nothin Amistad Exhibit Reveals The Rest of The Story | New Haven Independent

Amistad Exhibit Reveals The Rest of The Story

IMG_1204.JPGHere’s a thought perhaps worth reflecting on during the Easter/Passover season of rebirth and freedom that is upon us: the dangers, for a city, of taking for granted what is in plain sight. In New Haven, we have a statue of it in front of City Hall, at least one named street, an increasingly famous charter school, a Catholic Worker house, a replica of the ship in the harbor, and many other features of Elm City life named in its honor, and the Amistad story is taught to every Greater New Haven-area kid in the elementary grades. Still, how many of us can truly describe the significance of the 1839 to 1841 trial and ultimate release into freedom of Sengbe Pieh and 52 other Africans illegally kidnapped from West Africa and sold into the transatlantic slave trade — only to revolt and persevere in the human rights case of its time?

An ambitious attempt to remedy this is being launched June 21 when the schooner Amistad leaves its cozy birth in New Haven harbor and commences an historic tour. It will visit the ports of call of the Atlantic slave trade in a celebration of the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the year when Britain and the other slave-trading powers (including the U.S. ) signed an international treaty banning the trade — although individual countries could do as they wished. Thus… our Civil War! 

IMG_1198.JPGThe run-up includes many events including an arresting traveling educational exhibition about the Amistad that recently was on display at the library of Gateway Community College.When asked what he remembered learning about the Amistad, this Gateway freshman, Cavan McEachern, said he recalled having studied it in the third grade or so. He said that the Amistad was a slave ship, and it was brought to New Haven harbor, and the slaves were ultimately freed.

A quick tour of the viewer-friendly exhibition of nine large panels, with video and audio installations, will reveal a few, uh, flaws in such an understanding: First, the Amistad was itself not a slave ship. Yes, Sengbe Pieh, the revolt’s leader, and his compatriots were brought to Cuba on huge slave ship, suffering the eat-work-or-die holocaust-like conditions of the Middle Passage. Once in Havana, however, they were fraudulently reclassified” as native Cuban-born slaves (complete with Pieh being given a Spanish name, Cinque). Why? With the international trade in slaves having been outlawed in 1807 , Pieh and the others could not be sold unless false papers proved they were born in Cuba.

IMG_1197.JPGThe West Africans, thus disguised as property of two cheating Spanish sea captains, were thrown on board their small cargo schooner, Le Amistad, for transfer and sale as slave labor in another part of the island. The captives broke their shackles, were blown off course, landing in New London, and then to New Haven. So the case, although, legally turning on property values, galvanized New England abolitionists, bringing in, finally, former president John Quincy Adams. The rest, as is said, is history.

Here’s one fascinating question the exhibition answered: How in the world could there have been such a happy ending if the Africans couldn’t tell their side of the story? In New Haven there wasn’t a soul who spoke Mende, the language of the captives. No one had even heard of it.

Enter Josiah Gibbs and James Covey.

A language professor at Yale, Gibbs wandered over to the jail, now the site of City Hall, where the Africans were being kept. Quickly, through hand motions, he learned how to count to ten in Mende. Then, no fool he, he went down to New York City, and walked among the wharves with his fingers held aloft counting in a loud voice, Ta, fele, sawa, nani, lulu, waeta, waflas, wayaba, talu, pu, —one to ten in Mende — until someone responded.

That someone was James Covey, a black British sailor, who had been born and sold into slavery as a child and had been rescued. He and Gibbs came to New Haven, and as Sengbe talked and the information got out, anti-slavery lawyers flocked to town. The battle was engaged. How’s that for an early and excellent example of town-gown cooperation?

The Mende numbers are on an audio monitor as part of this educational exhibition. You will also see original documents from the trial, in facsimile, and learn other significant aspects of those far away events: the trial, for example, was the first time Africans were tried as human beings, not chattel property. So, although the lawyers talked documents, titles, and signatures, the world increasingly understood it as the major human rights case of its time. Africans, for the first time, were also depicted in the press with individual characteristics, not in uniform undifferentiated profile.

IMG_1203.JPGHere is another favorite: This 70-year old man, back in West Africa, was, in 1839, an eight-year-old named Kali, the only boy among the Amistad captives. With the fly-paper linguistic ability of a child, he quickly learned English and wrote a passionate letter to former president John Quincy Adams, while the final decision on the issue of freedom was pending at the U.S. Supreme Court. Dear friend Mr. Adams, you have children, you have friends, you love them, you feel very sorry if Mende people come and take your children to Africa.”

The exhibition travels to Foxwoods for display April 2 to 4; other venues and dates can be found on this website, as can a full text of Kali’s letter as well as other documents. On April 16 a community meeting to build momentum for the launch will be held at the Church on the Rock, 95 Hamilton St. And on June 21, down on Long Wharf, the Amistad will be launched. Carrying New Haven students among its crew, sending regular video and other communications to classrooms around the world, Amistad will journey 14,000 miles and return to New Haven harbor in August 2008.

IMG_1199.JPGNow, raise your fingers and repeat after me: Ta, fele, sawa, nani, lulu, waeta, waflas, wayaba, talu, pu.

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