The Amistad Rebellion

by Marcus Rediker

  Meantime, life in the dangerous place called jail continued for Cinqué and his comrades. Incarcerated alongside the Amistad Africans were other prisoners, some of them desperate and no doubt eager to escape, perhaps by any means necessary. The Africans were still deeply uncertain about who to trust and what their fate might be. They therefore took steps to arm themselves, which was of course against the law, but nonetheless crucial to their sense of self-organization, safety, and survival. Since many if not most had been Mende warriors, their preferred weapon was what they had used in combat in their native land, and what they had used to procure their freedom aboard the Amistad: they wanted knives, and they got them.

  A correspondent for the New York Morning Herald was the first to break the story about their illegal possession of knives, on October 23, 1839, a mere seven weeks after the Amistad Africans entered the jail. He wrote:

  It seems that Jinqua and his associates have been furnished secretly with knives. Who did this? Who would do this? Is it not likely that those weapons were conveyed to the savages by the same fanatics who would suborne them to perjury, in order to incarcerate Messrs. Ruiz and Montez? Is not this the most probable supposition? And if so, for what intent were they furnished with the weapons of murder? Was it to make the prison of New Haven as red with the blood of the white man as the decks of the Amistad?

  To the defenders of slavery, the presence of the knives proved that the Amistad Africans were murderers, making fresh plans for “blood and massacre.” In the eyes of the Morning Herald reporter, they were already clearly guilty of “the cold blooded murder of the captain and cook of the Amistad, and the aggravated cruelties practiced on Messrs. Ruiz and Montez.” The knives also proved that their abolitionist allies were dangerous fanatics who aided and abetted horrific new crimes to come. The Morning Herald correspondent shrieked in outrage: “Humanity must shudder at such doings! religion hang her head! and justice cry aloud for vengeance!” He concluded that the Amistad “savages” did not deserve the protection of the American legal system.39

  The uproar began when jailer Stanton Pendleton found a “large knife” in the possession of one of the Amistad Africans. Taken aback, he immediately ordered a thorough and careful search of the entire jail, whereupon he found eight more knives and yet “another deadly weapon” a little later. Cinqué had two of them. Each was about eight inches long, and both were drawn by an artist and included as a telling illustration in the Morning Herald. In his first interview with Tappan (assisted by Ferry), Cinqué had stated, “I would never take any advantage of any one,…but would always defend myself.” The largest of the recovered blades was a pruning knife, with a blade of three to four inches, “very sharp at the point.” The correspondent assumed that the purpose of the knives was “regaining their liberty, of which they are said to be unjustly restrained.” The Amistad Africans apparently considered the knives to be important possessions, for when the jailer tried to confiscate them, they resisted. He had to take them away “by force.”40

  The exposé by the Morning Herald created a scandal. The abolitionists were clearly embarrassed: the illegal possession of weapons made the Amistad Africans appear to be something other than the meek and peaceable Christians the abolitionists hoped they were becoming as a result of their ministry in the New Haven jail. The abolitionists comforted themselves that the Africans “wanted the knives to amuse themselves with, like children and savages generally.” They finally felt compelled to answer the charges through the newspaper, and in so doing they revealed more about what the Amistad Africans had been doing and how they had done it. They explained that the so-called dangerous weapons that had elicited such “alarm and suspicion” were in fact “nothing but common jack-knives.” They had been smuggled into the jail and given to them by visitors. The abolitionists singled out “boys” for blame; such were among the thousands who filed through the jail to get a look at the famous insurrectionists. More of the knives, it seems, had been secretly “brought them by the interpreters,” the sailors John Pratt and James Covey. This is not surprising. The knife was a common weapon of choice on the waterfront. It was easy to carry and conceal, and it could be useful in many situations. Knife fights among seafarers were commonplace. Yet respectable middle-class abolitionists did not approve of this rough and dangerous milieu, nor did they approve of the knives in jail. They stated that it was proper that the Amistad Africans be disarmed, insisting all the while that the knives were wanted for no “other purpose than their own amusement and convenience.” They were “perfectly harmless, peaceable and good tempered” people after all.41

  Pirates and Law Again

  When a handful of the Amistad Africans—Cinqué, Grabeau, Burna, Fuli, Ndamma, and Fabanna—returned to Hartford for the continuation of their legal hearing (the rest remained in New Haven), they may have encountered a strange publication about themselves. A True History of the African Chief Jingua and his Comrades was anonymously written by someone who hoped to capitalize on, and contribute to, the swell of popular interest in the rebels and their now widely known leader. The twenty-eight-page pamphlet was published in October 1839 and based to a large extent on early newspaper coverage of the rebellion and its aftermath.42 The title page indicates that it was published simultaneously in Hartford, Boston, and New York, but this may have expressed a hope for sales rather than a fact of publication. It was most likely published in Hartford in anticipation of a crowd for the November hearings. The author of the pamphlet fleshed out the newspaper reports with a variety of plagiarized sources, in large part narratives of travelers to Africa. Most of them had not been to Sierra Leone, nor to the Gallinas coast, and least of all to the inland areas where the Amistad Africans had lived before they were enslaved.43

  The pamphlet was based, in its central assumption, on a misunderstanding. The author wrote A True History in September 1839, before Pratt and Covey had been found on the docks of New York, and so proceeded on the basis of erroneous reports that the Africans were, not Mende, but Mandingo, Senegambians now better known as the Mandinka. He therefore included “a Description of the Kingdom of Mandingo, and of the Manners and Customs of the Inhabitants.” Because the Mandinka had to a considerable extent converted to Islam, the author assumed, wrongly, that the Amistad captives were Muslims.44

  The popular pamphlet reflected the early newspaper reporting that the Amistad Africans were “black pirates,” even though the official charges of piracy had been dropped at the September hearings. Cinqué was depicted as a Barbary corsair, with a keffiyah (headdress), a shemagh (a traditional Muslim scarf), and a kaif (a curved Arabian sword), facing a rising sun with a spyglass in his hand. The Amistad’s rigging, a block, and a mast are visible in the background. Another engraving featured “The Sugar Knife, with which the Captain of the Amistad was killed,” thereby dramatizing the rebellion itself. The author also expressed an odd sort of abolitionism, calling Cuba a “receptacle of the buccaneers,” by which he meant slave traders. Since Cuba was like the “piratical state of Barbary,” the United States should take possession of it, and bring it to heel, as France had recently done with Algiers.45

  The centrality of James Covey to the legal and political defense of the Amistad Africans was made clear when, after a brief discussion in court of the issue of jurisdiction—did it belong to New York, because the Africans were brought ashore on Long Island, or to Connecticut, where the naval officers brought the Amistad?—it became clear that the proceedings could not continue “on account of the sickness of the interpreter.” Judge Judson postponed the hearing again, until January 7, 1840. The Amistad Africans returned to New Haven.46

  Soon thereafter the Africans enacted a legal hearing of their own. One evening as the jailer was closing cell doors for the night, he discovered that an unnamed African was missing. He found him hiding in the provision room in the cellar, “snugly stowed away between two casks, and locked up so that he could not get out.” Returned to “his brethren,” he faced a palaver, with Cinq
ué presiding, to consider allegations of theft. Found guilty under “African law ‘for tiefy,’” he was to suffer “30 stripes” upon the “naked body” with a “common riding whip.” Someone was deputed to administer the “African mode of punishment”: the culprit was “ordered to stand in a bending posture, with his arms folded,” apparently after refusing to have his hands tied. He bore his punishment with “the stoicism of an old offender.” The jailer apparently tried to intervene, without success. The offender’s fellows “then seated him on the floor, in the middle of the room, and passed round him, pointing and crying ‘tiefy, tiefy,’” in an act of ritual humiliation. This, they explained to the jailer, was “Mendi law,” designed to enforce moral norms and maintain social discipline as decided by the group. The traditions of the Poro Society commanded the Amistad Africans to discipline and govern themselves while in jail.47

  By now New England’s snow and cold were coming on. The Amistad Africans had never known such weather. Some had seen ice and snow on mountaintops, but it was a novelty to experience them firsthand. They laughed in astonishment as they held ice in their hands and likened snow to “fresh salt.” The raw, persistent cold was another matter, especially because New Haven’s jail, like most others, was damp, drafty, and poorly heated. Abolitionists were quick to demand warmer garments for the prisoners for winter, and when the Africans complained of the cold, the jailer (who had made plenty of money on admissions) finally installed stoves in four of their rooms, which made it warm enough for some of them to dress in their lighter, more traditional garments. The gnawing, numbing cold would continue to be “much dreaded by Cinque and the rest.”48

  January Hearings

  Tensions rose as the next round of hearings neared. All interested parties—and there were many—prepared their arguments as debates about the fate of the Amistad captives intensified in newspapers across the nation. Even though the charges of piracy and murder had been dropped, the issue of whether they were the lawful slaves of Ruiz and Montes remained, and the Africans continued, with good reason, to think that the big palaver might end in death. When the Havana-based Richard Robert Madden visited New Haven in November, he noted that if the Africans were returned to their so-called owners, Ruiz and Montes, in Havana, their likelihood of suffering execution as rebellious slaves was great. The gallows continued to shadow the case.49

  This was made clear one day in jail when one of the teachers, probably Benjamin Griswold, asked his Amistad students “if they would like to go to Havana.” “Havana,” each one repeated deliberately, making sure they understood the question. “Yes,” replied the teacher, “Havana.” Suddenly, “‘No, No,’ burst from every tongue, accompanied with a most decided shake of the head,” their faces “assuming an expression of the deepest anxiety.” One of them then “drew his hand across his throat, indicating the fate they feared.” A second “laid his arms across each other at the wrists,” rehearsing the recent bondage of manacles. A third “declared, by signs, that their legs were secured as well as their hands.” A fourth “extended his arm violently, and by bringing his thumb and finger together, imitated the snapping of a whip.” Answering his question with a dramatic reenactment of their previous experience, the Africans made it clear that they associated Havana with slavery, violence, and death.50

  On another occasion, several of the Amistad Africans watched through the jail window as the local militia gathered, reviewed, and paraded on New Haven Green. According to an eyewitness, “They all shrunk back, and directly inquired if preparations were making to cut their throats.” Their fears grew worse when some curious members of the militia—wearing their swords—stopped by the jail to visit them. As warriors who understood the material and symbolic powers of the bladed weapon, especially in beheading captured fighters, they believed that “they were about to be put to death.”51

  It may have been a comfort that the hearings beginning January 7 would be held in New Haven. The location held an advantage for the Amistad Africans and their allies as the city had been the epicenter of the struggle over the last four months. As in Hartford in November, only a few of the Amistad Africans were allowed to attend the hearing, even though it would have been much easier to get them to Judge Judson’s courtroom this time: Cinqué and “half a dozen of his countrymen were in court, comfortably clad.” They watched as “hundreds,” many of whom had visited them in jail and some of whom had gotten to know them quite well, crowded into the courtroom. The officers, professors, and students of Yale University turned out in force. Lewis Tappan noted that “the principal inhabitants of New Haven” attended the hearing, as did working people such as the artisan-artist John Warner Barber. People from all walks of life “thronged the courtroom.” In this moment of “thrilling interest,” the “sympathy of the community” was clearly with the Africans.52

  One of the most important witnesses was the rank-and-file abolitionist Dwight Janes, who had gone aboard the Amistad soon after it was towed into New London harbor. He recounted his conversation with Ruiz, whom he had asked, “Can they speak English?” The reply was, “A few words.” “Can they speak Spanish?” “Oh no, they are just from Africa.”53 Another was James Covey, who also testified on the first day, apparently with great effect: “The prisoners speak the Mendi language, have Mendi names, and are from Mendi, the country of which he himself is a native.”54 Charles Pratt, who was recalled by Captain Fitzgerald to resume service aboard the Buzzard, left a deposition that was admitted as evidence. Pratt spoke Gbandi with Moru and testified that his countryman, and indeed all of the others, had recently come from Africa, and could not have been longtime residents of Cuba, as Ruiz and Montes maintained.55

  Cinqué, Grabeau, and Fuli—three of the most powerful personalities among the rebels—gave testimony, continuing the trend they had established: they cited their origins in Africa, their enslavement, shipment, confinement in Havana, and abuse aboard the Amistad. Cinqué once again acted out the trials of the Middle Passage: he sat down on the courtroom floor and “held his hands together and showed how they were manacled.” The Africans said more about the rebellion than ever before: “Sinqua killed cook because cook said he was going to kill them and eat them. Killed Captain after he killed African.” They also added considerable information about what had happened on Long Island before their capture by the Navy.56

  When on the second day (January 8) Professor Josiah Gibbs began his testimony, giving his “decided opinion” that “they are native Africans and recently from Africa,” Judson interrupted him, saying “he was fully convinced that the men were recently from Africa, and that it was unnecessary to take up time in establishing that fact.” This was an astonishing development, as it went to the heart of the case and signaled that the judge had decided it in favor of the Amistad Africans. It is likely that the combined testimony of Janes, Covey, Pratt, Cinqué, Grabeau, and Fuli had persuaded him.57

  At various points in the hearing Judson had trouble controlling the crowd, which pulsed with sympathy for the Africans and vocally expressed pleasure on points in their favor. Lewis Tappan observed that the assembled actually cheered Baldwin as he vigorously demanded that his clients go free. Baldwin got another rise when he turned to—and turned on—United States District Attorney W. S. Holabird: “By what right does the U.S. Attorney appear here at all?” Whenever the eloquent lawyer or one of his associates (Theodore Sedgwick and Seth Staples) spoke, the crowd “hung upon their lips spell bound.”58

  After five long days of hearings, Judson issued several rulings. The district court did have jurisdiction because the Amistad had been found on the “high seas.” Lieutenant Thomas Gedney and his fellow officers were entitled to salvage, on the vessel but not on the Africans, who under Connecticut law could not be considered property. The Long Island hunters Green and Fordham were not entitled to salvage. The court would send the cabin boy Antonio back to the heirs of the deceased Captain Ferrer in Cuba.59

  In the ruling that everyone had been waiting for
, Judson declared that the Africans were in fact “each of them Natives of Africa and were born free and ever since have been and still of right are free and not slaves.” It was a stunning vindication of the African and abolitionist argument; indeed, Judson repeated verbatim what Baldwin and Staples had submitted to the court in their opening plea. Moreover, the words had been spoken by a member of the American Colonization Society, whose attitudes and legal record on race had caused many to expect a contrary ruling. The Amistad Africans would therefore be turned over to President Martin Van Buren for repatriation to their native land.60

  Tappan concluded that “the Judge felt the pressure of public sentiment.” Judson lived in New Haven, ground zero in the struggle, and witnessed the widespread support for the Africans. He visited the prisoners in jail on two occasions, which meant that the issues before him were concrete and human. Some pressure he felt came directly from the Africans themselves, for when he visited them, they made it a point to tell him how much they wanted to go home.61

  When the Reverend Day arrived with James Covey at the jail and relayed the news of Judson’s ruling to the Africans who had not been in the courtroom, their “hearts overflow[ed] with gratitude.” “Words cannot express the joy they felt,” Day wrote. All but one understood the Mende translation of the news. The one who did not (the Temne man Pie) “sat still, not knowing what was meant” until one who spoke both Mende and his language “communicated the decision to him.” He began to clap his hands for gladness of heart, and expressed his thanks to Day. The Congregational minister seized the moment to pray with the Africans, to direct “their thoughts to the Lord Jesus Christ as their Deliverer. They knelt, and followed the interpreter audibly, and with apparent devoutness.” Day also noted that “They long to go back to their Father-land.”