The Amistad Rebellion

by Marcus Rediker

39. “Case of Ruiz and Montez—Atrocious Developments at New Haven,” NYMH, October 23, 1839; “Another African Death,” NYMH, November 9, 1839.

  40. “Abolitionists going to the Devil—False Affidavits—Arming of the Africans,” NYMH, October 23, 1839; “Abolitionists a Disgrace,” NYMH October 26, 1839; “Another African Death,” NYMH, November 9, 1839; “Private Examination of Cinquez,” NYCA, September 13, 1839.

  41. George Day to Lewis Tappan, October 23, 1839, and Amos Townsend Jr. to Lewis Tappan, October 29, 1839, ARC; “The Africans,” NYJC, November 6, 1839. The same article appeared in the Emancipator the following day. It was unsigned but likely written by Lewis Tappan.

  42. “The Long, Low Black Schooner,” NYS, August 31, 1839; “To the Committee,” NYJC, September 10, 1839; “Private Examination,” NYCA, September 13, 1839; “The Negroes of the Amistad,” New Hampshire Sentinel, October 2, 1839; CA, October 5, 1839.

  43. “Removal of the Africans to Hartford—Crim. Con. among the Savages—Exposure of the Abolition Falsehood, &c.,” NYMH, November 19, 1839; “Herald on Amistad Trial,” NYMH, November 21, 1839. Among the works quoted and, more commonly, plagiarized are Mungo Park, Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa: Performed in the Years 1795, 1796, and 1797 (London, 1799); Richard Lander, Journal of an Expedition to Explore the Course and Termination of the Niger (London, 1832); Joseph Hawkins, A History of a Voyage to the Coast of Africa, and Travels into the Interior of that Country (Troy, NY, 1797); Captain J. K. Tuckey, Narrative of an Expedition to Explore the River Zaire (London, 1818); and Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, The African Slave Trade, and its Remedy (London, 1839). On the visitors to Hartford, see “Amistad,” NYCA, September 20, 1839.

  44. The identification of the Amistad Africans as “Mandingoes” appeared in “Incarcerated Captives,” NYCA, September 6, 1839. See also the NYS, September 10, 1839. A couple of months later, a correspondent of the NYMH (November 12, 1839) also surveyed Mandingo culture as a way of describing the captives, even though James Covey had made it clear by then that they were Mende.

  45. The 1820s and 1830s witnessed a popular fascination with “Moorish culture,” not least because of Lord Byron’s influence. See the reference to the romantic “Moorish knights” above and the comments by Nathans in Slavery and Sentiment 12: 120–22. The final paragraph of A True History is taken from the ARCJ 8 (1832): 121 (quotation).

  46. “Herald on Amistad Trial,” NYMH, November 21, 1839; “Trial,” NYMH, November 22, 1839.

  47. “Lynch Law among the Amistad Africans,” Farmer’s Cabinet, December, 6, 1839. One of the first to recognize the importance of African secret societies to American history was Sterling Stuckey, chapter 1, “Introduction: Slavery and the Circle of Culture,” 3–97.

  48. Pennsylvania Inquirer and Daily Courier, December 28, 1839; “The Amistad Africans,” Boston Courier, December 13, 1841.

  49. “Extract of a letter from Rev. H. G. Ludlow, to one of the Editors, dated New Haven, Jan. 13, 1840,” NYJC, January 15, 1840; “The Amistad Negroes,” Barre Gazette, December 6, 1839.

  50. “Captives of the Amistad,” Emancipator, December 19, 1839.

  51. “The Negroes of the Amistad,” New Hampshire Sentinel, October 2, 1839; Lewis, “Recollections of the Amistad Slave Case,” 126. For additional evidence of the fear of execution among the Amistad Africans, see “Trial of the Africans,” NYMH, November 20, 1839; “Captives of the Amistad,” Emancipator, December 19, 1839; “Anecdotes of the Captured Africans,” PF, February 27, 1840.

  52. “Trial of the Amistad Africans,” Liberator, January 17, 1840; “The Amistad Case,” NYS, January 14, 1840; Lewis Tappan to John Scoble, January 20, 1840, and Lewis Tappan to Richard R. Madden, n.d. (probably January 20, 1840), Lewis Tappan Letterbook, vol. III, October 5, 1839–September 7, 1840, Correspondence, 1809–1872, Tappan Papers; John W. Barber Diary, Jan. 1813–Dec. 1883, unpaginated, folder A, J. W. Barber Collection (1813–1883), NHCHS; “Letter from Rev. H. G. Ludlow,” NYJC, January 15, 1840.

  53. “Trial of the Amistad Africans,” Liberator, January 17, 1840.

  54. “The Africans of the Amistad,” Rhode Island Republican, January 15, 1840.

  55. Deposition of Charles Pratt, U.S. District Court, October 1839, NAB.

  56. Testimony of Cinqué, Testimony of Grabeau, Testimony of Fuliwa, all January 8, 1840, U.S. District Court, Connecticut, NAB.

  57. “African Testimony,” NYJC, January 10, 1840.

  58. “Trial of the Amistad Africans,” Liberator, January 17, 1840.

  59. [Lewis Tappan], The African Captives: Trial of the Prisoners of the Amistad on the Writ of Habeas Corpus, before the Circuit Court of the United States, for the District of Connecticut, at Hartford; Judges Thompson and Judson, September Term, 1839 (New York, 1839).

  60. “A Decision at Last in the Amistad Case,” NYMH, January 15, 1840; “Ruling of the Court,” Records of the U.S. District and Circuit Courts for the District of Connecticut, NAB.

  61. Tappan to Madden, 1840; “Amistad Trial—Termination,” Emancipator, January 16, 1840.

  62. Argument of John Quincy Adams Before the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of the United States, Appellants, vs. Cinque, and others, Africans, captured in the schooner Amistad, by Lieut. Gedney, Delivered on the 24th of February and 1st of March 1841 (New York: S. W. Benedict, 1841), 84; “Amistad Trial—Termination,” Emancipator, January 16, 1840; “U.S. Schr. Grampus,” NYJC, January 17, 1840; “The Grampus to New Haven,” Charleston Courier, January 27, 1840; “Executive Interference,” New-Bedford Mercury, February 21, 1840; “Strange Disclosure,” New Hampshire Sentinel, June 3, 1840; “The Secretary of State to the Secretary of the Navy,” Connecticut Courant, June 6, 1840; “Amistad Captives,” Oberlin Evangelist, July 1, 1840.

  63. “Amistad Trial—Termination,” Emancipator, January 16, 1840. After its voyage to New Haven the Grampus was dispatched to Africa as one of two vessels in an American anti-slave-trade patrol. See Donald L. Canney, Africa Squadron: The U.S. Navy and the Slave Trade, 1842–1861 (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2006), 26–27.

  64. “The Late Deacon Nathaniel Jocelyn,” New Haven Journal and Courier, January 15, 1881; Simeon E. Baldwin, “The Captives of the Amistad,” Papers of the New Haven Colony Historical Society 4 (1888), 349; Lewis, “Recollections of the Amistad Slave Case,” 125–28. Thanks to Joseph Yannielli for supplying a copy of Jocelyn’s obituary. It should be noted that Tappan disavowed “physical resistance” in the event of an unfavorable legal decision. See Lewis Tappan to Roger Baldwin, January 20, 1841, Baldwin Family Papers.

  65. “Common Sense,” Portsmouth Journal of Literature and Politics (October 5, 1839).

  Chapter Five: “Mendi”

  1. “The Africans of the Amistad,” North American and Daily Advertiser, February 5, 1840; Benjamin Griswold to Lewis Tappan, January 28, 1840, ARC.

  2. Emancipator, January 30, 1841; “Amistad Captives,” Oberlin Evangelist, July 1, 1841.

  3. L. N. Fowler, “Phrenological Developments of Joseph Cinquez, Alias Ginqua.” American Phrenological Journal and Miscellany 2 (1840): 136–38; “The Amistad Painting,” New England Weekly Record, May 23, 1840; “Amistad Exhibit at Peale’s Museum and Portrait Gallery,” NYCA, June 16, 1840; “Visit to Hartford, Connecticut,” NYMH, September 24, 1839.

  4. “Another of the Amistad Africans is Dead,” Farmer’s Cabinet, November 8, 1839; “Trial of the Amistad Africans,” Liberator, January 17, 1840; New Hampshire Sentinel, September 9, 1840.

  5. “Letter from New York,” PF, December 29, 1841; Thompson in Africa, 285–86.

  6. “Plans to Educate the Amistad Africans in English,” NYJC, October 9, 1839; “Amistad Captives,” Oberlin Evangelist, July 1, 1840.

  7. “Letter from Rev. S.W. Magill,” AFASR, October 1, 1840; AFASR, January 1, 1841; “James B. Covey, the Interpreter, in the Case of the Africans Taken in the Amistad,” Protestant Vindicator, February 3, 1841; “Letter from the Teacher of the Africans,” PF, March 3
1, 1841.

  8. “Trial,” Liberator, January 17, 1840; “The Africans of the Amistad,” North American and Daily Advertiser, February 5, 1840.

  9. J. W. Gibbs, “A Mendi Vocabulary,” American Journal of Science and Arts 38 (1840): 41–48; Lewis Tappan to Messrs Bartlett and Cary, October 21, 1839, New York, Lewis Tappan Letterbook, vol. III, October 5, 1839–September 7, 1840, Correspondence, 1809–1872, Tappan Papers, f. 41.

  10. “The Amistad Africans,” Farmer’s Cabinet, October 9, 1840; “Letter from the Teacher,” PF, March 31, 1841. One of the textbooks was likely John Pierpont, The American First Class book, or, Exercises in Reading and Recitation selected principally from Modern Authors of Great Britain and America, and Designed for the Use of the Highest Class in Public and Private Schools (Boston, 1836).

  11. Lewis Tappan to Richard R. Madden, n.d., but probably Jan. 20, 1840, Tappan Papers; “Africans Taken in the Amistad,” AFASR, July 1, 1840; Gibbs, “A Mendi Vocabulary,” 48; “Plans to Educate,” NYJC, October 9, 1839.

  12. Kale to Miss Chamberlain, Westville, Feb. 9, 1841, Afro-American Collection (1688–1896), “Amistad Case, 1839,” box I, folder R-2, NHCHS.

  13. Boston Courier, September 3, 1840 (capture of birds); “Mendis Depart,” NYJC, November 27, 1841.

  14. Barber, 13; “Removal of the African Prisoners,” NYCA, September 16, 1839; “New Haven,” Daily National Intelligencer, September 19, 1839; “The Liberated Mendians,” PF, August 18, 1841.

  15. “Letter from the Teacher,” PF, March 31, 1841.

  16. Barber, 2.

  17. Barber, 2; John W. Barber Diary, Jan. 1813–Dec. 1883, unpaginated, folder A, J. W. Barber Collection (1813–1883), NHCHS.

  18. Barber, 2.

  19. Barber, 9, 20, 24. Abolitionists later discussed the pamphlet in ways that suggested no role in its creation. See Amos Townsend to Lewis Tappan, November 22, 1841, ARC.

  20. Barber’s own views of the event may be seen in the caption he wrote to accompany the “Death of Capt. Ferrer”: “Don Jose Ruis and Don Pedro Montez of the Island of Cuba, having purchased fifty-three slaves at Havana, recently imported from Africa, put them on board the Amistad, Capt. Ferrer, in order to transport them to Principe, another port on the Island of Cuba. After being out from Havana about four days, the African captives on board, in order to obtain their freedom, and return to Africa, armed themselves with cane knives, and rose upon the Captain and crew of the vessel. Capt. Ferrer and the cook of the vessel were killed; two of the crew escaped; Ruiz and Montez were made prisoners” (emphasis added). Barber thus repeated the central abolitionist argument about the case.

  21. John Vanderlyn, The Murder of Jane McCrea, 1804, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut. Thanks to Kirk Savage for pointing out the influence of this painting/lithograph. Barber had written about and illustrated the “Murder of Miss McCrea” in his book for young readers: Historical Scenes in the United States: A Selection of Important and Interesting Events in the History of the United States (New Haven, CT: Monson and Co., 1827), image facing 40, text 42–43.

  22. Samuel Warner [comp.], Authentic and impartial narrative of the tragical scene which was witnessed in Southampton County (Virginia) on Monday the 22d of August last when fifty-five of its inhabitants (mostly women and children) were inhumanly massacred by the blacks! Communicated by those who were eye witnesses of the bloody scene, and confirmed by the confessions of several of the blacks while under Sentence of Death (Printed for Warner & West, New York, 1831).

  23. “Amistad Exhibit,” NYCA, June 16, 1840, and June 23, 1840. Less is known of Moulthrop than the other artists who engaged with the Amistad case. He seems not to have been well-known or financially successful in his work; indeed he was bankrupt shortly after his dramatization of the rebellion. See “Bankrupts in Connecticut,” Law Reporter 5 (1842): 139.

  24. “Barnum’s American Museum,” NYMH, October 3, 1847; “Gavitt’s Original Ethiopian Serenaders,” The North Star, June 29, 1849.

  25. “Amistad Captives,” Norwich Aurora, September 2, 1840.

  26. “Peale’s Museum and Portrait Gallery,” New York Evening Post, June 23, 1840.

  27. “Wax Figures,” CA, June 27, 1840; “The Exhibition,” Workingman’s Friend, July 11, 1840; “Amistad Captives,” Norwich Aurora, September 2, 1840.

  28. Broadside advertisement of “The Magnificent Painting of the Massacre on board the schooner Amistad,” 1839, Afro-American Collection (1688–1896), “Amistad Case, 1839,” box I, folder R-6, NHCHS. Hewins wrote that in Italy, “the lower orders as it is said, are more subject to transports of rage and in that state to commit desperate actions, especially the romans. Still I think few strangers have done them even handed justice, and for myself I like them better than any other Europeans of whom I have knowledge.” Papers of Amasa Hewins, 1795–1855, Mss. L450, fo. 64, Boston Athenaeum. The published edition of the journal is Francis H. Allen, ed., Hewins’s Journal: A Boston Portrait-Painter Visits Italy; the Journal of Amasa Hewins, 1830–1833 (Boston: The Boston Athenaeum, 1931).

  29. Simeon E. Baldwin, “The Captives of the Amistad,” Papers of the New Haven Colony Historical Society 4 (1888): 331–70. The paper was read at the Society on May 17, 1886. Baldwin notes Hewins’s “large picture of the scene, which is now deposited in this building, the property of our associate, Mr. Wm B. Goodyear” (333).

  30. Broadside advertisement, “The Magnificent Painting.”

  31. Benjamin Griswold to Lewis Tappan, New Haven, April 25, 1840, ARC. This and the next seven paragraphs quote from this letter.

  32. Griswold, who knew the Amistad Africans well, considered the artist’s representation of several of them to be not only unrealistic, but unfair. Fuli was not malicious but rather “noble-spirited,” while Konoma was nothing of the cannibal. Griswold had “noticed a scar of a wound on his [Ndamma’s] head received in that affray, from which it is probable, he had a part to act somewhat different from that which the artist has ascribed to him.” He thought that only the images of Grabeau and Konoma bore any resemblance to the people he knew so well.

  33. “Letter from Magill,” AFASR, October 1, 1840.

  34. Dwight P. Janes to Rev. Joshua Leavitt, New London, August 30, 1839, ARC.

  35. For an early example of the recurring claim that the captives had the right to resist, see “Amistad Issues,” NYCA, September 4, 1839.

  36. Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic (Boston: Beacon Press, 2000), 223.

  37. “Amistad Case as Revolution,” CA, October 5, 1839. On the African American appropriation of the American Revolution in this era, see Patrick Rael, Black Identity & Black Protest in the Antebellum North (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 262–66. Washington was not the only military hero to which Cinqué was compared. For an account of how his heroic feats exceeded those of Napoleon, see “The Amistad Captives,” Liberator, November 19, 1841.

  38. William Lloyd Garrison to Harriet Minot, May 1, 1833, in Walter M. Merrill, ed., The Letters of William Lloyd Garrison, vol. I (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1971), 226; Foster Wild Rice, “Nathaniel Jocelyn, 1796–1881,” Connecticut Historical Society Bulletin 31 (1966): 97–145.

  39. Joseph Cinque, by Nathaniel Jocelyn (1796–1881), oil on canvas, 1840, 1971.205, Gift of Robert Purvis, 1898, NHCHS. See also Eleanor Alexander, “A Portrait of Cinque,” Connecticut Historical Society Bulletin, 49 (1984): 30–51; Richard J. Powell, “Cinqué: Antislavery Portraiture and Patronage in Jacksonian America,” American Art 11 (1997): 49–73.

  40. For advertisements of Sartain’s engraving see PF, February 24, 1841; “Portrait of Cinque,” CA, February 27, 1841; “Portrait of Cinque, Chief of the Amistad Captives,” AFASR, March 15, 1841.

  41. “Conditions for Amistad Captives,” NYCA, September 9, 1839; Dwight P. Janes to R. S. Baldwin, New London, August 31, 1839, ARC. See also New Hampshire Sentinel,
September 4, 1839; NYCA, September 10, 1839; “The Prisoners of the Amistad,” Haverhill Gazette, September 27, 1839.

  42. “The Negroes of the Amistad,” New Hampshire Sentinel, October 2, 1839; Letter from A. F. Williams to Bro. Tappan, published in the Emancipator, August 19, 1841.

  43. Quoted in Helen Pratt, “My Grandfather’s Story,” MSS HM 58067, Huntington Library.

  44. “Trial of the Africans,” NYMH, November 20, 1839.

  45. Testimony of Antonio, January 9, 1840, U.S. District Court, Connecticut, NAB.

  46. “The Case of the Africans Decided for the Present—Habeas Corpus not Sustained,” NYMH, Sept. 25, 1839. It is possible that Burna learned English by contact with Liberated Africans in and around Freetown, but no such evidence emerged, even though the planners of the return to Africa solicited this kind of information.

  47. Boston Courier, September 3, 1840.

  48. “Mendis in Jail,” Hartford Daily Courant, March 27, 1841.

  49. Amos Townsend Jr. to Lewis Tappan, October 29, 1839, ARC.

  50. Cinqué to Roger Baldwin, February 9, 1841, Baldwin Family Papers.

  51. Africans to Lewis Tappan, Westville, February 9, 1841, ARC.

  52. “The Mendi People,” Emancipator, September 23, 1841; see also “Africans of the Amistad—Love of Home,” ARCJ 17 (1841).

  53. On the way in which creolization and Africanization went together within a process of ethnogenesis, see David Northrup, “Becoming African: Identity Formation among Liberated Slaves in Nineteenth-Century Sierra Leone,” Slavery and Abolition 27 (2006): 16–17. An important study of the genesis of Igbo society and culture in the African diaspora is Alexander X. Byrd, Captives and Voyagers: Black Migrants Across the Eighteenth-Century British Atlantic World (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2008), pt. I. For a broad survey of the process of ethnogenesis, see James Sidbury and Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra, “Mapping Ethnogenesis in the Atlantic World,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., (2011): 181–208, and the comments by James H. Sweet, Claudio Saunt, Pekka Hämäläinen, Laurent Dubois, Christopher Hodson, Karen B. Graubart, and Patrick Griffin, with a response by Sidbury and Cañizares-Esguerra, 209–46.