Amistad

Hi kids!

We are in New Haven, Connecticut, hiding out from a gale. We tied up
to a mooring ball and went to sleep. In the morning we woke to find
that we were next to a reproduction of a ship from the mid eighteen
hundreds, the Amistad. The original Amistad was a slave ship. It
brought 83 Africans who had been sold to a couple Spaniards away from
Cuba sailing for their new home in the West Indies. The ships cook
told one of the Africans that the Spaniards were going to kill them
and eat them. The Africans sure weren't going to go along with that!
One of them broke his padlock on his chains with a nail he pulled out
of the ship, freed a couple of his friends and they killed the captain
and took control of the ship. The Africans demanded that the crew take
them back to Africa. The crew pretended to take them to Africa by
sailing east by day, then turned the ship and sailed north by night.
Eventually they wound up in New Haven Connecticut. The cops caught the
ship, took everyone off it and threw all the Africans in jail. It took
them two years in court to get freed. Abolitionists in Connecticut
helped them in court and when they were out of jail, helped them get
money and a ship to finally get back home to Africa to a place now
called Sierra Leone. A few years ago a black man from Connecticut
built a replica of the ship. It's on display now in New Haven. It's
the black ship on the right in the picture.

So be good children and maybe the teacher (what's her name? Ms. Hand
Sock? Something like that.) will tell you more of the story of the
Amistad including the duplicity of Martin Van Buren, then president,
the honor and integrity of former president Adams, who aided the
Africans' legal battle and that stinker in the tale, Judge Judson, who
threw the Africans in jail to begin their two year long battle for
freedom.