judicial Center perhaps explains it better than we could:
"Thomas Gedney's decision to file a libel for salvage in the schooner *Amistad* brought the case to the federal courts and set in motion the proceedings that eventually led to the Supreme Court's decision freeing the captive Africans. Without that libel, the court never would have ordered the arrest of the Mende [tribesmen] on board, the Spanish owners would have had no reason to file their own property claims, and the Spanish government's demand for the ship and its passengers might have been met by the Secretary of State without any participation of the federal courts. The admiralty claim of Gedney and his crew had the unintended effect of offering the abolitionists an opportunity to challenge the claims for slaves as property and forcing the federal courts to rule on a definition of legal slave property.
"Gedney was the commanding officer of the *Washington*, a U.S. Navy brig that was conducting a coastal survey in Long Island Sound when the crew encountered the *Amistad*. The crew took custody of the ship and passengers and carried the *Amistad* to New London, Connecticut. Gedney immediately contacted Norris Willcox, the U.S. marshal in New Haven, and requested a court hearing so that he could submit a libel (or claim) for a salvage award. Gedney's libel provided a detailed description of the cargo, which along with the ship he estimated at a value of $40,000. The libel also included a request for a salvage award based on the recovery of the enslaved Africans, whom he valued at $25,000.
"Early in the district court proceedings, Judge Andrew Judson declared that he would not approve a salvage award for the enslaved Africans, since the court could not order their sale and had no means to determine their value. In his decision of January 1840, Judson awarded Gedney and his crew salvage for one third of the value of the ship and its cargo of goods. The district court also ordered the sale of the *Amistad* and the goods on board so that the money could be divided between the owners and the navy crew commanded by Gedney. The U.S. attorney appealed the decision granting salvage, but the Supreme Court upheld the award."
The South Carolina-born Gedney was an interesting figure beyond his involvement with the *Amistad*. He went to sea straight from Charleston's orphanage, discovered the Gedney Channel into New York Harbor in 1834, and also saved the life of President Andrew Jackson in 1835, when he tackled and subdued a would-be assassin while Jackson was attending the funeral of a South Carolina Congressman.
These letters were written at the end of 1849, while Gedney, who had risen to the rank of Commander, was on overseas duty with the East India Squadron. They primarily concern events within the Squadron: deserters, minor crimes, correspondence and mail from Hong Kong and Canton, dinners, season's greetings, and rather insistently, his own ill-health (perhaps of relevance, it was about this time that the fleet surgeon of the Squadron reported Gedney's excessive drinking and gambling to his Commodore - quite likely the same recipient of these letters - which he then apparently went on to rectify).
In three of these letters Gedney refers to impending meetings with Spanish officials ("De Silver," "Balestiers," and others). Whether this was coincidental or was related to his salvage claims (as mentioned Gedney was allowed to collect salvage for the *Amistad* and the other non-human cargo, but not for the slaves) is unclear.
While these letters are obviously not directly related to the *Amistad*, any correspondence from Gedney is very uncommon. No auction records exist for his letters, and we have never seen others offered in the trade. (Inventory #: 414640)
Gedney became a central figure in the Amistad Affair, when he re-took the ship from the slaves who had wrested it from Spanish slavers. His decision to apply for compensation for the salvage value of the slaves was, at least legally, the precipitating incident of the legal case that surrounded and largely defined the event. The website of the Federal Judicial Center perhaps explains it better than we could:
"Thomas Gedney's decision to file a libel for salvage in the schooner *Amistad* brought the case to the federal courts and set in motion the proceedings that eventually led to the Supreme Court's decision freeing the captive Africans. Without that libel, the court never would have ordered the arrest of the Mende [tribesmen] on board, the Spanish owners would have had no reason to file their own property claims, and the Spanish government's demand for the ship and its passengers might have been met by the Secretary of State without any participation of the federal courts. The admiralty claim of Gedney and his crew had the unintended effect of offering the abolitionists an opportunity to challenge the claims for slaves as property and forcing the federal courts to rule on a definition of legal slave property.
"Gedney was the commanding officer of the *Washington*, a U.S. Navy brig that was conducting a coastal survey in Long Island Sound when the crew encountered the *Amistad*. The crew took custody of the ship and passengers and carried the *Amistad* to New London, Connecticut. Gedney immediately contacted Norris Willcox, the U.S. marshal in New Haven, and requested a court hearing so that he could submit a libel (or claim) for a salvage award. Gedney's libel provided a detailed description of the cargo, which along with the ship he estimated at a value of $40,000. The libel also included a request for a salvage award based on the recovery of the enslaved Africans, whom he valued at $25,000.
"Early in the district court proceedings, Judge Andrew Judson declared that he would not approve a salvage award for the enslaved Africans, since the court could not order their sale and had no means to determine their value. In his decision of January 1840, Judson awarded Gedney and his crew salvage for one third of the value of the ship and its cargo of goods. The district court also ordered the sale of the *Amistad* and the goods on board so that the money could be divided between the owners and the navy crew commanded by Gedney. The U.S. attorney appealed the decision granting salvage, but the Supreme Court upheld the award."
The South Carolina-born Gedney was an interesting figure beyond his involvement with the *Amistad*. He went to sea straight from Charleston's orphanage, discovered the Gedney Channel into New York Harbor in 1834, and also saved the life of President Andrew Jackson in 1835, when he tackled and subdued a would-be assassin while Jackson was attending the funeral of a South Carolina Congressman.
These letters were written at the end of 1849, while Gedney, who had risen to the rank of Commander, was on overseas duty with the East India Squadron. They primarily concern events within the Squadron: deserters, minor crimes, correspondence and mail from Hong Kong and Canton, dinners, season's greetings, and rather insistently, his own ill-health (perhaps of relevance, it was about this time that the fleet surgeon of the Squadron reported Gedney's excessive drinking and gambling to his Commodore - quite likely the same recipient of these letters - which he then apparently went on to rectify).
In three of these letters Gedney refers to impending meetings with Spanish officials ("De Silver," "Balestiers," and others). Whether this was coincidental or was related to his salvage claims (as mentioned Gedney was allowed to collect salvage for the *Amistad* and the other non-human cargo, but not for the slaves) is unclear.
While these letters are obviously not directly related to the *Amistad*, any correspondence from Gedney is very uncommon. No auction records exist for his letters, and we have never seen others offered in the trade. (Inventory #: 414640)