Amistad's golden eagle basking in the moonlight in Portland, Maine. The schooner made a brief stop there on her way to Halifax in Nova Scotia.

The present crew of the Freedom Schooner Amistad is unique in at least two aspects. First I have never seen that many musically talented people onboard at once. Second is that we have now onboard our very own US Coast Guard unit!  Two cadets from US Coast Guard Academy in New London, Chris Chantarasopak  and Xiaobin Tuo joined the crew and will sail to Canada. 

Stay tuned for more pictures and video from Amistad's Homecoming Celebrations  

(The article was published by New Haven Register - June 18th, 2007 )

Mock trial puts spotlight on Amistad’s role 

The importance of the history of the Amistad Incident was underscored lately as newspapers' headlines (Connecticut Post, Shelton Weekly) declared that Connecticut students “revised” the famous verdict in a mock trial exercise: the students voted to send the La Amistad captives back to Cuba and a life of slavery. This is not, as one headline suggested, a “revision” but a “reversal” of the actual decision reached by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1841.

It is ironic that such a “verdict” could be reached by young people in Connecticut, the home of the famous civil rights victory. But it was a freely debated exercise, which can occasionally produce an unexpected outcome. Nonetheless, the irony is particularly noteworthy when you consider that the mock trial was held just as the State’s official flagship and tall ship ambassador – the Freedom Schooner Amistad – was sailing home to Connecticut after a year-long transatlantic voyage commemorating the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the Atlantic Slave Trade.

WE Americans live in a society awash in historical celebrations. The last few years have witnessed commemorations of the bicentennial of the Louisiana Purchase (2003) and the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II (2005). Looming on the horizon are the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth (2009) and the sesquicentennial of the outbreak of the Civil War (2011). But one significant milestone has gone strangely unnoticed: the 200th anniversary of Jan. 1, 1808, when the importation of slaves into the United States was prohibited.

This neglect stands in striking contrast to the many scholarly and public events in Britain that marked the 2007 bicentennial of that country’s banning of the slave trade. There were historical conferences, museum exhibits, even a high-budget film, “Amazing Grace,” about William Wilberforce, the leader of the parliamentary crusade that resulted in abolition.

What explains this divergence? Throughout the 1780s, the horrors of the Middle Passage were widely publicized on both sides of the Atlantic and by 1792 the British Parliament stood on the verge of banning the trade. But when war broke out with revolutionary France, the idea was shelved. Final prohibition came in 1807 and it proved a major step toward the abolition of slavery in the empire...

Read more -  full original published in NYT - Dec 30th, 2007

WatchWebcast: [ Archived Video - REAL PLAYER required - English: 3 hours and 23 minutes]of 28 March student videoconference on the Transatlantic Slave Trade that took place in the UN Headquarters in New York.  Large group of students from Connecticut, New York and Maine gathered in Dag Hammerskjold auditorium and spent over 3 hours interacting live with students from Sierra Leone, Cape Verde, Canada, Norway, United Kingdom and St.Lucia as well as with the crew of the Amistad.
Learn more about the causes and consequences,of the transatlantic slave trade. 

Captain Bill Pinkney moderating the international video conference out of UN Headquarters in NYC.