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Officers of the United States survey ship Washington found <i>La Amistad</i> in a state of distress, bearing 53 Africans and the two Spaniards who purchased them in Cuba with the intention of trading them into slavery there. The Africans had mutinied, however, and attempted to have the Spanish owners sail them back to Africa. After the American naval officers helped the owners recover control of the ship and arranged for the guarded detention of the Africans in Connecticut, procuring the Africans’ freedom became the cause celebre of the burgeoning abolitionist and missionary movement.