Who were the Africans who revolted aboard the Amistad?

Posted July 2nd, 2014 by James DeWolf Perry
Category: History Tags: Amistad, Cuba, Mende tribe, Sengbe Pieh

Today is the 175th anniversary of the Amistad revolt. In the United States, attention understandably focuses on the trial of the enslaved Africans who seized control of the ship from its crew, since the legal proceedings took place in this country.

Yet who were the enslaved people who rose up and took command of the Amistad? Where had they come from, and where were they hoping to go?

Those who revolted aboard the Amistad first met at Lomboko, an infamous fortress complex for the trading of slaves at the mouth of the Gallinas river along the west African coast, near the southern border of modern Sierra Leone.

Lomboko was run by a Spanish slave trader named Pedro Blanco, described as “the Rothschild of slavery.” As at other major slave trading posts, Blanco sought to manage a network of African leaders and merchants, arranging the buying and selling of enslaved Africans so that passing slave ships could quickly purchase human cargo and be on their way. The slave fort at Lomboko included barracoon which could house 5,000 enslaved people at any one time. ((Hugh Thomas, The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade: 1440-1870 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), 687.))

The leader of the Amistad revolt was Sengbe Pieh, who was also known by his Spanish name, Cinque. He was a member of the Mende people of West Africa, in what is now Sierra Leone and Liberia. ((http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/374734/Mende)) Sengbe reported later that he was born and raised in the village of Mani, a ten-day journey from Lomboko. He was seized in January 1839 when traveling alone by a group of four men from another tribe, and was sold to the son of an African leader who, in turn, sold him to the Spanish at Lomboko. All told, he spent about a month enslaved by Africans, and then another two months at Lomboko. Sengbe left behind a wife, two daughters, and a son, Gewaw, when he was forcibly taken into slavery.

Sengbe’s second-in-command aboard the Amistad was Gilabaru, whose name was generally reported in the press as Grabeau. Gilabaru, too, was a Mende. He, however, said that he was born deeper in the interior of west Africa, two months’ journey from the coast. Gilabaru’s uncle, he told investigators, had bought two slaves, which he used to pay off a debt; when one of the slaves ran away, Gilabaru was seized as compensation. He was sold to an African slave merchant, who in turn sold him to the Spanish at Lomboko. Gilabaru left behind a wife when he was enslaved.

The other other enslaved Africans aboard the Amistad told similar stories of being enslaved and being sold, often months or years later, to the Spanish traders at Lomboko. Margru, for instance, was was a young girl whose father, she said, had given her as collateral for a debt; when he failed to pay the debt, she was sold into slavery. She left behind her parents, four sisters, and two brothers. Teme was another young girl; she was seized by a group of men who broke into her house at night, taking her, her brother, and her mother. She eventually arrived at Lomboko, but never saw her mother or brother again.

In April 1839, a Portuguese slave ship, Tecora, stopped at Lomboko and loaded about 600 enslaved Africans, including Sengbe and his fellow captives. They would later testify that they were kept naked during the crossing of the Middle Passage, chained into half-seated, half-lying positions, and whipped if they failed to eat. Those who died were tossed overboard into the ocean.

When the brig Tecora arrived in Cuba in June, those who had survived the passage were placed for sale in Havana’s slave market. After ten days, fifty-three of the Mende were sold to Pedro Montez and Jose Ruiz, Cuban plantation owners from the coastal town of Puerto Principe who planned to sell the Mende in the domestic slave trade.

On the night of June 28, 1839, Montez and Ruiz loaded the 53 enslaved Mende aboard the schooner Amistad and set sail from Havana, bound for Puerto Principe. There, they planned to sell all 53 to work on a Cuban sugar plantation.

The rest of the story is relatively familiar: On the fourth night at sea, Sengbe and the other enslaved Mende freed themselves from their iron restraints and armed themselves with knives used for cutting sugar cane. Early on the morning of July 2, during a storm, they rose up and seized control of the ship. Aboard were five white people, a mulatto cook, and a black cabin boy. The mutineers killed the ship’s captain, Ramon Ferrer, and the cook, whom, they testified, had tormented them with tales of being fed to the Spanish when they reached Puerto Principe. Two of the crew fled in the ship’s boat, while the cabin boy was spared. Ruiz and Montez were kept alive to help navigate the ship.

Sengbe and the other newly freed Africans demanded that Montez, who had been a ship’s captain, sail the Amistad to Africa. Montez first claimed not to know the way to Africa, and then he deceived his captors, sailing slowly towards Africa by day, while steering for the United States by night. After six weeks, the Amistad reached Long Island, where the ship was seized and an inquiry began which led to the trial of those who had been enslaved aboard the Amistad.

Sources: Much of the information above about the individual Africans aboard the Amistad is taken from the their biographical sketches in John W. Barber, A History of the Amistad Captives (New Haven, Conn.: E.L. & J.W. Barber, 1840).