The Amistad and the CT Freedom Trail

The freed Africans dressed up in some of the clothes and fabrics that were part of the cargo. The Africans thought they were going back to Africa by following the sun east during the day, but the two men who purchased them at the slave market in Cuba, steered the ship north at night and they ended up off the Connecticut shore. Hungry, they tried to go ashore and get supplies but were recaptured by the USS Washington, a navy cutter.

Eventually, their case went to trial and they were defended by Roger Baldwin, played by Matthew McConaughey. Two abolitionists, Theodore Joadson, played by Morgan Freeman, and Lewis Tappan, played by Stellan Skarsgard, obtained the money for their defense and constantly assisted the case as it progressed. With the help of Yale Professor Josiah Gibbs, they found someone who could translate the Mende language and then they were able to communicate with the Africans. Cinque tells them of the terror of the slave fortress in Lomboko in Sierra Leone, on the coast of Africa, and the illegal slave trading going on in Cuba. Although the case was won in the district court in Connecticut, it was appealed. John Quincy Adams, played by Anthony Hopkins, represents the Africans when the case was heard again in the Supreme Court in Washington, DC.

Political maneuvering becomes an important issue. President Martin Van Buren wanted the case lost so he’d be reelected with the help of the Southern vote. Former President John Quincy Adams, defended the Africans, exciting sympathy for the cause of the Africans and slavery in general. Abolitionist in Connecticut wanted the case to be brought to the attention of the entire country. The movie presents the horror of slavery, but the message of fighting for freedom, no matter what the odds, is heard.

The Harriet Beecher Stowe House is a Gothic Victorian cottage surrounded by a colorful flower garden. The house has many innovations of the era, such as faux wood finishes painted on the woodwork. Commercial cans from the late 19th century that were used to store baking ingredients are waiting in readiness on the shelves in the cosy little kitchen. Victorian furniture graces the living room and other rooms in the house. Harriet liked to collect commemoration plates and statues related to her famous book and the collection is still right there in her home.

The center was equipped to supply information about her life and times. She moved to Cincinnati as a young woman. There she met her husband, Calvin, a young minister and teacher. Cincinnati is across the Ohio River from Kentucky and Harriet saw the fugitive slaves trying to escape from their masters. She knew the abolitionists who helped them through the Underground Railroad and she attended anti-slavery debates. Her sister, Isabella, was married to John Hooker, an abolitionist from Farmington, CT; they lived there during the time Amistad captives were boarding in that town.

Calvin Stowe was teaching at Bowdoin College in Maine when Harriet began writing and selling her work to supplement his income. She had just experienced the death of her young son and the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 had just been past. The pain of being permanently parted from her own child was overwhelming, and she found she could express it in the context of the forced separation of mothers from children through slavery as she wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin. At first this novel was published in an abolitionist newspaper, and then the publisher's wife told Calvin it should be published in book form. It was, and it helped incite the Civil War. About twenty years later the Stowes moved to Hartford where Harriet was surrounded by Woman’s Sufferage and other movements of the day her family was very involved in.

In 1833, Prudence allowed 20 year old, Sarah Harris, a colored girl, to enroll as a student in her school and provoked the ire of the townspeople, especially Andrew T. Judson, an aspiring lawyer, who also owned a fine house on the Canterbury Town Green. Although slavery was still legal in Connecticut until 1848, by 1833 it had been in the process of being phased out for fifty years.

Free colored people wanted the same rights, privileges and life styles as the whites. They were allowed to attend district schools, but when they wanted what was intended for the wealthy elite, a violent protest erupted. Prudence would not give up her colored student, and when the parents took their white girls out of her school, she dedicated it to the teaching of colored girls.

As the school year progressed, abuses were inflicted on the beautiful house, and then a law was passed by the CT General Assembly that led to her arrest. Encouraged and supported by prominent abolitionists from New York, she proudly endured the insult and gained the sympathy of many of the townspeople, and she was then freed by the court. Eventually, she and her students were forced to evacuate the mansion due to severe damage done by vandals.

A gift store in the museum carries a variety of books pertaining to the subject, and Nicole, the very informed docent, was happy to tell us about the house. A room near the gift shop has information about the lives of Prudence Crandall and her family and a video is available as well. Because it was a boarding school, the front room was set up like a bedroom. Upstair rooms were dedicated to information about the abolitionists, civil rights and woman’s suffrage, a class room and Andrew T Judson, who was the prosecuting attorney in the Prudence Crandall case. In 1840 he sat as judge of the District Court in New Haven and declared the Africans free in the Amistad case.

La Amistad is a replica of the ship by the same name that was taken over by Africans that were captured in Africa and were being forced into slavery in 1839. The ship drifted into the Connecticut area because the Africans didn’t know how to read navigational equipment and could only tell direction by the sun. They were recaptured when they tried to go ashore and procure food. Their story was accurately told in a recent Steven Spielberg movie.

The new Amistad was built at Mystic Seaport at the cost of three and a half million dollars in the year 2000. It’s a good will ship bringing the message of freedom to everyone, but gives a quiet message still vibrating from the days long ago when determined abolitionists help the Africans to be freed through the court system. The ships mission is to improve relationship among the races and cultures from the legacies of freedom, justice, perseverance, cooperation and leadership.

I noticed the deck of the 129 foot ship seem to be close to the water and I mentioned it to our guide, Donald George, a native from West Africa. He said, in good English with a precise African accent, the ship was not meant to be a slave ship but was a schooner intended to be used close to shore. The ship’s crew sleep in the hold when they’re out at sea and the room is used for a museum for tourists, during the day, when they’re in port.

The museum has information about the famous Amistad Incident and a life size silhouette of captives in shackles sitting next to each other in the hold of the ship. A few pairs of actual shackles like the ones that had been used on the captives were available to try on. Donald said the captives were fed potatoes and rice twice a day and a cup of water per day. The new Amistad offers a daily sailing schedule for an affordable price.

In 1841, thirty five black men from Africa, some with ritual scars on their bodies, and four black children were brought to Farmington by a group of abolitionists who had spent a fortune and had fought for a year and a half for the Africans to be free. Their case started in the Circuit Court in Hartford, then went to the District Court in New Haven and, after an appeal, had gone all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States. They had taken over the schooner, Amistad, while being transported as slaves to a plantation in Cuba. They had tried to force their would be owners to take them back to Africa but were fooled into sailing near the shores of Connecticut where they were, again, captured.

When the freed Africans arrived in Farmington, the men and one boy were housed in rooms over Samuel Demings Store, presently located at 2 Mill Street. Today, a deli is located downstairs and there are 4 efficiency apartments upstairs (that rent for $700, apiece, per month). The girls stayed in three different homes. One of the girls, Margru, stayed with the family of Rev. Noah Porter at 116 Main Street. His daughter, Sarah, who would start Miss Porter’s School a few short years later, taught Margru to read and write in English and converted her to Christianity. She eventually became a missionary in Africa. Barracks were built for the men at 127 Main Street but they continued to go to school in the space over the store. In the Riverside Cemetery, at 160 Garden Street, Foone’s grave can be found on the side of the central road. He drowned in the nearby Paquabuck River. It was believed to be a suicide because he didn’t believe he’d ever see his native Africa again.

One of the many display boards on the wall of a former administrative office on the second floor, shows a pen and ink drawing of what the Old State House looked like in 1834, near the time of the Amistad trial. The beautiful brick and sandstone Federal style building graced the center of Hartford much as it does today, but then it was surrounded by dirt roads and hitching posts for horses and buggies and the view from the east lawn went all the way to the river. Today the river view is blocked by Routes 91 and 2.

The Africans would have entered the second floor by outside staircases, but now there are magnificent double staircases leading from one floor to the next inside the building. They must have been awed by the twenty foot ceiling held up by ten giant columns, the grand brass chandelier hanging from the center of the ceiling, the two ornate symmetrical fireplaces and the huge twelve over twelve double hung windows in the court room. It’s a lot different than the circular bamboo huts they were used to in Africa.

Maybe they noticed the statue of Justice holding her scales and weighing all the pros and cons carefully as she stood on the cupola on the roof. Today, she’s missing some of her paint over her wooden body and stands retired in the third floor corridor; she was replaced with a fiberglass replica in 1979. Maybe the farmers with their fruits and vegetables stood at the west entrance on Main Street selling their produce, just as they do today. The Amistad Africans’ case is history that still brings a message to the people; seek justice through the courts and change the way things are.

In the entrance to the exhibit was a glass covered display case holding items that were stored in the hold of the ship with the captives: a keg of nails, machetes for cutting sugar cane, a chest filled with heavy brocade fabrics, a telescope, etc. The next gallery looked like the hold of a ship. We could hear recorded sounds that might be heard near the ocean. Written material told about the catastrophic horror forced on the Africans from the time they were captured, the inhuman indignities they suffered while being transported in the hold of a slave ship, the humiliation of being sold in a slave market, and finally, finding themselves once more on a ship and then freeing themselves from their shackles and revolting.

The next gallery had glass display cases with epaulets, a flint lock pistol, telescope, shackles, coin and paper money from 1839 and a picture of a naval officer of the period, information relevant to the recapture of the Amistad by the USS Washington. The contemporary arguments, pro and con concerning slavery, were printed on one display. A daily log of newspaper stories about the captured Africans (where they were staying, what they were doing, how their case was going) was in a loose-leaf scrap book bound with rope.

The next gallery had a light and sound show. Drawings of the Africans’ faces were on one wall and when they were mentioned by the recording, a light would shine on their picture. A silhouette of former President John Quincy Adams was referred to because he was the lawyer defending the captives in their second trial in the Supreme Court in Washington, DC. They were freed by a 6-1 decision made by three Southern justices and four Northern justices (one died before the decision was made on the case).

The last gallery had a woven piece of cloth and masks worn by women during a native ceremony, items from Mendeland in Sierra Leone in Africa, where the captives lived before they were taken captives. The exhibit was filled with power packed information; the more you read the more you got out of it.