La Amistad Revolt and Voyage (1839–1842)

Description

La Amistad was a 19th-century two-masted schooner of about 120 feet (37 m). In 1839 it was owned by Ramón Ferrer, a Spanish national. Strictly speaking, La Amistad was not a typical slave ship, as it was not designed like others to traffic massive numbers of enslaved Africans, nor did it engage in the Middle Passage of Africans to the Americas. The ship engaged in the shorter, domestic coastwise trade around Cuba and islands and coastal nations in the Caribbean. The primary cargo carried by La Amistad was sugar-industry products. It carried a limited number of passengers and enslaved Africans being trafficked for delivery or sale around the island.

1839 slave revolt

Captained by Ferrer, La Amistad left Havana on June 28, 1839, for the small port of Guanaja, near Puerto Príncipe, Cuba, with some general cargo and 53 African captives bound for the sugar plantation where they were to be delivered. These 53 Mende captives (49 adults and four children) had been captured by African slave catchers or otherwise enslaved in Mendiland (in modern-day Sierra Leone), sold to European slave traders and illegally transported from Africa to Havana, mostly aboard the Portuguese slave ship Teçora, to be sold in Cuba. Although the United States and Britain had banned the Atlantic slave trade, Spain had not abolished the trade in its colonies. The crew of La Amistad, lacking purpose-built slave quarters, placed half the captives in the main hold and the other half on deck. The captives were relatively free to move about, which aided their revolt and commandeering of the vessel. In the main hold below decks, the captives found a rusty file and sawed through their manacles.

On about July 1, once free, the men below quickly went up on deck. Armed with machete-like cane knives, they attacked the crew, successfully gaining control of the ship, under the leadership of Sengbe Pieh (later known in the United States as Joseph Cinqué). They killed the captain Ferrer as well as the ship's cook Celestino; two captives also died, and two sailors Manuel Pagilla and Jacinto escaped in a small boat.

Later years

La Amistad had been moored at the wharf behind the US Custom House in New London, Connecticut for a year and a half, and it was auctioned off by the U.S. Marshal in October 1840. Captain George Hawford of Newport, Rhode Island purchased the vessel and then needed an act of Congress passed to register it. He renamed it Ion. In late 1841, he sailed Ion to Bermuda and Saint Thomas with a typical New England cargo of onions, apples, live poultry, and cheese.

Hawford sold Ion in Guadeloupe in 1844. There is no record of what became of it under the new French owners in the Caribbean.

Legacy

The Amistad Memorial stands in front of New Haven City Hall and County Courthouse in New Haven, Connecticut, where many of the events occurred related to the affair in the United States.

The Amistad Research Center at Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana is devoted to research about slavery, abolition, civil rights, and African Americans; it commemorates the revolt of Mende people on the ship by the same name. A collection of portraits of La Amistad survivors is held in the collection of Yale University, drawn by William H. Townsend during the survivors' trial.

Between 1998 and 2000, artisans at Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut built a replica of La Amistad using traditional tools and construction techniques common to wooden schooners built in the 19th century, but using modern materials and engines, officially named Amistad. It was promoted as "Freedom Schooner Amistad". The modern-day ship is not an exact replica of La Amistad, as it is slightly longer and has higher freeboard. There were no old blueprints of the original.

The new schooner was built using a general knowledge of the Baltimore Clippers and art drawings from the era. Some of the tools used in the project were the same as those that might have been used by a 19th-century shipwright, while others were powered. Tri-Coastal Marine, designers of "Freedom Schooner Amistad", used modern computer technology to develop plans for the vessel. Bronze bolts are used as fastenings throughout the ship.