Amistad

by David Pesci

  Nearly five and a half hours after he had begun, Adams let his voice trickle into silence. He paused and took off his spectacles.

  “May it please Your Honors. On the seventh of February, 1804, now more than 37 years past, my name was entered on the rolls as one of the attorneys and counselors of this court. Five years later, in March 1809, I appeared for the last time before this court in defense of the cause of justice. Very shortly afterward, I was called to other duties, first in distant lands, and later within our own country. Little did I imagine that I should ever again be called to appear in the capacity of an officer of this court to plead the cause of life, liberty, and justice. I stand again, I trust for the last time before the same Court, although not the same judges, asking for justice once more. I pray to you that it shall be served.”

  Adams returned to his table and sat. A wave of exhausted relief flowed down over his body, draining so much strength from his limbs that he could barely stand as court was adjourned.

  The next day, Gilpin was allowed a rebuttal. He spoke for nearly two hours but Adams, Baldwin, and Sedgwick didn’t bear anything that hadn’t been said by the prosecution before. In fact, Adams mentally noted a few instances where, had Gilpin been more attentive, he might have scored a point or two. At noon, Justice Tanny banged his gavel and declared that both parties would be notified to appear before the court when a decision was rendered.

  Sedgwick returned to Philadelphia, Tappan to New York, and Baldwin and Jocelyn to New Haven to wait for the court’s pronouncement. A week later, on March 9, the court summoned Adams and Gilpin. Justice Story from Massachusetts read the decision. As was the custom of the time, the judge recounted the major facts of the case, a task that took nearly an hour. Then he spent the next two hours reading the text of the court’s decision.

  Story declared that on a vote of six to one, with judge Henry Baldwin dissenting but not rendering a written opinion, the court found the following: neither Pickney’s Treaty nor the Treaty of 1819 applied to this case except in the instance of the slave boy Antonio, who was to be returned to the heirs of his former owner. It was ruled that the passports obtained for the negroes by Ruiz and Montes were accurately proved to be fraudulent in district court and as such were invalid as proof of ownership. Gedney and his crew had acted meritoriously and were entitled to salvage in the percentages and within the stipulations declared by Judge Judson. However, when the Amistad was boarded, the blacks on board were in possession of the ship. They were not slaves nor did they purport to sell themselves as slaves within the borders of the United States. As a result, their seizure by Gedney and his crew was not valid under the Treaty of 1819.

  “Thus,” read Judge Story, “Judge Judson’s decision regarding this point must be reversed.”

  Adams held his breath and leaned forward slightly, waiting for the next part. Gilpin, too, was nearly standing with expectation.

  “This court rules that the blacks on board the Amistad, save for the slave boy Antonio, were acting as free-born men, who were attempting to wrest their liberty from false imprisonment. The court does not dispute this status nor impugn their actions. As such, they are free, and this court orders them to be discharged immediately from incarceration. They may go as they please and return to their nations as free men.”

  Adams stood and thanked the judges and immediately left the courtroom and penned a letter to Baldwin and Tappan.

  “God has smiled upon us,” he wrote. “Our friends, at last, are free.”

  Baldwin received the letter a week later. For the second time in two years he was seen running down the streets of New Haven.

  The Gentlemen

  The celebration in the Westville jail was marked by laughing, prayers, and a great feast. During the festivities, Burnah, Grabeau, Kinna, and a few of the other tribesmen ran outside, back into the jail and outside again several times to prove their freedom. Late at night, when the festivities were still carrying on, Singbe slipped out barefoot and shirtless and dropped to his knees in the moonlight and wet March snow. He offered up tearful prayers to both Ngewo and the Christian God. He prayed for them to send a message to Stefa and his children that, soon, he would be home.

  Or would he?

  If the Supreme Court had upheld Judson’s original decision, Singbe and the other tribesmen might at that moment actually be on a ship headed for Africa. However, because the judges ruled that neither Pickney’s Treaty nor the Treaty of 1819 applied to the tribesmen, the federal government was under no mandate to return the Africans to their home.

  Lewis Tappan had appealed to the new Secretary of State, Daniel Webster, to see if the President could be persuaded to provide transportation to the tribesmen anyway. Webster spoke to President John Tyler, who had been sworn in when President Harrison died of pneumonia, just within a month of his inauguration. Privately, Tyler, a Virginia plantation owner and slaveholder, had no sympathy for the Africans. However, he instructed Webster to tell Tappan that if Congress voted the appropriate funds to charter a ship and supplies, he would sign the legislation. Tyler was confident that the Southerners in the House would never let such a measure pass. He was right.

  “The Africans are free men,” Webster said to Tappan. “They will have to find their own way home.”

  This left Tappan to devise his own plan for returning the Amistads. Chartering a ship, captain, and crew for passage to Africa would cost nearly $2,000. Supplies would run another $300. There was also the matter of the mission.

  Tappan and the other members of the Amistad Committee had decided that when the Amistads returned to Africa, they would do so as Christian gentlemen and missionaries. Land would be purchased and a mission built with the aim of converting first the people of the immediate area, and later all of Africa, to Christianity. It was also hoped that the mission would be the first step in a counteroffensive aimed at the efforts of the American Missionary Society, which the abolitionists saw as a tainted organization because they were associated with the American Colonization Society, a group which worked to send freed American blacks back to Africa.

  “The Colonization Society is composed of racists, pure and simple,” Tappan said. “They want nothing more than to rid our country of all negroes, mulattos, and any other people of color. I am sure that if they had their way, all the Irish, Chinamen, and Catholics on our shores would be among their deportees, as well.”

  The missions of the American Missionary Society were also reputed to teach only Christianity, not bothering to provide instruction in reading, writing, and other formal subjects for their converts.

  “Our organization will be different,” Tappan insisted. “We will provide to the people of Africa not only the endless joys and rewards of our Christian faith, but also the knowledge and culture of our civilization. This way they can learn how to help themselves and join the rest of the Christian world as equal partners in faith, custom, and civility.”

  Not everyone on the committee agreed with Tappan’s goals for the people of Africa, but most believed in the basic principles he was proposing, and all agreed that “true” missions must be established to check the fraudulent work being done by the American Missionary Society. However, the Amistad Committee was nearly broke. Tappan pledged to personally provide half of the funds needed. The rest would have to be raised by donations and demonstrations.

  “Demonstrations of what?” Jocelyn asked.

  “Why, of what good we have already done,” Tappan answered, beaming.

  The three girls screamed and cried loudly. The youngest one, Ke-ne, who was now being called Charlotte by Mrs. Pendelton, clung to the old woman’s skirt, terrified. Colonel Pendelton stood with his hand on the hilt of a pistol stuck in his belt, looking at Tappan.

  “I say they’re not going,” Pendelton growled. “They don’t want to go with you, Tappan, and I can’t blame ’em. This is their home, and we provide a good Christian living here. You’re bringing them back to live with those murdering savages.”

&nb
sp; Tappan stood defiantly holding a warrant sworn out by Judge Smith Thompson ordering the release of the girls from the Pendelton home. Behind Tappan stood Marshal Wilcox, two federal deputies, and several reporters.

  “Home, sir?” Tappan bellowed. “You have turned these poor innocent girls into house slaves. We heard testimony in court yesterday by some of your friends and neighbors saying just that. Why, you’ve got these girls of seven, ten, and eleven years doing your laundry, cleaning your home, mending your clothes, and even doing your cooking.”

  “We’s just helping them learn the civilities of womanhood and letting them assist us for providing for them.”

  “May I remind you that the state has been paying you and your wife to provide for them,” Tappan said. “However, the ‘service,’ such as it is, that you have been providing is now officially terminated. The U.S. Supreme Court has freed all the Amistad Africans and this warrant from Judge Thompson relieves you and your wife of these girls. They will come with me to join the men.”

  “No! No!” Te-me screamed. “Mrs. Pendelton, say it’s not true, ma’am!”

  “It isn’t, Marie,” Mrs. Pendelton said. “The Colonel will keep you here safe with us.”

  “Hardly,” Tappan said, and he stepped toward the door. Pendelton tightened his grip on the pistol.

  “Another step, Tappan, and I’ll blow a hole right through that big mouth of yours.”

  “Here now, Stanton,” Wilcox said, stepping up next to Tappan, “He’s got a warrant from the court. You know how it is. You gotta give him the girls.”

  “Not likely, Norris. And don’t you go helping him or I’ll have to plug you, too.”

  Tappan stepped forward, undeterred.

  “The Lord Jesus Christ is my God and my Savior,” he said confidently. “Because of that I fear no man or his empty threats.”

  Tappan took another step. Pendelton drew his gun and cocked the hammer. Wilcox pushed Tappan to the ground and leapt at Pendelton. The gun went off just as the marshal collided with the jailer. The pistol ball ricocheted off the doorway of the house, narrowly missing Mrs. Pendelton and the girls, and buried itself in the soft dirt by the foundation. Wilcox held Pendelton as the girls were led away sobbing. They turned back several times with reaching arms and searching eyes to Mrs. Pendelton and her husband. The next day, the New Haven Express ran a blistering article that excoriated Tappan for his “inhuman actions of dismembering what appeared to all present was a supportive family and genuinely safe home.” The article went on to question if the girls were better off, even if they had been made to work as house servants, than they would be in the “wild bush of Africa where they were destined to return.”

  As Tappan left the scene, Pendelton warned him that the Amistads may not live to see their return home.

  “There are many men who believe you abolitionists pulled one over on the government, Tappan,” he yelled. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you woke up one morning to find Cinqué and your other niggers with their throats slit!”

  Though Tappan appeared unfazed, he believed Pendelton was not far off with his sentiments. The decision was made to move the tribesmen from New Haven to Farmington, a small town west of Hartford. Many of Farmington’s residents were openly anti-slavery in their sympathies. The girls were placed in private homes in the town to be educated and cared for. A barn on the outskirts had been outfitted to accommodate the men until enough money could be collected for their passage home. It was no coincidence that the barn sat on a sprawling, bucolic farm that was also an underground railway station. It was through this same farm that Antonio had passed, two days after the verdict was made known in New Haven, on his way to Canada.

  The scene at the Pendelton home was not the type of “demonstration” Tappan spoke of to Jocelyn. In fact, it may have been Tappan’s only media-witnessed miscalculation of the last two years.

  What Tappan was hoping for was the production of a carefully orchestrated tour of the Amistads throughout sympathetic locations of New England. Town halls, churches, and even factories would host the Africans that people had read and heard so much about. But these were no longer the savage-looking, ignorant blacks fresh from the jungle that had been on display in the New Haven jail before the circuit court trial. These were finely dressed, Christianized, English speaking, reading, and writing black gentlemen who would go back to their country and spread the word of the Lord Jesus Christ’s Holy Gospel. It was Tappan’s hope that such a display would not only draw attention to what could be done with rough materials straight from the dark continent, but also serve as an example of what kind of transformations could be made if American-born blacks were emancipated. The members of the Amistad Committee agreed with the plan. It was decided that Singbe, Grabeau, and eight of the others who had shown the most progress in speaking, reading, and understanding the Scriptures should comprise the touring company.

  Tappan called on Singbe to explain what they would be doing over the next few months.

  “Why we have to do this, Mr. Tappan?” Singbe asked.

  “Because we do not have the money yet to send you back to Africa and to start our mission. People are interested in you and your countrymen, Joseph. They will pay money to see you do things that are natural to your culture and to see how well you have adapted to ours.”

  “How much money you need, Mr. Tappan?”

  “Well, enough to charter a ship and crew, get us supplies and purchase land in your native country for the mission. I’d say it will be quite a sum. Nearly $5,000 we suspect.”

  Singbe stopped for a moment, and thought, but he had not been taught to count in English past 100. Thousands sounded like an unattainable number.

  “How long we do this, Mr. Tappan?”

  Tappan looked at Singbe and smiled broadly. “Oh, not too long, I hope, Joseph. Perhaps six months or a year or so.”

  Singbe bowed his head. “That long time, Mr. Tappan. We need get home. We here two year now. And many of us taken slave much time before that.”

  “I understand, Joseph, and I know many of you miss your families and your home in Mandingo. But we cannot take you back there without money.”

  Singbe nodded. Tappan patted him on the back and assured him that, with hard work, the money would be raised. He stood to go but Singbe stopped him.

  “Mr. Tappan, sir. Something we no tell you before. We no from Mandingo. We, most of us, we Mendemen from Mende. Like James Covey. Kaw-we-li.”

  “Mende? You are from James’s Mendeland?”

  “Yes. It up river and over hills from Freetown. That where we live. That where you build mission.”

  “Why, then, did you tell us you were from Mandingo and that you just spoke Mende?”

  “When we come here, you and Mr. Jocelyn and Mr. Baldwin very kind to us. Show us great love. But we still very much afraid that if bad whitemen find where we from, if Peperuiz and Pedromontes find where we from, they go there and take our wifes and childrens slaves. So we say we Mandingo. But now court says we free. And president and no court can lock us in jail again. Now we no slave no more. We go home. So now I tell you, we, most of us, we Mendemen, strong and proud.”

  Tappan nodded slowly. “It is no sin what you did, Joseph. You did the right thing.”

  “I know,” Singbe said.

  Along with Singbe and Grabeau, Tappan’s traveling Amistads included Burnah, Kinna, Fabanna, Ka-le, Moru, Ses-si, James Covey, and the oldest girl Margru, who now called herself Sarah. Tappan made sure that the men were outfitted in tailored suits and top hats, and that Margru wore simple but elegant dresses. Tappan and Jocelyn used a network of abolitionist sympathizers and clergy to identify the best places for the Africans to appear. A firm list of towns and cities was made, and a schedule created that was loose enough to allow for side trips if events permitted.

  They left Farmington in mid-April, stopping in Hartford and Windsor before going to the Massachusetts cities of Springfield, Northampton, Holyoke, Worcester, Lowell, and Boston. Othe
r towns and cities would follow.

  A man was sent ahead to each stop to alert the press and the townspeople that the Amistads were on their way, but there was no telling how they would be treated once they arrived. One restaurant manager in Springfield allowed them to select whatever they wished off his menu at no charge; however, the next day, as they walked through the city’s streets, a riot nearly ensued when angry men and women began swearing at them and throwing handfuls of horse manure taken from the streets. A hotel owner in Northampton offered his vacant rooms to the Africans, a gesture that made many of his white boarders check out immediately. In Hartford, when papers reported that a local hotel had refused the Africans rooms, several families of the city’s elite quickly stepped forward and offered beds in their own homes. The owner of the Nashua & Andover Railroad provided free passage to the Amistads on any of his trains.

  When they did arrive, the Africans quickly asserted their authenticity by doing their flips and somersaults, all while remaining in their fine dress clothes. Then Tappan would speak about the reclamation of souls for the Lord God, the need to “take our black brethren to our breast and provide them with the jewels of Christianity and civilized knowledge.” After Tappan’s speech, which generally lasted nearly an hour, the tribesmen would read from the Bible or any book that an audience member cared to hand to the stage. There were also tellings of their ordeals on board the Amistad, in the Havana slave market, and of their capture and voyage from Africa. Kinna, who had become fluent in English and memorized most of the New Testament, would field theological questions from local ministers and churchgoers and dazzle them with his Yale-tutored answers. The highlight of the presentations, however, was Singbe’s retelling of their voyage on the Amistad in his native Mende, with James Covey interpreting. Spectators were transfixed by the rolling, melodic sound of Mende, Singbe’s easy oratorical style, his dramatic pauses, and the plea he always finished with in English: