A 7-1 ruling upheld the lower court's decision to uphold the Africans' rights on March 9, 1841. The majority opinion was written by Justice Joseph Story, who wrote that “There does not seem to us to be any ground for doubt, that these negroes ought to be deemed free.”
As a result of the court's ruling, the government was not required to provide funds to return the Africans to their homeland in order to salvage the ship. The salvage rights were awarded to U.S. Navy officers who seized it. Abolitionists raised money after Van Buren's successor, John Tyler, refused to pay for repatriation. Aboard the Gentleman, accompanied by a number of Christian missionaries, Cinque sailed from New York aboard the Amistad in November 1841, along with 34 other survivors of the Amistad (the rest had died at sea or in prison awaiting trial).