The Real Amistad Story

by Jeremy Brecher

    Director Stephen Spielberg deserves credit for bringing to public attention what
historians used to refer to dismissively as “the Amistad incident.”  It is the story of a
group of Africans who were captured in Sierra Leone and brought in chains to the
Americas -- and who revolted, captured their ship, the Amistad, and eventually were
seized off the coast of New England.  They won their freedom in a case before the
Supreme Court and ultimately sailed back to their homeland in Africa.  Unfortunately,
Spielberg’s movie Amistad not only distorts the historical record – arguably an
inevitability in a Hollywood feature – but also misses much of the story’s drama and
significance.  Fortunately the documents are available to tell a story that is not only truer
but also more dramatic and meaningful.
    In late August, 1839 the New London Gazette reported, "Much excitement has been
created in New York for the past week, from the report of several boats having seen a
schooner, full of Negroes, and in such condition as to lead to the suspicion that she was a
pirate."
    The "long low black schooner" was the Amistad.  A United States Navy ship sighted
her near Long Island and captured her.  It took prisoner the Africans who were in control
of the ship, released two white Spaniards they were holding, and towed the ship to New
London, Connecticut.
    The next day Federal District Judge Andrew T. Judson heard the two Spaniards give
their version of the Amistad's story.  Jose Ruiz told Judge Judson, “I bought 49 slaves in
Havana, Cuba, and shipped them on board the schooner Amistad.”  Ruiz was
accompanied by Pedro Montes and four children he had bought as slaves.  The Amistad
sailed for the Spaniards' plantations in another part of Cuba.  But after three days a
rebellion broke out, led by Sengbe Pieh, whom the Spaniards called Joseph Cinque.  Ruiz
testified, “In the night I heard a noise in the forecastle.  All of us were asleep except the
man at the helm.  I saw this man Joseph Cinque.  There was no moon.  It was very dark. 
I took up an oar and tried to quell the mutiny;  I cried no! no!  Then I heard one of the
crew cry murder.”  The captives rushed the deck and seized the Spaniards.  “They told
me I should not be hurt.  They tied our hands.  The slaves told us next day they had killed
all.”  Pedro Montes added, “"They were all glad, next day, at what had happened.  They
commanded me to steer for their country.
    Montes and Ruiz were ordered to head the Amistad toward the rising sun -- back to
Africa -- but at night they secretly turned around and headed up the coast of North
America.  They sailed for two months, losing ten of the Africans from lack of food and
water.  Eventually they made their way to Long Island Sound near Montauk Point.
    The two Spaniards asked the court to hand over the Amistad to Spanish officials.  They
also demanded the cargo -- and they included as part of the cargo the black men and
children they claimed to own as slaves. 
    Judge Andrew Judson’s background did not suggest that he would be sympathetic to
the Africans.  Indeed, in 1831 he had instigated a law restricting schools for blacks in
Connecticut and then prosecuted a young white schoolmistress, Prudence Crandall, for
admitting black girls to her school in Canterbury.  After hearing the Spaniards' hair-
raising story, Judge Judson decided that the African men should be charged with mutiny
and murder and the children held as witnesses. 
    A New London abolitionist named Dwight Janes went to the first court hearing and
asked Ruiz about the captives.  “I inquired if they could speak Spanish.  He said no, they
were just from Africa.”  Janes instantly grasped the significance of this fact, on which the
entire case would ultimately turn.  He immediately wrote leading abolitionists about the
Amistad.  They saw it as a heaven-sent opportunity to call public attention to the evils of
slavery.  They quickly formed the Amistad Committee and requested contributions to hire
lawyers for the captives.  Their first circular described the captives as “Thirty-eight
fellow-men from Africa, piratically kidnapped from their native land, transported across
the seas, and subjected to atrocious cruelties.”
    Three veteran abolitionists led the Amistad Committee.  Lewis Tappan was a wealthy
New York merchant who with his brother founded the Journal of Commerce.  In 1834 an
anti-abolitionist crowd had ransacked his home and burned its furnishings.  Joshua
Leavitt was a lawyer and a Congregational minister who edited the abolitionist
newspaper The Emancipator in New York.  He helped found the Liberty Party, a
predecessor to the Republican Party.  Simeon Jocelyn was a draftsman who had founded
and served as minister to the first black church in New Haven.  He had tried to establish a
college there for blacks but it was blocked by anti-abolitionists. 
    The Amistad Committee persuaded Roger Sherman Baldwin, a distinguished
abolitionist attorney who would later become the governor of Connecticut, to serve as
lawyer for the Africans.  (Spielberg’s presentation of Baldwin as a callow young real
estate lawyer -- initially more interested in securing his fee than in securing the rights of
the Africans and then preoccupied with winning Cinque’s respect -- is only one of several
calumnious portrayals of abolitionists that bear no relation to reality.)
    The captives were taken to the New Haven jail, then to Hartford for trial.  Justice
Smith Thompson of the U.S. Circuit Court dismissed the charges of murder and mutiny
on the grounds that a United States court could not try the captives for a crime alleged to
have occurred on a Spanish vessel.  But Judge Judson of the District Court refused to
release the Africans because they were still claimed as property by Ruiz and Montes. 
They were returned to jail in New Haven.
    Josiah Willard Gibbs, a professor of ancient languages at Yale, visited the Africans in
the New Haven jail.  He was determined to break the communication barrier with the
Africans.  By holding up first one, then two, then additional fingers, he was able to elicit
the Africans’ words for the numbers from one to ten.  Gibbs then went to New York and
walked up and down the docks counting out loud until he found James Covey, an African
seaman who could understand his counting.  Covey had been captured by slavers, freed,
taught English, and employed on a British warship.   (Speilberg ridicules Gibbs as a fool
who confidently gives absurdly false translations of the Africans’ speech.)  
    Gibbs brought Covey to meet the prisoners and serve as their interpreter.  One of those
present reported that “One of the captives, coming to the door and finding one who could
talk in his own language, took hold of him and literally dragged him in.  All seemed
overwhelmed with joy, all talking as fast as possible.” Covey made it clear that most of
the captives were Mendi, a people who live in what is now Sierra Leone.
    With Covey to interpret, the Mendi were finally able to tell their story.  He explained
that they had been captured in Africa by Africans who sold them to European slave
traders.  “Cinque was a rice farmer with a wife and three children.  He was seized by four
men when traveling in the road and his right hand tied to his neck.  He was sold to the
son of a neighboring king who sold him to a Spaniard.”  “Grabeau speaks four African
languages.  He was caught on the road when going to buy clothes.”  “Kali was a small
boy.  He was stolen in the street.”  “Teme, a young girl, lived with her mother, brother,
and sister.  A party of men in the night broke into her mother's house and made them
prisoners;  she never saw her mother or brother again.” 
    Grabeau described how hundreds of captives from all over the region were brought to
the slave port of Lomboko.  “Slaves are put into a prison, two are chained together by the
legs.”  A Portuguese slave trader bought five or six hundred Africans and loaded them
onto the slave ship Tecora.  Grabeau recalled, “On board there was a large number of
men, but the women and children were far the most numerous.  They were fastened
together in couples by the wrists and legs day and night.  The space between decks was
four feet -- they were obliged, if they attempted to stand, to keep in a crouching posture. 
If they left any of the rice that was given to them uneaten, they were whipped.  It was a
common thing for them to be forced to eat so much as to vomit.  Many of the men,
women, and children died on the passage.”
    The Africans were brought to Havana, in the Spanish colony of Cuba, and sold as
slaves.  Cinque recalled that when the captives were separated in Havana, most of them,
himself included, were in tears.  “They had come from the same country, and were now
to be parted forever.”
    Ruiz and Montes bought fifty-three of the captives and set sail in the Amistad for their
plantations in another part of Cuba.  The translator recounted Foone’s story of the
voyage: “On board the vessel he had not enough to eat or drink, only two potatoes and
one plantain twice a day, and half a teacup of water morning and evening.  He asked for
more water and was refused.  For stealing water he was severely flogged.  Powder, salt,
and rum were applied to his wounds.”  The marks of his wounds were still to be seen.
    Foulewa recalled that the captives were told that a terrible fate lay ahead.  “Cook told
us they'd kill and eat us.”  That night Cinque used a nail to break his padlock, then
unchained his companions.  They found sugar cane knives and stormed the deck. 
According to Foulewa, “Cinque killed cook, because cook said he was going to kill them
and eat them.  He killed the captain after he killed an African.”
    Before their stories were known, the Amistad Africans had often been portrayed as
violent savages.  One newspaper opined, “They were hardly above the apes and monkeys
of their own Africa;  the language they jabber incomprehensible here.” Once they were
able to tell their stories through a competent translator, the Africans were increasingly
seen as victims of oppression who had fought for their freedom.  They were portrayed as
heroes in paintings, poems, and plays.  They also developed a dense and evolving set of
relations with the Yankee world into which they had been plunged.  By omitting this
interaction, Spielberg misses much of the human side of the Amistad story.
    Students from Yale University began teaching the Mendi English and instructing them
in Christian religion.  An observer wrote the newspaper The Colored American, “It would
do your heart and soul good to sit and see them learn.  When they come to a hard word,
soon as they find out what it is, so that they understand it, they will laugh right out loud,
it makes them so glad.”  One of their teachers wrote, “Those who have been with them
have not unfrequently seen the tear start at the mention of the aged father, or the
defenseless wife and child, and stout men turn aside and weep, and the little children cry
as if their hearts would break.”  Asked if they wanted to return to Africa, one replied in
broken English,  “Tell the American people, that we very, very much want to go to our
home.”
    After months of delay, the Amistad case finally came to trial in New Haven, with
Andrew Judson again presiding.  Lawyers for President Martin Van Buren strove to keep
the courts from letting the Africans go free.  Van Buren had no strong views on slavery,
but he needed votes from slaveholders in the South to win reelection.  His District
Attorney William Holabird secretly wrote the State Department, “I should regret
extremely that the rascally Blacks should fall into the hands of the abolitionists, with
whom Hartford is filled.”  The President had a ship waiting in the New Haven harbor to
carry the Africans back to Cuba -- and almost certain death -- should they lose their case.
    Hundreds of spectators crowded the trial, which lasted a week.  Representatives for
Spain demanded that the United States return the Amistad and its cargo.  They cited
Pickney’s treaty between Spain and the United States which provided that “All ships and
merchandise which shall be rescued out of the hands of any pirates or robbers on the high
seas [shall] be taken care of and restored entire.”  Spain's lawyers argued that the black
prisoners were "merchandise" that should be returned along with the ship.  They pointed
out that slavery was legal in Cuba, and that the Amistad's papers showed that the blacks
were legally the property of Ruiz and Montes.
    Lawyers for the Africans answered that while slavery might be legal in Cuba, the slave
trade between Africa and the Americas had been outlawed by a treaty between Spain and
Great Britain and had been declared a "heinous crime" by Spain itself.  The papers saying
the Africans were legal slaves of Ruiz and Montes falsely stated they had long been
slaves in Cuba.  “They are natives of Africa, and were born free, and ever since have
been and still of right are and ought to be free and not slaves.”
    The Mendi were familiar with court proceedings because Mendi society had a legal
system of its own.  Cinque’s testimony can be read in the court record: “Four men took
me on the road.  Came from Mendi to Lomboko.  Three moons from Africa to Havana; 
ten nights in Havana.  The cook told us they carry us to some place, and kill and eat us.”
    To the surprise and relief of the abolitionists, Judge Judson found that the Africans
were neither slaves nor Spanish subjects.  They were therefore free by the law of Spain
itself.  “Cinque and Grabeau shall not sigh for Africa in vain.  Bloody as may be their
hands, they shall yet embrace their kindred.”
    The United States government appealed the decision to the Supreme Court.  The
abolitionists persuaded former President of the United States John Quincy Adams to help
argue their case before the Supreme Court.  One of the African children named Kale,
eleven years old and a star student, wrote him in English,     “Dear Friend Mr. Adams,
    “I want to write a letter to you because you love Mendi people and you talk to the great
court.  We want you to ask the court what we have done wrong.  What for Americans
keep us in prison.  Some people say Mendi people dolt, because we no talk American
language.  Merica people no talk Mendi language;  Merica people dolt!  Dear friend Mr.
Adams, you have children, you have friends, you love them, you feel very sorry if Mendi
people come and carry them all to Africa.  We feel bad for our friends, and our friends all
feel bad for us.  We want you to tell court that Mendi people no want to go back to
Havana, we no want to be killed.  All we want is make us free.”
    Before the Supreme Court, John Quincy Adams, known as "Old Man Eloquent,"
condemned the role played by United States government officials as "an immense array
of power" exerted "on the side of injustice." “Have the officers of the U.S. Navy a right to
seize men by force, to fire at them, to overpower them, to disarm them, to put them on
board of a vessel and carry them by force and against their will to another State, without
warrant or form of law?”  The Supreme Court ruled that the Africans were entitled to
their liberty like any other freeborn human beings and should be free to go wherever they
wished.  The court said they had exercised “The ultimate right of all human beings in
extreme cases to resist oppression, and to apply force against ruinous injustice.”
    The decision gave heart to abolitionists both black and white.  A New York abolitionist
meeting declared, “The decision by which the Amistad captives were liberated has a
powerful influence on the question of human rights, not only in this country, but
throughout the world.  We can behold the faint glimmering of a more auspicious morn
when the judges of our land will declare that property in man cannot be held.”
    The Mendi greeted the news of the Supreme Court's decision with joy.  Free at last, the
survivors – 35 men and boys and 3 girls -- were brought to Farmington, Connecticut by
abolitionist supporters.  Charles Ledyard Norton was a child in Farmington at the time.  
“When it was decided to quarter them in Farmington pending arrangements for their
return to Africa” he later recalled, “there was consternation among the timid souls in the
quiet village.  Stories of cannibalism were plentifully circulated, and there were formal
protests against forcing such a burden upon the community.” 
    Nonetheless, the supporters of the Mendi prevailed.  “Barracks were erected and here
the former captives made their home.  Cinque was a born ruler and ably seconded by his
lieutenant, Grabbo, he maintained a very creditable degree of discipline among his
followers.  They were, for the most part, free to roam about, except for regular school
hours, and townsfolk soon ceased to fear them.  Anxious mamas at first trembled and
kept their children behind bolted doors, but before long it was no uncommon sight to see
the big grown-up blacks playing with little white children in village dooryards.”
    Norton’s father was President of the New York Central Railroad and a major supporter
of the Amistad captives.  “The African visitors were often welcomed by my father at his
home.  A broad flight of steps led down from the southern piazza, and I distinctly
remember seeing the athletic Cinque turn a somersault from these steps and then go down
the sloping lawn in a succession of hand springs, heels over head, to the wonderment and
admiration of my big brothers and myself.” 
    The Mendi spent eight months in Farmington, even planting and harvesting their own
crops.  But they made it clear to their hosts that what they wanted was to go home.  So
their supporters began raising money to help them return to Africa.  They hoped that the
Mendi would help set up a Christian mission in Sierra Leone. 
    Not only Spielberg but also most historians writing about the Amistad have ignored the
important role that black communities played in this effort.  James Pennington, pastor of
the First Colored Congregational Church in Hartford and himself an escaped slave, wrote,
“I love the Mendians.  I love their country.  I purpose to cooperate in fitting out a mission
in every possible way, and also to give my prayers and labors to its support.”  Pennington
helped form the Union Missionary Society, the first such organization which refused to
accept money from slaveholders.  Its first convention, held in Hartford, was attended by
Cinque and other of the Mendi as well as black leaders from throughout the Northeast. 
    The Union Missionary Society and the Amistad Committee organized dozens of
fundraising meetings.  At a typical one, “The Africans read from the New Testament, by
which they showed the success with which they had mastered our language, as well as the
proficiency they had made in learning to read.  They sung two hymns in English with
great melody and harmony, and sung, also, two of their native songs.  Kinna made an
address in English, giving the history of their captivity.”
    Nearly a year after the Supreme Court decision, they had raised enough money to hire
a ship for the thirty-five surviving Africans and five missionaries.  As they reached the
coast of Sierra Leone, Cinque wrote Lewis Tappan of the Amistad Committee, “I thank
all 'merican people, for they send Mendi people home.  I shall never forget 'merican
people.  Your friend, Cinque.”
    Some of the Mendi returned to their home villages;  others remained at the Mendi
mission.  Many of the future leaders of Sierra Leone were educated at schools established
by the Mendi mission.  Sarah Margru, one of the children from the Amistad, returned to
Africa with the other Mendi, came back to the United States to study at Oberlin College,
then went back to teach at the Mendi mission.
    In the United States, the Amistad Committee and the Union Missionary Society joined
with other groups to form the American Missionary Association, which became the
largest abolitionist organization in the country.  After the Civil War it founded hundreds
of schools for freed slaves in the South and many of the historically black colleges.  The
Race Relations Institute it set up at Fisk University trained many of the civil rights
leaders of the 1960s. 
    The “Amistad incident” played a significant role in the struggle against slavery.  It
provided an issue around which the often-divided abolitionist movement could unite.  It
focused public attention on the conflict between slavery and widely-held religious and
political values.  And it showed the humanity and the capacity for heroism of those who
might be enslaved.
    The legal decision in the Amistad case did not challenge slavery itself.  But for the first
time the United States Supreme Court asserted that people of color had the same rights as
anybody else and that the courts must enforce them.  It would be many years, however,
before the United States would actually begin to respect the rights of people of color. 
Indeed, sixteen years after the Amistad decision, the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott
case declared that a Negro had “no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” 
“They are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word ‘citizens’
in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that
instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States.”  Only in the wake of
the Civil War did the United States begin to implement the racial equality that the
Amistad case had seemed to promise.  Judge Constance Baker Motley has called the
Supreme Court's Amistad decision "the first legal milestone in the long, difficult struggle
in the courts by persons of color for equal justice under law."
    Twenty-two years after the Amistad case, President Abraham Lincoln issued the
Emancipation Proclamation declaring slaves in the South free.  At an abolitionist meeting
to celebrate, Lewis Tappan pointed out the connection between the Amistad case and the
abolition of slavery.  As he spoke, he held in his hand the letter he had received from
John Quincy Adams twenty-two years before telling him the results of the Supreme
Court’s decision in the Amistad case: “The captives are free.
    An 1841 letter in the abolitionist newspaper The Emancipator prophesied, “Cinque
will continue to be an object of interest, and his name will be the watchword of freedom
to Africa and her enslaved sons throughout the world.”  A century-and-a-half later, the
Amistad captives remain a powerful symbol.  In the past few years they have been
represented not only in Spielberg’s movie but in plays, novels, and an opera. 
    Much of the credit for the recovery of the Amistad story goes to grassroots citizens
groups in Connecticut and elsewhere who began to revive the Amistad’s memory well
before Spielberg started work on his movie.  On the hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of
the Amistad's liberation, a new "Amistad Committee" of New Haven citizens unveiled a
bronze sculpture of Cinque on the New Haven green.  A Connecticut Freedom Trail has
been established to commemorate African American historical sites, with a strong
emphasis on the Amistad story.  On March 8, 1998 the keel will be laid for a full-scale
reproduction of the Amistad, which will serve as a sailing educational monument to this
formative struggle for human rights.