Transcript Slide 1

Movies are entertainment that usually have a happy ending. This story has a tragic
ending.
When Francis Ford Coppola was asked why his movie “The Godfather II” was not
historically accurate, he replied: “I am a film director, not a historian.”
The story of the Amistad revolt has been revised during 168 years.
1840
1953
1997
Cinqué (Sengbe Pieh)
Born 1813 in the village of Mani, land
of the Mendis West Coast of Africa
Kidnapped and sold into slavery
for a debt he owed Prince Birmaja,
son of King Shiarka, Jan. 1839.
Portrait by abolitionist Nathaniel Jocelyn
Taken to slave stockade of Spaniard Pedro Blanco at Lomboko island (today
within Sierra Leone).
Cinque shipped to Cuba with 200 captives. One of them, Burnah, had
learned English from British traders in Sierra Leone.
In 1817, Great Britain had paid Spain £400,000 for a treaty to suppress the
slave trade.
The Cuban colonial governor received $10 for each bozal slave imported.
Ownership papers were then issued as ladino slaves with Spanish names.
June 26, 1839: Planter Jose Ruiz bought 49 slaves in Havana for $450 each;
planter Pedro Montez bought 3 girls and 1 boy, and shipped with them to
Puerto Principe 300 miles away.
La Amistad schooner cleared port on June 27, 1839, with slaves, cargo, and
$8,000 in gold doubloons. Ruiz and Montes accompanied Captain Ramon
Ferrer, two crew members, and two Cuban mulatto slaves Celestino Ferrer
and Antonio.
La Amistad (Friendship): Two-masted schooner, built in Baltimore, 120 feet
long, 50 tons burthen, painted black with a green bottom, and large eagle on
the bow.
Causes of rebellion:
300-mile 3-day trip delayed at sea by storm, food & water rations cut in half.
Flogging and beating by crew of five Africans on deck for stealing water.
Hot-iron branding by crew of Celestino Ferrer, the captain’s mulatto slave
and cook, for infraction.
Celestino replied to Burnah that upon arrival, “they would have their throats
cut, be chopped to pieces, and salted down for meat for the Spaniards. He
pointed to some barrels of beef on deck, then to an empty barrel. ‘You will fill
that barrel,’ he told them.”
Captain Ferrer and Celestino
killed in uprising at 4 AM, July 2.
2 slaves killed, 2 crewmen fled
on boat.
Ruiz and Montes forced to sail
east during daylight, covertly
sailed west at nighttime.
Amistad sailed in a zig-zag
pattern from the Bahamas
to Long Island, N.Y.
Six Africans sickened and
died during the voyage.
Spotted near N.Y. Aug. 21,
assumed pirates, U.S. Navy
sent 4 cutters after them.
Amistad anchors on Culloden Point, Long Island, N.Y., on Aug. 25. Cinque,
takes Antonio, Burnah and six others on land and buy water, food, and gin. Five
were naked.
The brig USS Washington arrived the next day, commanded by Lt. Richard
Meade, seized the Amistad and its passengers, and escorted them to New
London, CT.
Federal district Judge Andrew Judson holds a hearing on the brig, in which the
Spaniards demand as property the 39 men and 4 African children, and Antonio.
Lts. Meade and Gedney claim the
schooner & cargo as prize.
The Africans are indicted for murder
and piracy and put in New Haven jail.
Trial to be held Sept. 17 in Hartford.
Abolitionists form Amistad Committee
for financial support and attorneys on
Sept. 4.
Amistad Committee: N.Y. merchant Lewis Tappan (1788-1863); Rev. Joshua
Leavitt (1794-1973), editor of The Emancipator; and Rev. Simeon Jocelyn,
white pastor of a black congregation. Fanatical evangelists active in
temperance and abolitionist causes.
Tappan provided African translator John Ferry, a Kissi native, and hired three
lawyers to defend the Amistad captives.
Roger Sherman Baldwin (1793-1863) was chief defense counsel. Amistad fame
got him elected governor of Connecticut (1844) and US Senator (1847).
Lewis Tappan
Joshua Leavitt
Roger Sherman Baldwin
The Amistad trial in Federal District Court in Hartford, on Sept. 19, prompted a
legal, political, and international problem between the U.S. and Spain.
The Treaty of 1795 between the U.S. and Spain stipulated that:
“All ships and merchandise, of what nature soever, which shall be rescued out
of the hands of any pirates or robbers on the high seas, shall be brought into
some port of either State, and shall be delivered to the custody of the officers
of that port, in order to be taken care of, and restored entire to the true
proprietor, as soon as due and sufficient proof shall be made concerning the
property thereof.”
Spaniards warned that if the piracy
and murder went unpunished, the
slaves in Cuba would hear of it
from abolitionists and would revolt
like they did in Haiti in 1803.
Southerners feared similar slave
revolts in their states.
20 abolitionists guarded the jail day and night to prevent the Africans from
being returned to Cuba. They plotted to take them to Canada if released on
bail.
Fowler, L.N. "Phrenological Developments of Joseph Cinquez, Alias Ginqua."
American Phrenological Journal and Miscellany, vol. 2 (1840), 136-138.
Examined Cinque on Sept. 5, made a
plaster cast of his head.
“His head measures most in the region of
those faculties giving a love of liberty, independence, determination, ambition, regard for
his country, and for what he thinks is sacred
and right; also, good practical talents and
powers of observation, shrewdness, tact, and
management, joined with an uncommon degree of moral courage and pride of character.”
“His cerebral organisation, as
a whole, I should think, was
also superior to the majority of
negroes in our own country.”
Jail daily routine:
2 hours chopping wood for fuel, cleaning rooms.
2 hours studying reading and writing English.
Recreation and somersaults on the Green, with spectators tossing coins.
Yale faculty members Rev. George Day and Rev. Leonard Bacon hold evening
prayers, Bible study, and song with abolitionists and divinity students.
Baldwin claimed that the Africans acted in self-defense, and liberated themselves from illegal restrain.
Tappan has the Africans file civil suit
against Ruiz and Montes for assault
and battery and false imprisonment.
They are jailed in NYC on Oct. 17.
Liberator, Sept. 20, 1839
Spaniards refuse to post $1,000 bond.
Charges dropped for Montes, Ruiz
bailed lowered to $100 and freed.
Nov. 19, 1839: Case postponed after
testimony of Dr. Richard Madden, of
the Court of Mixed Commission in
Havana, saying Africans are bozales.
Jan. 8, 1840: Cinque and 2 Africans
testify of their capture, enslavement,
middle passage, sale in Havana, and
revolt.
Nov. 2, 1839
Jan. 13, 1840: District Court awards salvage to Lt. Gedney and the Spaniards,
who are not present. Africans are declared not legally enslaved and placed
under the charge of President Martin Van Buren to be returned to Africa. Rules
that murder and piracy charges should be tried by Spanish court, but since that
law only applied to bozales, no need to return African captives to Cuba.
Case appealed to U.S. Circuit Court by Spaniards and the president.
North American & Daily Advertiser, Jan 4, 1840
Emancipator, March 26, 1840
April 29, 1840: Circuit Court upholds lower
court and passes it to U.S. Supreme Court.
Old State House, Hartford
Feb. 22, 1841: Baldwin defends
the Africans during 2 days before
U.S. Supreme Court in the Capitol.
John Quincy Adams spoke 8½
hours during two days. Denounced
the Executive for pressuring the
Judiciary.
Had not practiced before the
Supreme Court in 30 years.
Afflicted by coachman’s death.
Court recessed during death of
Justice Barbour in his sleep.
March 9: Supreme Court affirmed
lower courts decisions, reversed
the decision to place them at the
disposal of the President to be
returned to Africa, and declared
them immediately free.
Tappan decides to keep the Africans in the U.S. at least one more year, to
Christianize the “pagans and Muslims,” insure against returning to native
customs, and sending them back to Africa as missionaries.
Africans quartered in the carriage house
of abolitionist Austin Williams, Farmington,
in spite of their quick departure demands.
Prohibited from buying alcohol & snuff.
Given Christian names.
Daily worked the fields, recited lessons,
prayers, religious hymns.
Evenings & Sundays exhibited in churches
for Bible reading, spelling, Mendi songs, to
raise funds for abolitionist missions.
Tappan wanted to prolong their stay a
second year, prompting one to suicide.
North American (Philadelphia) Aug. 11, 1841
Nov. 27, 1841: 35 Africans leave for Sierra
Leone with two African American and three
white missionaries.
Cinque and others quickly dispersed. Margru
returned to study at Oberlin College 1848-49,
went back to Sierra Leone as missionary
Sara Margru Kinson.
Since Roe vs. Wade (1973)
abortion has been the most
divisive issue in the U.S.
since slavery.
Elian Gonzales arrived on an inner tube raft in
the U.S. on Thanksgiving Day 1999. His divorced
mother perished at sea.
Clinton Administration secretly negotiated his
return to Cuba. The legal decision was removed
from a Florida family court and remitted to the
U.S. Immigration Service. Forcibly sent back.
Fidel Castro used Elian as a political trophy.