THE CAPTIVES OF THE AMISTAD BY SIMEON E. BALDWIN. [Read May 17, 1886]. THE most famous case ever tried in Connecticut was that of the Amistad. None ever awakened a wider interest or a deeper feeling. There is something dramatic in the story of every law-suit; but here was a tragedy of the loftiest character, an issue to which great governments were parties. It had a large political importance, and in reviewing our history for a quarter of a century that followed its decision, I think we may fairly deem it one of the first guide-posts that pointed the way to the yet unopened grave of slavery in the United States. Our late associate, Mr. John W. Barber, published in pamphlet form in 1840, a brief account of the earlier stages of the affair, and Henry Wilson in his Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, devotes a chapter to the case; but it seems worthy of a fuller record, in which both its legal and its political features can be described with greater precision and completeness. * In the Spring of 1839, a number of Africans living near the west coast, were kidnapped by some of their own countrymen, acting as the agents of Spanish slave-traders, and placed in a barracoon, at a place called Dumbomo. From thence, a * Vol. i., Portuguese slaver, the Teçora, took them to Havana, where in a few days they were sold in two lots to a couple of Cubans, Don José Ruiz and Don Pedro Montez. Ruiz was the largest purchaser, taking 49 of them at $450 apiece.* At this time the slave trade was no longer lawful in Spain. The law of nations did not forbid it, but in 1817, Great Britain, by the payment of £400,000, obtained the ratification of a treaty with that power, by which it was to be abolished throughout the Spanish dominions in 1820. A royal decree was promulgated to carry this stipulation into effect, but it remained practically a dead letter in her American colonies. The chief of these Mendi captives, was Cinquè, otherwise called Cinquez, Jinqua, or Sinqua, a tall and stalwart African of commanding presence and determined spirit. A little schooner of about sixty tons was chartered to take them, with an assorted cargo of merchandise, to Guanaja, another Cuban port, and Ruiz and Montez sailed from Havana on June 28, 1839. The vessel's papers described the negroes as ladinos, a term meaning those who had acquired a foreign language, but commonly used to designate slaves imported before 1820; and to give this more color, Spanish names were also assigned to each, at random. This was done by collusion between the authorities and the slave traders, who usually paid the Governor at Havana hush-money at the rate of $15 a head, for each slave landed at the port. The Africans had been brought over on the Teçora in irons, but it was thought unnecessary to chain them down on this short coasting voyage. Their supply of provisions and water was scant, and two who went to the water-cask without leave were whipped for it. One of them asked the cook where they were being taken, and received for answer that they were going to be killed and then eaten. This ill-timed mockery was taken for earnest, and was the last incitement needed to rouse the captives to strike for liberty. During the second night out, they rose under the lead of Cinquè. Several of them had * Executive Doc., 1st Sess., 28th Congr., vol. iv., Doc. 83, p. 17. armed themselves with knives, of the kind used to cut the sugar-cane. The captain of the schooner was attacked, killed his first assailant, and then fell himself by a stroke from Cinquè's knife. The cook paid for his pleasantry with his life, also at Cinquè's hand. Montez was severely wounded. The cabinboy, a mulatto slave of the captain, named Antonio, and Ruiz, were secured and bound. The rest of the crew escaped in one of the boats. It was a sharp and sudden struggle. Mr. Barber made it the subject of one of his quaint wood-cuts, as a frontispiece to his history of the Amistad Captives already noticed, and Mr. Hewins, a Boston artist, painted a large picture of the scene, which is now deposited in this building, the property of our associate, Mr. Wm. B. Goodyear. The cane-knife, of which the negroes made use, is a formidable weapon, and does its work something after the fashion of a hatchet or short bill-hook. The handle is a square bar of steel an inch thick, and the blade, which is some two feet long, widens regularly out to a breadth of three inches at the end. In the grasp of a strong arm like that of Cinquè, it is as sure and deadly as the guillotine. It was his design, if the rising were successful, to attempt the voyage back to their native country, of which they only knew that it was "three moons" distant and lay toward the east. One of the negroes could speak a little Arábic, and another a few words of English. By signs and threats they made Ruiz and Montez take the wheel by turns, and steer to the eastward. By day, they kept this direction, but as soon as the tell-tale sun had set, they would bring the vessel gradually about and head for the north. Two months of these zig-zag courses brought the little schooner at last to a shore far from that which the Africans had hoped to see. On Sunday, August 25th, they cast anchor off what proved to be the northern coast of Long Island, not far from Montauk Point. A reconnoitring party came ashore, some with nothing on but a handerkerchief twisted around their loins, and others with blankets thrown over their shoulders. They went to the neighboring houses for water and provisions, and paid for what they got in Spanish gold, buying among other things a couple of dogs for a doubloon apiece. The schooner had been sailing about the entrance to the Sound in an aimless way for two or three days before the landing, and the newspapers had mentioned it as a suspicious craft. On Monday, while some of the negroes were cooking on the beach and others lying down in the long grass, a party of the neighboring inhabitants drove up to find out who they were. Banna, the one who knew a few English words, tried to communicate with them. His first inquiry, I regret to say, was "Have you rum?" and the first information he volunteered was that they had money, some of which was promptly accepted by their visitors in exchange for a bottle of gin. Cinquè who was at this time on board the schooner, was now sent for, and as soon as he was rowed over, he told Banna to ask whether this country made slaves. The reply was, "No. This is a free country." "Are there any Spaniards here?" was the next question. Again they said, "No," and at this Cinquè whistled. and all his followers sprang up and gave a shout of joy. The white men were frightened and ran to their wagons for their guns, but the blacks soon showed that they had no hostile intent, by shaking hands and presenting them with their own guns, of which they had two, a knife, a hat and a handkerchief. They asked one of their visitors, a Capt. Green, who was a sea-faring man, if he would not come on board and steer them to Sierra Leone, and he gave them some encouragement to think that he would do so the next day. It so happened that a coast-survey brig, the Washington, was in that part of the Sound on this afternoon, and her commander, from the appearance of the Amistad as she passed her, thought the vessel was on shore, or in distress. A boat's crew was sent to her assistance, and found only negroes on deck, armed with cane-knives. The boarding officer climbed into the rigging and ordered them below, at the point of a pistol. They obeyed, and Montez and Ruiz were sent up on deck, who at once claimed protection. Cinquè with the two dogs sprang into the water and made for shore, but was pursued, retaken, and hand-cuffed. Those of the negroes who were on the beach, after a shot fired over their heads, and a display of cutlasses, were captured without resistance by an officer of the brig, falling on their knees for protection around the men on the island who had told them this was a free country. When Cinquè was taken back, a captive, to the deck of the Amistad, the other negroes gathered about him, and he made an address which moved them very deeply. Antonio, the cabinboy, understood enough of the words to give a summary of the speech in Spanish to a newspaper editor in New London, who translated it, very likely with some additions, in English, as follows: "Friends and Brothers: We would have returned, but the sun was against us. I would not see you serve the white man. So I induced you to help me kill the Captain. I thought I should be killed. I expected it. It would have been better. You had better be killed than live many moons in misery. I shall be hanged, I think, everyday. But this does not pain me. I could die happy if by dying I could save so many of my brothers from the bondage of the white men." * It was thought prudent to handcuff Cinquè and keep him on the Washington over night, but the next day he made signs to his guards that if taken back to the Amistad he could show them where there was a handkerchief full of doubloons. He was promptly rowed over to the schooner, and as the negroes gathered around him with joyful greetings, he again addressed them with great earnestness and passion, until at last they all seemed on the point of rising on their captors, and he was hurried away at a sign from Antonio. The second speech, as Antonio and the New London editor gave it to the newspapers, ran thus: "My brothers. I am once more among you, having deceived the enemy of our race by saying that I had doubloons. I come to tell you that you have only one chance for death, and none *New York Sun of August 31, 1839. |