The Amistad Rebellion

by Marcus Rediker

  You had better be killed than live many moons in misery. I shall be hanged, I think, every day. But this does not pain me. I could die happy, if by dying I could save so many of my brothers from the bondage of the white man.

  The rhetoric sounds artificial and stilted, more like an academic exercise for the sons of Harvard and Yale than the actual speech of an African warrior, but the use of “moons” to reckon time is realistic, as is the language of “brethren,” fictive kinship. Moreover, the speech sounds similar to others made by Cinqué and memorized by his comrades as part of their own account of their adventure. In the second speech, the Sun reported, the leader tried to rally his mates to resist the American occupation of their vessel:

  I came to tell you that you have only one chance for death, and none for liberty. I am sure you prefer death, as I do. You can by killing the white man now on board, and I will help you, make the people here kill you. It is better for you to do this, and then you will not only avert bondage yourselves, but prevent the entailment of unnumbered wrongs on your children. Come—come with me then—

  The warrior was essentially proposing a collective suicide pact to resist reenslavement—not uncommon among warriors in southern Sierra Leone when they realized that their military situation was hopeless, since captured warriors were frequently executed anyway.70

  A week later, Lt. Meade vehemently denied that Cinqué ever gave the speeches, but he himself provided evidence of them in an article he wrote about the capture of the Amistad, published in the New London Gazette on September 4, 1839: “Cinquez had declared that in case they were likely to be taken, he should kill the passengers, and that he would die rather than be taken, and he enjoined upon his comrades to take his knife and avenge his death—that they had better die in self-defense than be hung, as they would be if taken.” It seems likely that the writer for the New York Sun had heard this story, perhaps from Meade or Antonio, and rendered it in a sensational way for the penny-press newspaper; and it is also likely that the sentiment and the actual event behind it were real. Cinqué had perhaps unwittingly echoed the words of Patrick Henry, “Give me liberty or give me death,” or, more appropriately, those of the enslaved rebel Gabriel, whose conspiracy in Richmond, Virginia, in 1800 had been guided by the phrase “Death or Liberty.”71

  Meade’s account of the capture was strongly shaped by his own material interest in the case. He and his commanding officer, Thomas Gedney, would apply to the court for salvage rights, that is, for payment of a portion of the value of the ship and its cargo that they had “saved” for the owners, which might include the immensely valuable human commodities, the former slaves. Indeed, they may have chosen to tow the vessel to Connecticut, rather than New York, because slavery was still legal there. Such matters were clearly on Meade’s mind from the beginning of the encounter. In another article he apparently wrote for the New London Gazette, he observed that Cinqué was a strong, “well built” man “who would command, in New Orleans, under the hammer, at least $1,500.” The auction block was on his mind.72

  Cinqué’s comrades cheered his words of resistance after capture and “leapt about and seemed like creatures under some talismanic power.” Fearing an uprising, Meade ordered the sailors to put Cinqué in manacles, separate him from his countrymen, and transport him to the Washington. On his way there, “the hero moved not a muscle, but kept his eye fixed on the schooner.” Aboard the brig, the leader sat belowdecks, manacled and incarcerated for a third time in recent months, expecting reenslavement or death. At that moment it must not have seemed that he had arrived in a “free country.”73

  In any case, the planning and execution of the rebellion—and no less the long, dangerous, even tortuous voyage afterward—were historic achievements. Based on shared African experiences of work, culture, and self-organization, and on the fictive kinship that grew out of their common struggles in slave factory, barracoon, and ship, the fifty-three rebels aboard the Amistad did what few of the millions before them had done: they carried out a successful uprising aboard a slave ship, then sailed the vessel to a place where they might secure the freedom they had fought for and won. They did not choose their way into the dilemma that confronted them aboard the Amistad, but they did, collectively, choose their way out. Their movement from below, onto the main deck of the slaver, where they would wage and win an armed struggle for emancipation, would now trigger a larger historic social movement ashore.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Movement

  Locked belowdecks in the hold of the Amistad, with armed white men standing guard above them, the Africans felt the tug of forward motion as the Washington began to tow their vessel across Long Island Sound toward New London, Connecticut. The hold was once again a place of abject misery: many were sick and emaciated, some had bloated limbs, a few were dying. Their American captors had, without hesitation and without question, taken the side of the slaveholders José Ruiz and Pedro Montes when they boarded the vessel, freeing the white Cubans and incarcerating the Africans. Separated from their leader Cinqué, who lay manacled and chained on the brig ahead of them, the Africans once again had no idea where they were going or what would become of them. For all practical purposes, they had been reenslaved, or so it must have seemed.

  When the Washington and the Amistad arrived at New London on August 27, the naval vessel docked at Lawrence Wharf, while what was now effectively a prison ship was anchored several hundred yards off shore, “in the bay near the fort,” for the sake of security. Federal Marshal Norris Wilcox took formal possession of the captives, while Lt. Gedney went ashore to send an express message to Judge Andrew Judson of the district court in New Haven, notifying him of the crimes of piracy and murder that had, in his view, been committed. Word of the arrival of the Amistad rebels began to buzz around the waterfront, spreading rapidly, locally and throughout Connecticut, north to Boston, and south to New York and Washington. Spectators flocked to the docks in the thousands to see the so-called pirate ship and its fearsome black crew.1

  What they saw offshore was a ghost ship, with torn, tattered sails and a foul hull, covered with barnacles and sea-grass. One of the first to go aboard saw “a sight as we never saw before and never wish to see again.” The vessel’s “Ethiop crew” were “decked in the most fantastic manner in the silks and finery pilfered from the cargo, while others in a state of nudity, emaciated to mere skeletons, lay coiled upon the decks.” Cargo lay scattered around “in the most wanton and disorderly profusion.” The visitor at one point rested his hand “on a cold object,” only to discover that it was the naked corpse of a man who had died the night before, his face frozen and mouth open in “the ghastly expression of his last struggle.” Nearby sat Konoma, described by the visitor as “the most horrible creature we ever saw in human shape.” His teeth projected from his mouth at right angles and his eyes held a savage look. He was surely a cannibal. At last the visitor eagerly disembarked because of “the exhalations from her hold and deck”—the characteristic stench of a slave ship.2

  Judge Judson arrived in New London the morning of August 29 to conduct a judicial investigation and to determine if the Amistad Africans should be charged with piracy and murder. Judson was a former congressman known for his racist opposition to schoolteacher Prudence Crandall’s efforts to educate African American children in Canterbury, Connecticut, in 1833. President Andrew Jackson had appointed this member of the American Colonization Society and determined opponent of racial “amalgamation” to the federal bench in 1836. Judson decided to hold his hearings on the vessels, first on the Washington, where Ruiz and Montes gave their testimony about the rebellion, subsequent voyage, and capture by the navy, then on the Amistad. Lt. Meade, who spoke Spanish fluently, translated for the Spaniards, and added his own testimony about the encounter at Culloden Point. Judson apparently solicited no testimony from any of the Africans, perhaps because he himself could not communicate with them directly, perhaps because he felt he could learn all he needed to know from
the white men. He did, however, order Cinqué to be brought, in chains, to the commanding officer’s cabin aboard the Washington.3

  Cinque’s appearance gave a clue as to how he saw the legal proceeding. Wearing a red flannel shirt and white duck pantaloons he had found in the hold of the vessel, he also had “a cord round his neck, to which a snuff box was suspended.” The witness who offered the description did not understand what he was looking at, nor did any of the American officials at the hearing. The “snuff box” was actually a “greegree bag”—a container of sacred objects, charms or amulets charged with spiritual power, designed in Mende country to protect the person who wore it. Sometimes called “medicine,” these objects were believed to ward off bad fortune—“sickness, trouble, death.” Small bags or boxes containing objects such as cloth, graveyard dirt, a bit of iron, leopard skin, and perhaps a Quranic inscription on parchment, were important to warriors in southern Sierra Leone as they entered battle, especially what they called “big war.” Unable to understand the English and Spanish in which the white men spoke, Cinqué, according to an eyewitness, gazed at his accusers with fearless intensity, maintaining a “hero-like expression.” He knew his life was at stake. The warrior hoped the powerful objects in his greegree bag might help him in the “big war” against slavery.4

  At the first hearing Judson listened to the testimony and inspected the Amistad’s papers: a license for carrying slaves from Captain-General Joaquín de Ezpleta of Havana; certificates for the working sailors aboard the vessel; and a customs house clearance, which listed the Spanish names for the Africans, to make it appear that they were acculturated “ladinos” rather than “bozales” recently, and therefore illegally, imported from Africa. The main issues before Judge Judson were piracy and murder, but Ruiz and Montes had petitioned to recover what they considered to be their slave property. Charles Ingersoll represented the United States District Attorney, supporting the Cuban masters and expressing the hope that the former slaves would be returned to them.

  Judson then moved to the Amistad for a second hearing, not to get testimony from the Africans, but so that Antonio, the cabin boy, who saw the entire rebellion (when Ruiz and Montes did not) might specifically point out, during his testimony, precisely who had killed his master, Captain Ramón Ferrer, and the slave-sailor Celestino. With Meade serving as translator, Antonio described the uprising and pointed out three as the murderers: Cinqué and two others the correspondent did not name, probably Moru and Kimbo. At the end of the day Judson ruled that the Africans would be tried for “murder and piracy on board the Spanish schooner Amistad” in the Circuit Court of Hartford on September 17, 1839. He issued an order that they be held in the New Haven jail, to which they would be transported on August 30.5

  Government officials, naval officers, the Cubans, and the Africans were not the only people aboard the Washington and the Amistad during the hearings. Of special importance were an artist, J. Sketchley, an unnamed newspaper correspondent, and a local abolitionist named Dwight Janes. Drawn to the slave ship revolt that had taken place eight weeks earlier by the popular interest in it, these three visitors would strongly shape the evolution of the Amistad case in the aftermath of the hearing, in ways neither the Africans nor anyone else could have foreseen.

  Birth of a Hero

  Sketchley produced for popular consumption the first graphic image of the Amistad Rebellion, dated August 30, 1839: Cinqué stands on the deck of the vessel in a sailor’s frock (what is today called a buccaneer’s shirt) and a pair of duck pantaloons, striking a gallant pose, with his cane knife at the ready. Below the image of the swashbuckling hero is a caption: “Joseph Cinquez, Leader of the Piratical Gang of Negroes, who killed Captain Ramon Ferris and the Cook, on board the Spanish Schooner Amistad, taken by Lieut. Gedney, commanding the U.S. Brig Washington at Culloden Point, Long Island, 24th Augt 1839.” Beneath the caption was a speech delivered by Cinqué in which he exhorted his mates to fight back against slavery. The leader acts, talks, and looks like a Roman hero.6

  An arresting color lithograph was produced from this image soon thereafter: Cinqué appears in the red flannel shirt and the white duck pantaloons he actually wore to the judicial investigation. He is not a fearsome cannibal or “primitive” savage, but a handsome dark-skinned man in European garb. A man who was soon to stand trial for piracy and murder is depicted at the scene of the crime with the deadly weapon in his hand, as transcendently good and noble in his cause. Indeed, he appears as an executioner of justice, a slayer of tyrants. His history of resistance is simultaneously celebrated and commodified in the form of an image to be bought and sold.7

  “Joseph Cinquez, Leader of the Piratical Gang of Negroes”

  A related image, drawn by another New London artist named Sheffield, appeared as a broadside the following day, August 31, 1839, four days after the Amistad came into port. It contained another sympathetic image of Cinqué, dressed in the same frock, but this time with more explicit antislavery commentary: “JOSEPH CINQUEZ, the brave Congolese Chief, who prefers death to Slavery, and who now lies in Jail in Irons in New Haven Conn. awaiting his trial for daring for freedom.” Below the caption appeared another stirring speech Cinqué gave to his comrades. The image and text, in broadside form, were hawked in the streets of the cities, spreading the sensational news of heroic revolt.8

  “Joseph Cinquez, the brave Congolese Chief”

  A fourth image produced about the same time represented the rebellion and its aftermath by depicting not only Cinqué, but all of the Africans: “Joseph Cinquez Addressing his Compatriots on board the Spanish Schooner AMISTAD 26th Augt 1839.” The engraving chronicled a specific moment: the officers and sailors of the U.S. brig Washington have captured the vessel, and Cinqué, who had been separated from the others, has returned to give a speech designed to inspire collective resistance against their American captors. He strikes a classic orator’s pose, his right hand and eyes raised to the heavens. He explains to all that it would be better to “be killed than live many moons in misery.”9

  The main deck of the Amistad appears as a theatrical stage from which Cinqué delivers his lines. Standing by from right to left are the cast: “Señor Montes” smoking a cigar; Lt. Meade, his sword at the ready; the young Don José Ruiz; and Antonio the cabin boy. At the far left are three armed sailors, two with cutlasses drawn, all with pistols in their belts. They are at ease and one is smoking a short pipe. In the foreground are the “three children slaves of Montes” and beyond them, the Amistad men, in motley attire. They look at Cinqué with eager eyes and rapt attention. Although he speaks about resistance, the scene has a peaceful, even transcendent, communal feel. The original artist was likely Sketchley, who drew Cinqué in the same style, and in the same clothes, in the second portrait above.10

  “Joseph Cinquez Addressing his Compatriots on board the…AMISTAD”

  These glorifications of armed struggle were not, as they might appear, the work of an underground group of militant abolitionists. They were, rather, commissioned by, advertised in, and distributed by the penny paper the New York Sun. Moses Yale Beach, editor of the Sun, sensationalized the case and appealed to the popular appetite for heroic sea-robbers to sell newspapers and prints to a mass public. He succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. He and his fellow editors of the Sun were shocked by how popular the images became. After publishing portraits of Cinqué on Saturday, August 31, 1839, they noted the following Monday that the supply of prints had been exhausted immediately and that they had been unable to meet the clamor for more. They announced to their readers that they would, “by an early hour this morning, have another and a very large edition printed, and shall be prepared, on the opening of our office, to supply demands for any number.” They explained that they had printed enough on Saturday to satisfy “any ordinary demand,” but encountered a “tremendous run for them” for which they were not ready. This “was as unexpected to us as it was astonishing in itself.” They printed the image on “thick, fine pap
er, in a style of excellence,” suitable for framing. They also noted that the print had been republished in the Sunday editions of other newspapers. They were clearly proud of what they had done.11

  The New York Sun’s correspondent, who was also present at the judicial investigation in New London, created the textual equivalent of these images in what was probably the single most influential article published the first week the Amistad Africans were brought ashore, entitled “The Long, Low, Black Schooner.” Republished in the New York Journal of Commerce and several other newspapers, including an edited version as far south as the Charleston Courier, the long article (5,700 words) initiated a process that would continue for the next two years, with great historical effect: it created and disseminated widely a heroic and romantic image of Cinqué and hence of the entire rebellion.12

  The article begins by noting the intense public excitement caused by the arrival of the schooner in New London, then mentions the availability of the “splendidly lithographed” image of Cinqué. Early in a long summary of the rebellion, the voyage, and the capture, the article sketches the history and character of the leader of the revolt, identified as “the son of an African chief.” He is no ordinary man. He is, rather, “one of those spirits which appear but seldom.” Possessed of “sagacity and courage,” he is physically strong, able to endure privation; he has “a full chest, large joints and muscles, and built for strength and agility.” He has thick lips, beautiful teeth, and nostrils that flare with anger. His eyes convey “the cool contempt of a haughty chieftain” or “the high resolve which would be sustained through martyrdom,” as he wished. In repose his countenance “looks heavy, but under excitement it assumes an expression of great intelligence.” His bearing is free of levity, and “many white men might take a lesson in dignity and forbearance from the African Chieftain, who although in bondage, appears to have been the Ozeola of his race.” Compared to Osceola, a recently killed leader of the Second Seminole War being fought in Florida at that very moment, Cinqué was, in short, the perfect man to “become the leader in such an event as that which has thrown him on our shores.” By the time he had stepped off the Washington, he was, courtesy of the New York Sun, on his way to celebrity, soon to be embraced by an incipient social movement.13