View source for La Amistad

{{Short description|1839 slave-ship takeover}}
{{Redirect|Mutiny on the Amistad|the 1987 book|Mutiny on the Amistad (book){{!}}''Mutiny on the Amistad'' (book)}}
{{Other uses|Amistad (disambiguation)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}
{|{{Infobox ship begin
| display title = ''La Amistad''
| infobox caption = ''La Amistad''
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{{Infobox ship image
| Ship image = File:La Amistad (ship) restored.jpg
| Ship caption = ''La Amistad'' off Culloden Point, Long Island, New York on August 26, 1839<br>(contemporary painting, artist unknown)
}}
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| Ship country = Spain
| Ship flag = [[File:BandMercante1785.svg|100x35px]]
| Ship name = ''La Amistad''
| Ship owner = Ramón Ferrer
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| Ship country = United States
| Ship flag = {{USN flag|1840}}
| Ship name = ''Ion''
|Ship namesake=[[Ion (mythology)]]
| Ship owner = Captain George Hawford, [[Newport, Rhode Island]]
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'''''La Amistad''''' ({{IPA|es|la a.misˈtað|pron}}; [[Spanish language|Spanish]] for ''The Friendship'') was a 19th-century two-masted [[schooner]] owned by a Spaniard living in [[Cuba]]. It became renowned in July 1839 for a slave revolt by [[Mende people|Mende]] captives who had been captured and sold to European slave traders and illegally transported by a Portuguese ship from West Africa to Cuba, in violation of European treaties against the [[Atlantic slave trade]]. Spanish plantation owners Don José Ruiz and Don Pedro Montes bought 53 captives in [[Havana, Cuba]], including four children, and were transporting them on the ship to their plantations near Puerto Príncipe (modern [[Camagüey, Cuba]]).<ref>
{{cite web
|url=https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/amistad/
|title=Teaching With Documents:The ''Amistad'' Case
|publisher=[[National Archives and Records Administration]]
|access-date=March 14, 2013
}}</ref> The revolt began after Sengbe Pieh (also known as [[Joseph Cinqué]]) unshackled himself and the others on the third day.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Purdy|first=Elizabeth|title=Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619–1895: From the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass|publisher=Oxford African American Studies Center|pages=Amistad}}</ref> They took control of the ship, killing the captain and the cook. Two Africans were also killed in the melee.

Pieh ordered Ruiz and Montes to sail to Africa. Instead, they sailed north up the east coast of the United States, sure that the ship would be intercepted and the Africans returned to Cuba as slaves. The [[revenue cutter]] ''[[Washington (1837)|Washington]]'' seized ''La Amistad'' off [[Montauk Point]] on Long Island, New York. Pieh and his group escaped the ship but were caught offshore by citizens. They were incarcerated in [[New Haven, Connecticut]] on charges of murder and piracy. The man who captured Pieh and his group claimed them as property. ''La Amistad'' was towed to New London, Connecticut, and those remaining onboard were arrested. None of the 43 survivors on the ship spoke English, so they could not explain what had taken place. Eventually, language professor [[Josiah Willard Gibbs Sr.|Josiah Gibbs]] found [[James Covey]] to act as interpreter, and they learned of the abduction.

Two lawsuits were filed. The first case was brought by the ''Washington'' ship officers over salvage property claims, and the second case charged the Spanish with enslaving Africans. Spain requested President [[Martin Van Buren]] to return the African captives to Cuba under international treaty.

Because of issues of ownership and jurisdiction, the case gained international attention as ''[[United States v. The Amistad]]'' (1841). The case was finally decided by the [[Supreme Court of the United States]] in favor of the Mende people, restoring their freedom. It became a symbol in the United States in the movement to [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolish slavery]].

==Description==
''La Amistad'' was a 19th-century two-[[Mast (sailing)|masted]] schooner of about {{convert|120|ft|m}}. In 1839 it was owned by Ramón Ferrer, a Spanish national.<ref name="Adams">{{cite book|last1=Adams|first1=John Quincy|title=Argument|date=1841|publisher=S. W. Benedict|location=New York|pages=13–14|isbn=9781429710794|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LZIsAAAAIAAJ|access-date= January 15, 2017}}</ref> Strictly speaking, ''La Amistad'' was not a typical [[slave ship]], as it was not designed like others to traffic massive numbers of enslaved Africans, nor did it engage in the [[Middle Passage]] of Africans to the Americas. The ship engaged in the shorter, domestic coastwise trade around Cuba and islands and coastal nations in the Caribbean. The primary cargo carried by ''La Amistad'' was sugar-industry products. It carried a limited number of passengers and enslaved Africans being trafficked for delivery or sale around the island.{{Citation needed|date=January 2017}}

==History==

===1839 slave revolt===
[[File:Amistad revolt.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|left|1840 engraving depicting the ''Amistad'' revolt]]
{{Suppression of the Slave Trade}}
Captained by Ferrer, ''La Amistad'' left Havana on June 28, 1839, for the small port of Guanaja, near [[Puerto Príncipe, Cuba]], with some general cargo and 53 African captives bound for the sugar plantation where they were to be delivered.<ref name="Adams" /> These 53 [[Mende people|Mende]] captives (49 adults and four children) had been captured by African slave catchers or otherwise enslaved in [[Mendiland]]<ref>[https://archive.org/details/AmistadDocuments History of the Amistad Captives], page 9 ff</ref> (in modern-day [[Sierra Leone]]), sold to European slave traders and illegally transported from Africa to Havana, mostly aboard the Portuguese slave ship ''[[Tecora|Teçora]]'', to be sold in Cuba. Although the United States and Britain had banned the Atlantic slave trade, Spain had not abolished slavery in its colonies.<ref name="Lawrance">{{cite book|last1=Lawrance|first1=Benjamin Nicholas|title=Amistad's Orphans: An Atlantic Story of Children, Slavery, and Smuggling.|date=2015|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=9780300198454|pages=130–131|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fIAKBgAAQBAJ|access-date= January 15, 2017}}</ref><ref name="WDL">{{cite web |url = http://www.wdl.org/en/item/3080/ |title = Unidentified Young Man |website = [[World Digital Library]] |date = 1839–1840 |access-date = July 28, 2013 }}</ref> The crew of ''La Amistad'', lacking purpose-built slave quarters, placed half the captives in the main hold and the other half on deck. The captives were relatively free to move about, which aided their revolt and commandeering of the vessel. In the main hold below decks, the captives found a rusty file and sawed through their manacles.<ref name=Finkenbine>
{{cite book
|first=Roy E.
|last=Finkenbine
|editor-first=Jane
|editor-last=Hathaway
|title=Rebellion, Repression, Reinvention: Mutiny in Comparative Perspective
|publisher=Greenwood
|year=2001
|isbn=978-0-275-97010-9
|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6dLGTvbWiT0C&pg=PA238
|chapter=13 The Symbolism of Slave Mutiny: Black Abolitionist Responses to the ''Amistad'' and ''Creole'' Incidents
|page=238
|access-date=August 18, 2012
}}</ref>

On about July 1, once free, the men below quickly went up on deck. Armed with machete-like [[Cane knife|cane knives]], they attacked the crew, successfully gaining control of the ship, under the leadership of [[Joseph Cinqué|Sengbe Pieh]] (later known in the United States as [[Joseph Cinqué]]). They killed the captain Ferrer as well as the ship's cook Celestino;<ref name="docsouth.unc.edu">John Barber (1840). [https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/barber/barber.html "A History of the Amistad Captives"]. New Haven, Connecticut: Hitchcock & Stafford – via University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240413165123/https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/barber/barber.html|date=2024-04-13}}</ref> two captives also died, and two sailors Manuel Pagilla and Jacinto escaped in a small boat. Ferrer's slave/mulatto cabin boy Antonio<ref name="docsouth.unc.edu"/> was spared, as were José Ruiz and Pedro Montes, the two alleged owners of the captives, so that they could guide the ship back to Africa.<ref name="Adams" /><ref name="WDL"/><ref name=Finkenbine/> While the Mende demanded to be returned home, the navigator Montes deceived them about the course, maneuvering the ship north along the North American coast until they reached the eastern tip of [[Long Island]], New York.

Several New York pilot boats came across ''La Amistad'' as on August 21, 1839, when she was discovered thirty miles southeast of [[Sandy Hook, New Jersey|Sandy Hook]] by the pilot-boat [[Blossom (pilot boat)|''Blossom'']] who supplied the men with water and bread. When they attempted to board the pilot-boat to escape, the pilot-boat cut the rope that was attached to ''La Amistad.'' The pilots then communicated what they felt was a [[slave ship]] to the [[Collector of the Port of New York]].<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/369544801/?terms=%22something%20like%20a%20pirate%22&match=1|title=Something like a Pirate|work=Hartford Courant|place=Hartford, Connecticut |date=27 August 1839|page=2|via=[[Newspapers.com]]|url-access=limited|access-date=15 Jan 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/176607993/?terms=%22pilot%20boat%20Blossom%22&match=1|title=Reprduced slave ship will house black history exhibit|work=Hartford Courant|place= Hartford, Connecticut |date=13 March 1995|page=9|via=[[Newspapers.com]]|url-access=limited|access-date=15 Jan 2021}}</ref> Two days later, the ''[[Gratitude (pilot boat)|Gratitude]]'' pilot boat came across ''La Amistad'' when she was twenty-five miles east of [[Fire Island]]. When Captain Seaman of the ''Gratitude'' wanted to put a pilot aboard, one of the ringleaders of ''La Amistad '' ordered the men to fire on the ''Gratitude''. Gun shots hit the pilot boat but she was able to escape.<ref>{{cite book|last= Hunt|first= Bernice Kohn |url=https://archive.org/details/amistadmutiny00hunt/page/4/mode/2up?q=Gratitude |title=The Amistad Mutiny |work=McCall |place= New York |date=1971|pages=4–5|isbn= 9780841520356 |access-date=25 October 2021}}</ref>

Discovered by the naval [[brig]] {{USS|Washington|1837|6}} while on surveying duties, ''La Amistad'' was taken into United States custody.<ref name="Adams"/><ref>Between 1838 and 1848, the USRC ''Washington'' was transferred from the [[United States Revenue Cutter Service]] to the [[US Navy]]. See: Howard I. Chapelle (1949). ''The History of the American Sailing Navy''. New York: Norton / Bonanza Books. {{ISBN|0-517-00487-9}}</ref>{{page needed|date=June 2020}} By the time of their trial, six of the captives had died.<ref name="docsouth.unc.edu"/>

====Court case====
{{Main|United States v. The Amistad}}[[File:Joseph Cinque.jpg|thumb|left|A print of Cinqué that appeared in ''[[The Sun (New York)|The Sun]]'' on August 31, 1839]]
The ''Washington'' officers brought the first case to federal district court over salvage claims, while the second case began in a Connecticut court after the state arrested the Spanish traders on charges of enslaving free Africans.<ref name="WDL" /> The Spanish foreign minister, however, demanded that ''La Amistad'' and its cargo be released from custody and the Mende captives sent to Cuba for punishment by Spanish authorities. The [[Van Buren administration]] accepted the Spanish crown's argument, but Secretary of State [[John Forsyth (Georgia)|John Forsyth]] explained that the President could not order the release of ''La Amistad'' and its cargo because the executive could not interfere with the judiciary under American law. He also could not release the Spanish traders from imprisonment in Connecticut because that would constitute federal intervention in a matter of state jurisdiction.{{citation needed|date=March 2020}} Abolitionists [[Joshua Leavitt]], [[Lewis Tappan]], and [[Simeon Jocelyn]] formed the Amistad Committee to raise funds for the defense of ''La Amistad''{{'s}} captives. Roger Sherman Baldwin, grandson of [[Roger Sherman]] and a prominent abolitionist, represented the captives in the New Haven court to decide the fate of the Mende people. Baldwin and former President [[John Quincy Adams]]<ref>{{cite book|editor-last=Rodriguez|editor-first=Junius|title=Encyclopedia of Emancipation and Abolition in the Transatlantic World|publisher=M. E. Sharpe |year=2007 |pages=9–11}}</ref> argued the case before the Supreme Court which ruled in favor of the Africans.[[File:Supreme court opinion Amsitad.gif|thumb|upright=0.8|Text of the ''Amistad'' Supreme Court decision]]
A widely publicized court case ensued in New Haven to settle legal issues about the ship and the status of the Mende captives. They were at risk of execution if convicted of mutiny, and they became a popular cause among [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolitionists in the United States]]. Since 1808, the United States and Britain had prohibited the international slave trade.<ref>
{{cite book
|url=http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=002/llsl002.db&recNum=0463
|work=U.S. Congressional House Proceedings. 9th Congress. 2nd Session
|title=A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774–1875
|chapter=22 Statutes at Large
|page=426. ''American Memory''
|publisher=Library of Congress
|access-date=July 11, 2012
}}</ref> In order to avoid the international prohibition on the African slave trade, the ship's owners fraudulently described the Mende as having been born in Cuba and said that they were being sold in the Spanish domestic slave trade. The court had to determine if the Mende were to be considered salvage and thus the property of naval officers who had taken custody of the ship (as was legal in such cases), the property of the Cuban buyers, or the property of Spain, as Queen [[Isabella II of Spain|Isabella II]] claimed.{{citation needed|date=June 2020}} A question was whether the circumstances of the capture and transport of the Mende meant that they were legally free and had acted as free men rather than slaves.<ref name="WDL"/>

Judges ruled in favor of the Africans in the district and circuit courts, and the case ''[[United States v. The Amistad]]'' reached the US Supreme Court on appeal. In 1841, it ruled that the Mende people had been illegally transported and held as slaves, and they had rebelled in self-defense.{{citation needed|date=June 2020}} It ordered them freed.<ref name="WDL"/> The US government did not provide any aid, but 35 survivors returned to Africa in 1842,<ref name="WDL"/> aided by funds raised by the [[United Missionary Society]], a black group founded by [[James W. C. Pennington]]. He was a Congregational minister and fugitive slave in [[Brooklyn]], New York, who was active in the abolitionist movement.<ref>Webber, Christopher L. (2011). ''American to the Backbone: The Life of James W. C. Pennington, the Fugitive Slave Who Became One of the First Black Abolitionists.'' New York: Pegasus Books. {{ISBN|1605981753}}, pp. 162–169.</ref> The Spanish government claimed that the Mende people were Spanish citizens not of African origin. This created tension among the U.S. government, the Spanish crown, and the British government, which had outlawed the slave trade in the British Empire with the [[Slave Trade Act 1807]] and had recently abolished slavery in the British Empire with the [[Slavery Abolition Act 1833]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nps.gov/articles/amistad-how-it-began.htm|title=Amistad: How it Began |website=U.S. National Park Service |date=August 2, 2017 |language=en|access-date=2020-02-26}}</ref>

===Later years===
''La Amistad'' had been moored at the wharf behind the [[New London Customhouse|US Custom House]] in [[New London, Connecticut]] for a year and a half, and it was auctioned off by the [[U.S. Marshal]] in October 1840. Captain George Hawford of [[Newport, Rhode Island]] purchased the vessel and then needed an act of Congress passed to register it.{{citation needed |date=August 2012}} He renamed it ''Ion''. In late 1841, he sailed ''Ion'' to [[Bermuda]] and [[Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands|Saint Thomas]] with a typical [[New England]] cargo of onions, apples, live poultry, and cheese.

Hawford sold ''Ion'' in [[Guadeloupe]] in 1844.{{citation needed|date=March 2020}} There is no record of what became of it under the new French owners in the Caribbean.

==Legacy==
The [[Amistad Memorial (New Haven)|Amistad Memorial]] stands in front of [[New Haven City Hall and County Courthouse]] in New Haven, Connecticut, where many of the events occurred related to the affair in the United States.

The [[Amistad Research Center]] at [[Tulane University]], [[New Orleans, Louisiana]] is devoted to research about slavery, abolition, civil rights, and African Americans; it commemorates the revolt of Mende people on the ship by the same name.{{citation needed|date=July 2013}} A collection of portraits of ''La Amistad'' survivors is held in the collection of [[Yale University]], drawn by William H. Townsend during the survivors' trial.<ref name="WDL" />

===Replica===
{|{{Infobox ship begin |infobox caption=''Freedom Schooner Amistad'' |display title=none}}
{{Infobox ship image
|Ship image=Amistad2010.jpg
|Ship caption=''Freedom Schooner Amistad'' at [[Mystic Seaport]] in 2010
}}
{{Infobox ship career
|Hide header              =title
|Ship country=United States
|Ship flag={{USN flag|2000}}
|Ship name=
|Ship owner=*2000–2015: Amistad America, Inc., New Haven, Connecticut
*from 2015: Discovering Amistad, Inc., New Haven, Connecticut
|Ship ordered=
|Ship builder=[[Mystic Seaport]]
|Ship original cost=
|Ship laid down=1998
|Ship launched= March 25, 2000
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{{Infobox ship characteristics
|Hide header=
|Header caption=
|Ship class=
|Ship tons burthen=136 L. tons
|Ship length={{convert|80.7|ft|abbr=on}}
|Ship beam={{convert|22.9|ft|abbr=on}}
|Ship draft={{convert|10.1|ft|abbr=on}}
|Ship hold depth=
|Ship propulsion=Sail, 2 Caterpillar diesel engines
|Ship sail plan=Topsail [[schooner]]
|Ship complement=
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|}
Between 1998 and 2000, artisans at [[Mystic Seaport]] in [[Mystic, Connecticut]] built a replica of ''La Amistad'' using traditional tools and construction techniques common to wooden schooners built in the 19th century, but using modern materials and engines, officially named ''Amistad''. It was promoted as "Freedom Schooner ''Amistad''".<ref name="USCG">{{cite web|title=Amistad|url=http://www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/pls/webpls/cgv_pkg.vessel_id_list?vessel_id_in=1096750|website=Coast Guard Vessel Documentation|publisher=NOAA Fisheries|access-date= January 14, 2017|location=Silver Spring, Maryland |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20170116160856/http://www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/pls/webpls/cgv_pkg.vessel_id_list?vessel_id_in=1096750 |archive-date= January 16, 2017 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Marder|first1=Alfred L.|title=About the Freedom Schooner ''Amistad''|url=http://www.amistadcommitteeinc.org/story-of-the-amistad|publisher=Amistad Committee, Inc|access-date=January 14, 2017|location=New Haven, Connecticut|archive-date=August 11, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210811024205/https://www.amistadcommitteeinc.org/story-of-the-amistad|url-status=dead}}</ref> The modern-day ship is not an exact replica of ''La Amistad'', as it is slightly longer and has higher [[Freeboard (nautical)|freeboard]]. There were no old blueprints of the original.

The new schooner was built using a general knowledge of the [[Baltimore Clipper]]s and art drawings from the era. Some of the tools used in the project were the same as those that might have been used by a 19th-century shipwright, while others were powered. Tri-Coastal Marine,<ref>{{cite web
 |url          = http://www.tricoastal.com/amistad.html
 |title        = The New Topsail Schooner ''Amistad''
 |access-date   = August 18, 2012
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20120209131410/http://www.tricoastal.com/amistad.html
 |archive-date = February 9, 2012
 |url-status     = dead
}}</ref> designers of "Freedom Schooner ''Amistad''", used modern computer technology to develop plans for the vessel. Bronze bolts are used as fastenings throughout the ship. ''Freedom Schooner Amistad'' has two [[Caterpillar Inc.|Caterpillar]] diesel engines and an external ballast keel made of lead. This technology was unavailable to 19th-century builders.

"Freedom Schooner ''Amistad''" was operated by Amistad America, Inc. based in New Haven, Connecticut. The ship's mission was to educate the public on the history of slavery, abolition, discrimination, and civil rights. The homeport is New Haven, where the ''Amistad'' trial took place. It has also traveled to port cities for educational opportunities. It was also the State Flagship and Tall ship Ambassador of Connecticut.<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://www.sots.ct.gov/sots/cwp/view.asp?a=3188&q=392608
|title=State of Connecticut Sites, Seals, & Symbols
|work=Connecticut State Register & Manual
|access-date=August 18, 2012
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120926135650/http://www.sots.ct.gov/sots/cwp/view.asp?a=3188&q=392608
|archive-date=September 26, 2012
|url-status=dead
}}</ref> The ship made several commemorative voyages: one in 2007 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the [[Atlantic slave trade]] in Britain (1807) and the United States (1808),<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.culture24.org.uk/history+%2526+heritage/work+%2526+daily+life/race+and+identity/art50181
|title=Amistad Sails Into Bristol for Slave Trade Commemorations
|publisher=[[Culture24]]
|date= August 30, 2007
|access-date=December 7, 2009
}}</ref> and one in 2010 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of its 2000 launching at Mystic Seaport. It undertook a two-year refit at Mystic Seaport starting in 2010 and was subsequently mainly used for sea training in [[Maine]] and for film work.<ref name=Courant3>{{cite news| last=Lender| first=Jon| title=Troubles Aboard the Amistad| url=https://www.courant.com/2013/08/31/troubles-aboard-the-amistad/| access-date= October 30, 2013| newspaper=Hartford Courant| date= August 3, 2013}}</ref>

In 2013, Amistad America lost its non-profit organization status after failing to file tax returns for three years amid concern for accountability for public funding from the state of Connecticut.<ref name=Courant>{{cite news| title=State Missed Signs As Tall Ship Amistad Foundered| url=https://www.courant.com/2013/09/03/state-missed-signs-as-tall-ship-amistad-foundered-2/| access-date= October 30, 2013| newspaper=The Hartford Courant| date= September 3, 2013}}</ref><ref name=Courant2>{{cite news| last=Lender| first=Jon| title=Malloy Wants 'Action Plan' For Troubled Amistad| url=https://www.courant.com/2013/09/04/malloy-wants-action-plan-for-troubled-amistad/| access-date= October 30, 2013| newspaper=[[Hartford Courant]]| date= September 4, 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite news| last=Collins| first=David| title=Amistad still sails some troubled waters| url=http://www.theday.com/article/20130510/NWS05/305109933| access-date= October 30, 2013 |newspaper=[[The Day (New London)|The Day]]| date= May 10, 2013| location=New London, Connecticut}}</ref> The company was later put into liquidation, and the non-profit Discovering Amistad Inc.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://discoveringamistad.org/|title=Discovering Amistad|website=Discovering Amistad}}</ref> purchased the ship from the receiver in November 2015. ''Amistad'' then returned to educational and promotional activity in [[New Haven, Connecticut]].<ref name="The Day">{{cite news|last1=Wojtas|first1=Joe|title=Discovering Amistad charts new course for schooner|url=http://www.theday.com/article/20151231/NWS01/151239865|access-date= January 14, 2017|work=The Day|date= December 31, 2015|location=New London, Connecticut}}</ref>

== In popular culture ==
*On September 2, 1839, a play entitled ''The Long, Low Black Schooner'', based on the revolt, opened in [[New York City]] and played to full houses. (''La Amistad'' was painted black at the time of the revolt.)<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Walton |first=Perry |date=1933 |title=The Mysterious Case of the Long, Low, Black Schooner |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/359130 |journal=The New England Quarterly |volume=6 |issue=2 |pages=353–361 |doi=10.2307/359130 |issn=0028-4866|url-access=subscription }}</ref>
*The slave revolt aboard ''La Amistad'', the background of the slave trade, and its subsequent trial are retold in a poem by [[Robert Hayden]] entitled "[[Middle Passage (poem)|Middle Passage]]", first published in 1962.<ref>{{cite book| last=Bloom| first=Harold| title=Poets and Poems| year=2005| publisher=Chelsea House Publishers| location=New York| isbn=0-7910-8225-3| pages=348–351| quote=All this is merely preamble to a rather rapid survey of a few of Hayden's superb sequences, of which ''Middle Passage'' is the most famous.}}</ref>
* In [[Robert Skimin]]'s novel ''[[Gray Victory]]'' (1988), depicting an [[alternate history]] in which the South won the [[American Civil War]], a group of abolitionist conspirators infiltrating [[Richmond, Virginia]] calls itself "Amistad".
*The film ''[[Amistad (film)|Amistad]]'' (1997), directed by [[Steven Spielberg]], dramatizes the historical incidents. Major actors are [[Morgan Freeman]], as a freed slave-turned-abolitionist in New Haven; [[Anthony Hopkins]], as [[John Quincy Adams]]; [[Matthew McConaughey]], as [[Roger Sherman Baldwin]], an unorthodox, but influential lawyer; and [[Djimon Hounsou]], as [[Joseph Cinqué|Cinque]] (Sengbe Peah).
*The opera ''Amistad'' (1997), composed by Anthony Davis with libretto by Thulani Davis, was commissioned and premiered by Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1997.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://operawire.com/opera-profile-anthony-davis-amistad/|title=Opera Profile: Anthony Davis' 'Amistad'|first=David|last=Salazar|date=July 22, 2020|website=OperaWire}}</ref> The opera underwent a major revision and was then presented at the Spoleto Festival USA in 2008.
* The 1999 hit single "[[My Love Is Your Love (song)|My Love Is Your Love]]", performed by [[Whitney Houston]], references the "chains of Amistad".
*In January 2011, [[Random House]] published ''Ardency'', a collection of poems written over 20 years by American poet [[Kevin Young (poet)|Kevin Young]] which "gathers here a chorus of voices that tells the story of the Africans who mutinied on board the slave ship ''Amistad''".
{{Clear}}

==See also==
*[[African Slave Trade Patrol]]
*[[Bibliography of early American naval history]]
*[[Blockade of Africa]]
*[[Creole case|''Creole'' case]]
*[[John Quincy Adams and abolitionism]]
*[[List of schooners#Historical schooners|List of historical schooners]]
*[[List of ships captured in the 19th century]]
*[[Sarah Margru Kinson]]

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book|author=Owens, William A.|title=Black Mutiny: The Revolt on the Schooner Amistad|url=https://archive.org/details/blackmutinyrevol00owen_2|url-access=registration|publisher= Black Classic Press|date=1997|isbn=9781574780048}}
* {{cite book|author=Pesci, David |title=Amistad|publisher=  Da Capo Press|date= 1997}}
* {{cite book|author=Rediker, Marcus |title=The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom|url=https://archive.org/details/amistadrebellion00redi |url-access=registration |publisher= Viking |location=New York|date= 2012|isbn=9780670025046}}
* {{cite journal|author=Zeuske, Michael |title=Rethinking the Case of the Schooner ''Amistad'': Contraband and Complicity after 1808/1820|journal= Slavery & Abolition|volume= 35|number= 1 |date=2014|pages=156–164|doi=10.1080/0144039X.2013.798173|s2cid=143870695}}


==External links==
{{Commons}}
{{Wikisource|The Captives of the Amistad|nocat=yes}}
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20070712202423/http://www.nps.gov/history/NR/travel/amistad/ ''Amistad'': Seeking Freedom in Connecticut, a National Park Service ''Discover Our Shared Heritage'' Travel Itinerary]
*[http://www.oberlin.edu/external/EOG/Kinson/Kinson.html Sarah Margru Kinson, the Two Worlds of an ''Amistad'' Captive]
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjOorZcU2MY ''Freedom Schooner Amistad'' sailing], YouTube video
*[http://histclo.com/act/work/slave/ast/end/us/amistad.html The ''Amistad'' Affair]
*[http://discoveringamistad.org/ The current owners of the replica ''Amistad'']
*[https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-526-c53dz04426 "Amistad Connecticut: A Legacy Reborn,"] 1998-02-27, The Walter J. Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection at the [[University of Georgia]], [[American Archive of Public Broadcasting]]

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[[Category:La Amistad| ]]
[[Category:1839 in the United States]]
[[Category:Schooners]]
[[Category:Slave rebellions in the United States]]
[[Category:Replica ships]]
[[Category:Two-masted ships]]
[[Category:Museum ships in Connecticut]]
[[Category:Spanish slave ships]]
[[Category:Museums in New Haven, Connecticut]]
[[Category:Captured ships]]
[[Category:Maritime incidents in July 1839]]
[[Category:Maritime incidents involving slave ships]]
[[Category:Fugitive American slaves]]
[[Category:American rebel slaves]]
[[Category:Abolitionism in the United States]]
[[Category:Post-1808 importation of slaves to the United States]]