Gripping tale of the epic 1839 revolt, aboard the schooner Amistad, of Africans bound for slavery in the New World. Young readers will thrill to the book's "you-are-there" flavor.

"Vividly drawn . . . this stunning book honors the achievement of the captive Africans who fought for—and won—their freedom.”—The Philadelphia Tribune A unique account of the most successful slave rebellion in American history, now updated with a new epilogue—from the award-winning author of The Slave Ship In this powerful and highly original account, Marcus Rediker reclaims the Amistad rebellion for its true proponents: the enslaved Africans who risked death to stake a claim for freedom. Using newly discovered evidence and featuring vividly drawn portraits of the rebels, their captors, and their abolitionist allies, Rediker reframes the story to show how a small group of courageous men fought and won an epic battle against Spanish and American slaveholders and their governments. The successful Amistad rebellion changed the very nature of the struggle against slavery. As a handful of self-emancipated Africans steered their own course for freedom, they opened a way for millions to follow. This edition includes a new epilogue about the author's trip to Sierra Leona to search for Lomboko, the slave-trading factory where the Amistad Africans were incarcerated, and other relics and connections to the Amistad rebellion, especially living local memory of the uprising and the people who made it.

An amazing chapter in American history is now available in Step into Reading, the premier leveled reader line. In 1838, a slave ship named the Amistad took hundreds of kidnapped Africans on a long journey across the Atlantic. But the brave captives would not give up their freedom, taking over the ship so they could sail back to their homeland. This History Reader is not to be missed. Step 4 Readers use challenging vocabulary and short paragraphs to tell exciting stories. For newly independent readers who read simple sentences with confidence.

This volume presents the first full-scale treatment of the only instance in history where African blacks, seized by slave dealers, won their freedom and returned home. Jones describes how, in 1839, Joseph Cinqué led a revolt on the Spanish slave ship, the Amistad, in the Caribbean. The seizure of the ship by an American naval vessel near Montauk, Long Island, the arrest of the Africans in Connecticut, and the Spanish protest against the violation of their property rights created an international controversy. The Amistad affair united Lewis Tappan and other abolitionists who put the "law of nature" on trial in the United States by their refusal to accept a legal system that claimed to dispense justice while permitting artificial distinctions based on race or color. The mutiny resulted in a trial before the U.S. Supreme Court that pitted former President John Quincy Adams against the federal government. Jones vividly recaptures this compelling drama--the most famous slavery case before Dred Scott--that climaxed in the court's ruling to free the captives and allow them to return to Africa.

From journalism and lectures to drama, visual art, and the Spielberg film, this study ranges across the varied cultural reactions--in America and Sierra Leone--engendered by the 1839 Amistad slave ship revolt. Iyunolu Folayan Osagie is a native of Sierra Leone, from where the Amistad's cargo of slaves originated. She digs deeply into the Amistad story to show the historical and contemporary relevance of the incident and its subsequent trials. At the same time, she shows how the incident has contributed to the construction of national and cultural identity both in Africa and the African diasporo in America--though in intriguingly different ways. This pioneering work of comparative African and American cultural criticism shows how creative arts have both confirmed and fostered the significance of the Amistad revolt in contemporary racial discourse and in the collective memories of both countries.

"Black Mutiny" is the historical retelling of one of our nation's most dramatic national crises. It is one among many historical sources used in the development of the new motion picture "Amistad." Written as a novel in 1953 by William A. Owens, this is one historian's view of the Amistad mutiny. Based on U.S. government documents, court records, official and personal correspondence, diaries, and newspaper accounts, it tells the true story of 53 illegally enslaved Africans who revolted against their captors. After the Amistad was intercepted and seized by the United States Navy, the imprisoned Africans were forced to stand trial for mutiny and murder in a case that reached the Supreme Court. With its impassioned plea for freedom for all people, "Black Mutiny" brilliantly recreates a critical moment in America's racial history more than twenty years before the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation. It is a rousing and unforgettable story of oppression, justice, and the precious cost of human dignity.

The lives of six African children, ages nine to sixteen, were forever altered by the revolt aboard the Cuban schooner La Amistad in 1839. Like their adult companions, all were captured in Africa and illegally sold as slaves. In this fascinating revisionist history, Benjamin N. Lawrance reconstructs six entwined stories and brings them to the forefront of the Amistad conflict. Through eyewitness testimonies, court records, and the children’s own letters, Lawrance recounts how their lives were inextricably interwoven by the historic drama, and casts new light on illegal nineteenth-century transatlantic slave smuggling.

A poetic epic chronicles the story of the Africans who mutinied on board the slave ship Amistad through different voices, from an interpreter for the rebels to inmates in a New Haven jail who appealed to John Quincy Adams.

Describes, in story form, an incident in 1839 when a boatload of African slaves seized control of the ship and finally gained legal freedom in the American courts.