The Amistad Rebellion (41 page)

62
. Conneau described the examination process as he learned it from John Ormond, alias “Mongo John,” at Bangalang, in 1826. See Conneau,
A Slaver’s Logbook
, 71–72.

63
. Moore to Harned, October 12, 1852, ARC.

64
.
Ports on the Western Coast of Africa by Captain Alexander T. E. Vidal, R.N., 1837, 38, 39
[Admiralty Chart], British Library, Map Collections; Maps SEC.11 (1690).

65
. Testimony of Bacon,
New Haven Palladium
; Sherwood,
After Abolition
, 186–87. Much can be learned about Blanco’s slaving operation through documents generated in a legal case against a London merchant who was part of his network:
Trial of Pedro de Zulueta, Jun., on a Charge of Slave Trading
(London, 1844).

66
. “Slave Holding and Trading,”
Hull Packet
, February 14, 1840; James Hall, “Dr. Hall’s Report as Trustee of the Ship M. C. Stevens,”
ARCJ
33 (1857): 338–40. An American sailor aboard the anti-slave-trade vessel
Dolphin
patrolling the Gallinas Coast in early 1840 heard that Blanco had recently retired from slaving “with a capital of four millions of dollars.” Quoted in Donald L. Canney,
Africa Squadron: The U.S. Navy and the Slave Trade, 1842–1861
(Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2006), 27.

67
. “Dr. Hall’s Report,” 338–40; James Hall, M.D., “Abolition of the Slave Trade of Gallinas,”
Annual Report of the American Colonization Society
, 33 (1850): 33–36.

68
. Forbes, 105–06.

69
. Hall, “Abolition of the Slave Trade,” 33–36.

70
. Clarke, “Sketches of the Colony of Sierra Leone,” 329, 355; Rankin, vol. I, 143–48;
The Palm Land
, 190. George E. Brooks, Jr.,
The Kru Mariner in the Nineteenth Century: A Historical Compendium
(Newark, DE: Liberian Studies Monograph Series, 1972).

71
. Testimony of Bacon,
New Haven Palladium
. See Richard Robert Madden’s poem, “The Slave Trade Merchant,” which he wrote during his visit to the United States to give testimony on the
Amistad
case, dedicated to Trist, and published in
The Philanthropist
, December 10, 1839.

72
. “Abolitionists going to the Devil—False Affidavits—Arming of the Africans,”
NYMH
, October 23, 1839; Forbes, 82–83.

73
. Richard Robert Madden to the Rt. Honorable Lord John Russell, Secretary of State, December 20, 1839; Correspondence from Dr. R.R. Madden, Mr. D.R. Clarke, and the Foreign Office relating to the removal of the “Liberated Africans” from Cuba, 1839, Colonial Office (CO) 318/146, NA.

74
. Children were also easier to capture once palisades had been breached. Thanks to Philip Misevich for this point. The prominence of children in the slave trade of the region is also noted by Major H. I. Ricketts,
Narrative of the Ashantee War; with a View of the Present State of the Colony of Sierra Leone
(London: Simkin and Marshall, 1831), 218.

75
. Hall, “Abolition of the Slave Trade,” 33–36;
Hull Packet
, February 14, 1840.

76
. Forbes, 82–84.

77
. Forbes, 77–78;
The Palm Land
, 399–400.

78
.
Thompson in Africa
, 18–19. The origin of the slave ship images used by Thompson was Rev. Robert Walsh,
Notices of Brazil in 1828 and 1829
(London: Frederick Westley and A. H. Davis, 1830), Vol. II, facing 479. The part of the image showing the lower deck (“3 feet 3 in. high”) circulated from Walsh to Lydia Maria Child,
An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans
(Boston: Allen and Ticknor, 1833), 16, to Barber, 20, to Thompson.
Barber redrew the faces of the Africans to reflect his acquaintance with the
Amistad
Africans in jail.

79
. See
chapter 5
below. Cinqué’s face is the fifth from the right.

80
. It appears that the four children—Margru, Teme, Kagne, and Kali—all came over on a different slave ship, but that the 49 men came over together on the
Teçora
. See “Case of the Captured Africans,”
NYMH
, October 1, 1839. For background, see Marcus Rediker,
The Slave Ship: A Human History
(New York: Viking-Penguin, 2007), especially chap. 9.

81
. The Dolben Act stipulated that five slaves could be loaded for every three tons of carrying capacity, or 1.6/1 slave/ton ratio. If we estimate the
Teçora
at 175 tons, its ratio would have been 2.86/1.

82
. Forbes, 86–87; “Case,”
NYMH
, October 1, 1839.

83
. Forbes, 86–87.

84
. Grabeau estimated that the
Amistad
Africans had about 48 inches headroom.

85
. Rankin, vol. I, 120–23.

86
. Forbes, 95–96.

87
. TAST. Based on data collected in Freetown about captured slave ships, Madden reported in 1841 that the slave/ton ratio there was 2.6/1, which is close to the estimate for the
Teçora
and to the findings of the TAST. Based on his own knowledge of the slave trade to Havana he thought the ratio was higher, the crowding worse, as high as 5/1 in some cases. See Madden, Report on Sierra Leone, 32.

88
. Clarke, “Sketches of the Colony of Sierra Leone,” 331; Moore to Harned, October 12, 1852, ARC; Stephanie E. Smallwood, “African Guardians, European Slave Ships, and the Changing Dynamics of Power in the Early Modern Atlantic,”
William & Mary Quarterly
64 (2007): 679–716; Joseph Sturge,
A Visit to the United States in 1841
(London, 1842), Appendix E, xliv; [Captain Joseph Denman],
Instructions for the Guidance of Her Majesty’s Naval Officers Employed in the Suppression of the Slave Trade
(London: T. R. Harrison, 1844), 9.

89
. Entry for Wednesday, September 8, 1841, Norton Papers, MS 367, series II, Writings, Diaries, volume III: June 29, 1840–September 15, 1841, box no. 3, folder 18; Kale to Lewis Tappan, Westville, October 30, 1840. Rankin, vol. II, 119–20; Forbes, 100.

90
. Moore to Harned, October 12, 1852, ARC.

91
. “The Negroes of the Amistad,”
New Hampshire Sentinel
, October 2, 1839; “The Captive Africans,”
Emancipator
, October 17, 1839; originally published in the
New Haven Record
; “Case,”
NYMH,
October 1, 1839; Forbes, 99–100.

92
. Testimony of Cinqué, January 8, 1840, U.S. District Court, Connecticut, NAB.

93
. Rankin, vol. II, 129; Abraham,
Mende Government and Politics
, 23–25; Clarke, “Sketches,” 330; Little,
The Mende of Sierra Leone
, 108, 131.

94
. Moore to Harned, October 12, 1852, ARC; Testimony of Founi and Kimbo, State of Connecticut, County of New Haven, New Haven, Oct. 7, 1839, Lewis Tappan Papers, Miscellany: “Amistad Case”; “Private Examination of Cinquez,”
NYCA
, September 13, 1839; “Slavery in Cuba,”
PF
, November 21, 1839; “Case of the Amistad,”
New-York Spectator
, November 28, 1839. The Transatlantic Slave Trade Database lists 55 voyages with Cuba as the primary endpoint in 1839: 22,242 slaves were embarked and 19,241 were delivered alive. The significant number of undocumented (and unlisted) voyages, such as the one made by the
Teçora
, suggest that Madden’s estimate was reasonably accurate.

95
.
Case of the Amistad. Deposition of Dr. Madden, 7th November 1839
, West India Miscellaneous, 1839; vol: Removal of the Liberated Africans from Cuba, Superintendent Dr. Madden and Superintendent Mr. Clarke, Foreign Office, NA; Sturge,
Visit
, Appendix E, xliv; Correspondence from Dr. R.R. Madden, Mr. D.R. Clarke, and the Foreign Office CO 318/146, NA. For an account of Madden’s tense relationship with the government of Cuba during his tenure as superintendent of Liberated Africans, see David R. Murray,
Odious Commerce: Britain, Spain, and the Abolition of the Cuban Slave Trade
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1980), chap. 7.

96
. Testimony of Cinqué, January 8, 1840, U.S. District Court, Connecticut, NAB; “Narrative,”
NYJC
, October 10, 1839.

97
. Ibid.

98
. “The Case of the Captured Negroes,”
NYMH
, September 9, 1839, and “Case of the Captured Africans,”
NYMH
, September 22, 1839.

99
. These ports of origin appear in the records of 91 slave ships that arrived in Havana between 1835 and 1845, as recorded in the Transatlantic Slave Trade Database.

100
. “Fate in Cuba,”
NYJC
, November 30, 1839;
Emancipator
, March 24, 1842. Thanks to Michael Zeuske for information about El Horcón.

Chapter Two: Rebellion

1
. This chapter is based on dozens of eyewitness accounts of the rebellion provided by eleven people who were on the vessel: Ruiz, Montes, Antonio, the two sailors, and six of the Africans (Cinqué, Grabeau, Fuli, Kale, Kimbo, and Kinna). It also draws on a letter written by abolitionist missionary Hannah Moore in 1852, in which she summarizes the oral history of the
Amistad
rebellion as preserved and recalled by a handful of veterans who were still living at the Mende Mission thirteen years after the event. These included Fabanna (Alexander Posey), Kinna (George Lewis), Margru (Sarah Kinson), Teme (Maria Brown), and perhaps one or two others. See Hannah Moore to William Harned, October 12, 1852, ARC.

2
. “Case of the Captured Africans,”
NYMH
, September 22, 1839. The time of day when the captives boarded was disputed throughout the legal battle over the
Amistad
, the Africans and abolitionists claiming it took place, secretly and illegally, at night, the Cuban slaveholders Ruiz and Montes saying the opposite: boarding took place in the full light of day. Once the slaveholders had left the Connecticut courts to return home to Cuba, Antonio also admitted that the loading occurred in the evening, which is consistent with the forged papers and other aspects of illegality.

3
. “The Africans,”
NYMH
, October 21, 1839.

4
. See Quentin Snediker’s excellent article on the history of the vessel: “Searching for the Historic
Amistad
,”
Log of Mystic Seaport
(1998): 86–95, in which he cites Captain George Howland, “An Autobiography or Journal of his Life, Voyages, and Travels with an Appendix of his Ancestry,” 1866, typescript 295, Rhode Island Historical Society, Providence, Rhode Island and Temporary Registry #15, for the Schooner
Ion
, ex-
Amistad
, New London Customs Records, RG36, NAB. Howland bought the
Amistad
at auction on October 15, 1840.

5
. Testimony of Antonio, January 9, 1840, U.S. District Court, Connecticut, NAB.

6
. For detailed accounts of the cargo, see
NLG
, August 28, 1839; “Superior Court,”
NYMH
, October 24, 1839;
Intelligencer
, October 27, 1839; and the Libel of José Ruiz, September 18, 1839, U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut, NAB. On the scarcity of casks see Captain J. Scholborg to R.R. Madden, Havana, June 28, 1839, West India Miscellaneous, 1839; vol: Removal of the Liberated Africans from Cuba, Superintendent Dr. Madden and Superintendent Mr. Clarke, Foreign Office; Correspondence from Dr. R.R. Madden, Mr. D.R. Clarke, and the Foreign Office relating to the removal of the “Liberated Africans” from Cuba, 1839, Colonial Office (CO) 318/146, NA. The letter carried the same date as the Amistad’s loading and departure from port.

7
. Dwight P. Janes to Lewis Tappan, New London, September 6, 1839, ARC.

8.
NLG
, September 4, 1839. Thanks to William Gilkerson for sharing his knowledge of this type of vessel.

9
. Testimony of Bahoo (Bau), “Case,”
NYMH
, September 22, 1839. Ruiz testified, “Principe is about two days sail from Havana, or 100 leagues, reckoning 3 miles to a league. Sometimes the winds are adverse, the passage occupies 15 days.” See “The Long, Low Black Schooner,”
NYS
, August 31, 1839; Michael Zeuske and Orlando García Martínez, “
La Amistad
de Cuba: Ramón Ferrer, Contrabando de Esclavos, Captividad y Modernidad Atlántica,”
Caribbean Studies
37 (2009): 97–170.

10
. “The Amistad,”
NLG
, October 16, 1839.

11
. “Narrative of the Africans,”
NYJC
, October 10, 1839.

12
. “Private Examination of Cinquez,”
NYCA
, September 13, 1839.

13
. “Mendis Perform,”
NYMH
, May 13, 1841. In collective memory the amount of food had shrunk by 1852 to half a plantain per meal; see Moore to Harned, October 12, 1852, ARC.

14
. “Mendis Perform,”
NYMH
, May 13, 1841.

15
. Testimony of Cinqué, January 8, 1840, United States District Court, Connecticut, NAB; “Narrative,”
NYJC
, January 10, 1840.

16
. “Ruiz and Montez,”
NYCA
, October 18, 1839; “Mendis Perform,”
NYMH
, May 13, 1841; “Plans to Educate the Amistad Africans in English,”
NYJC
, October 9, 1839; “To the Committee on Behalf of the African Prisoners,”
NYJC
, September 10, 1839. Ruiz denied these allegations about poor conditions: “It is untrue that the negroes were taken on board by night,…the negroes all went on board willingly, and required no force or violence to induce them to go on board the schooner—that the negroes were not in irons; that they were never tied on board, but perfectly loose, and went about the deck as they pleased. That there were no irons or fetters on board. That it is not true that they were kept on an insufficient allowance of food neither before nor after the mutiny and the murder of the whites by the negroes.” See “Superior Court,”
NYMH
, October 24, 1839.