The Amistad Rebellion (45 page)

16
. “Teaching Philosophy to Lewis Tappen & Co. in the Prison at Hartford,”
NYMH
, October 4, 1839.

17
. Ibid.; Lapsansky, “Graphic Discord,” 222–30. On “amalgamation,” see James Brewer Stewart, “The Emergence of Racial Modernity and the Rise of the White North, 1790–1840” and Leslie M. Harris, “From Abolitionist Amalgamators to ‘Rulers of the Five Points’: The Discourse of Interracial Sex and Reform in Antebellum New York City,” both in Patrick Rael,
African-American Activism Before the Civil War: The Freedom Struggle in the Antebellum North
(New York and London: Routledge, 2008), 220–49 and 250–71.

18
. “Case of the Captured Africans,”
NYMH
, September 22, 1839; “The Amistad,”
Richmond Enquirer
, September 27, 1839.

19
. “Details of the Slow Hartford Trial,”
NYCA
, September 21, 1839. See Jones,
Mutiny on the Amistad
,
chap. 4
.

20
. “Case of the Captured Africans,”
NYMH
, September 22, 1839; [Lewis Tappan], “The Amistad Circuit Court Trial,”
NYCA
, September 23, 1839.

21
. “The Amistad,”
NYCA
, September 24, 1839.

22
. “The Captured Africans,”
NYCA
, October 4, 1839.

23
. Reverend Alonzo N. Lewis, M.A., “Recollections of the Amistad Slave Case: First Revelation of a Plot to Force the Slavery Question to an Issue more than twenty Years before its Final Outbreak in the Civil War—Several Hitherto Unknown Aspects of the Case Told,”
Connecticut Magazine
11 (1907): 127.

24
. “Important from Washington—The Captured Africans,”
NYMH
, September 10, 1839; “Captured Africans,”
NYCA
, October 8, 1839; “Teaching Philosophy to Lewis Tappen [
sic
],”
NYMH
, October 4, 1839; “The Africans,”
NYMH
, September 26, 1839.

25
. “The Africans,”
NYMH
, October 5, 1839; “The Captives of the Amistad,”
Emancipator
, October 3, 1839. For a broader history of warrior moves, see T. J. Desch Obi,
Fighting for Honor: The History of African Martial Art Traditions in the Atlantic World
(Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2008).

26
. “The Negroes of the Amistad,”
New Hampshire Sentinel
, October 2, 1839. On Poro training in acrobatics, see F.W.H. Migeod, “The Poro Society: The Building of the Poro House and Making of the Image,”
Man
16 (1916): 102; Kenneth L. Little, “The Role of the Secret Society in Cultural Specialization,”
American Anthropologist
, n.s., 51 (1949): 202; Little,
The Mende of Sierra Leone: A West African People in Transition
(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1951, rev. ed. 1967), 121.

27
. “An Incident,” NYCA, September 26, 1839.

28
. “Plans to Educate,”
NYJC
, October 9, 1839; Barber, 9; Muriel Rukeyser,
Willard Gibbs
(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1942), 16–46.

29
. “Conditions for Amistad Captives,”
NYCA
, September 9, 1839. Gibbs would later testify that he acquired his knowledge of the Mende language from James Covey, but here too the dependence on the African sailor would become clear: when Covey grew sick in November 1839 and could not attend the legal hearing in Hartford, Gibbs tried to replace him as interpreter and failed. See Testimony of Professor Josiah W. Gibbs, January 8, 1840, Records of the U.S. District and Circuit Courts for the District of Connecticut, NAB; “Trial,”
NYMH
, November 22, 1839.

30
. Deposition of Charles Pratt, October 1839, Records of the U.S. District and Circuit Courts for the District of Connecticut, NAB. For an account of the anti-slave-trade activity of the
Buzzard
, including the capture of the
Emprendedor
with 470 enslaved people aboard, see “Cruise of the H.B.M. Brig Buzzard,”
Emancipator
, November 21, 1839.

31
. Deposition of James Covey, January 7, 1840, Records of the U.S. District and Circuit Courts for the District of Connecticut, NAB.

32
. “The Captured Africans,”
NYCA
, October 4, 1839; “The Africans,”
NYCA
, October 8, 1839. See also “The Captured Blacks,”
NYS
, October 7, 1839.

33
. “Narrative of the Africans,”
NYJC
, October 10, 1839.

34
. Entry for October 17, 1839, Second Journal/Notebook, August 31, 1838–June 10, 1840, Journals and Notebooks, 1814–1869 Lewis Tappan Papers; “Extraordinary Arrest,”
NYMH
, October 18, 1839; “Case of the Spaniards,”
NYCA
, October 24, 1839; “From the New York Evening Star,”
PF
, February 13, 1840.

35
. “Case of Montez and Ruiz,”
NYCA
, October 23, 1839; “Don Montez Absconded,”
PF
, November 14, 1839. For the full text of the first ruling by Inglis, see “Case of Montez and Ruiz,”
PF
, November 14, 1839.

36
. “Ruiz and Montez,”
NYCA
, October 18, 1839; “Another Abolition Arrest,”
Richmond Enquirer
, November 5, 1839; Testimony of Founi and Testimony of Kimbo, State of Connecticut, County of New Haven, New Haven, Oct. 7, 1839, Miscellany: “Amistad Case,” Lewis Tappan Papers.

37
. “The Abolitionists,”
Richmond Enquirer
, November 5, 1839; “Signor Ruiz,”
Southern Patriot
, February 14, 1840; Lewis Tappan to Joseph Sturge, October 19, 1839, in Annie Heloise Abel and Frank J. Klingberg, eds.,
A Side-Light on Anglo-American Relations, 1839–1858, Furnished by the Correspondence of Lewis Tappan and Others with the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society
(Lancaster, PA: Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, 1927), 60; “Great Point Gained,”
PF
, November 14, 1839. The first two articles were originally published in the
New York Express
and the
New York Star
, demonstrating proslavery attitudes in the North. See Tappan’s account of his actions in the
PF
, February 13, 1840.

38
. “Plans to Educate,”
NYJC
, October 9, 1839. On the parallel enthusiasm among Liberated Africans for schooling in Sierra Leone in the same time period, see David Northrup, “Becoming African: Identity Formation Among Liberated Slaves in Nineteenth-Century Sierra Leone,”
Slavery and Abolition
27 (2006): 7–8.

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.