Arthur Abraham

The Amistad Committee recognized the need for a public figure of the highest standing to plead the cause of the African captives before the United States Supreme Court. The abolitionists persuaded former President John Quincy Adams to lead the defense. At seventy-three, and thirty years out of legal practice, the ex-President was reluctant to accept the case, lest he should jeopardize the lives of the Africans by failing to win. He wrote in his diary:

The world, the flesh, and all the devils in hell are arrayed against any man who now in this North American Union shall dare to join the standard of Almighty God to put down the African slave trade; and what can I, upon the verge of my 74^th birthday, with a shaken hand, a darkening eye, a drowsy brain, and with my faculties dropping from me one by one as the teeth are dropping from my head -- what can I do for the cause of God and man, for the progress of human emancipation, for the suppression of the African slave-trade? Yet my conscience presses me on; let me but die upon the breach.

Thus, Adams accepted the sensational case that came to be called "the trial of one President by another." Attorney Baldwin prepared an elaborate defense and opened the case, but on February 24, "Old Man Eloquent," as Adams came to be called thereafter, addressed the Court for a total of four and a half hours. On March 9, 1841, the United States Supreme Court issued its final verdict in the Amistad Case -- the captives were free! Adams sent word at once to Lewis Tappan, the principal leader of the Amistad Committee: "Thanks -- Thanks in the name of humanity and of justice, to YOU."

The Africans were released from custody and taken to Farmington, an early abolitionist town in Connecticut, where they received more formal education for the rest of 1841. As President Van Buren refused to provide a ship to repatriate them, the Amistad Committee assumed complete responsibility for the Africans. To raise funds to charter a ship, the abolitionists organized a speaking tour in the Northern states, and the "Amistads" went from town to town, appearing before sympathetic audiences, telling the story of their ordeal, and displaying their knowledge of written and spoken English. By this time Sengbe Pieh, or Joseph Cinque, had become a public figure in the United States, and many were anxious to see the man whom Northern newspapers compared to the heroes of ancient Greece and Rome.

Towards the end of the year enough funds had been raised, and the barque Gentleman was chartered for $1,840. The thirty-five surviving Africans would travel to the Colony of Sierra Leone, accompanied by five American missionaries. Among the five were two black Americans, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Wilson, who had taught at Farmington, and three whites, Rev. and Mrs. William Raymond and Rev. James Steele. The Amistad Committee instructed the Americans to start a "Mendi Mission" in Sierra Leone. Before the ship left, Lewis Tappan addressed the passengers, and Sengbe replied on behalf of his fellow Africans. The newspapers reported a deeply moving scene in which many of those present openly wept.

As the Gentleman left, the plan of the passengers was "for all to keep together and somewhere in the vicinity of Cinque's town to settle down and commence a new town and then persuade their friends to come and join them, and then to adopt the American dress and manners." The ship arrived in Freetown in mid-January 1842 amid great excitement. Many of the new arrivals were able to find friends and, in some cases, family members. Sengbe soon learned from Mende Recaptives that his own home had been ravaged by war and most of his family wiped out. Thus, the hope to locate the Mendi Mission near Sengbe's town never materialized. Having unrestricted association with many of their countrymen in the Colony, some of the Amistad Africans lost the desire to remain with their American patrons. Anxious to get to their homes and their families, they drifted away, leaving only ten adults and the four children. Sengbe, himself, procured an investment of goods with which he proceeded to Sherbro country to purchase produce for the Freetown market.

It was not easy to find a location for establishing a mission station, as the original hope of building one near Sengbe's town was not feasible. After several attempts, Rev. Raymond finally secured a place at Komende in the Sherbro region in 1844. Raymond attributed his success partly to Sengbe's influence; and he interpreted the dispersal of the former captives as an advantage, because they would spread news of the Mission far and wide. The establishment of the Mendi Mission was, in fact, due in no small measure to the efforts of Rev. Raymond, to whom every credit should be given. In the course of time, the Mission opened stations in several places, one of which was named "Mo Tappan" in gratitude for the selfless assistance of Lewis Tappan. In 1846, the Amistad Committee evolved into the American Missionary Association, and in that year the Association took over full financial responsibility for the Mendi Mission.

The Amistad Case gave rise to American missionary activity in Sierra Leone, with all its positive consequences. The American Missionary Association ultimately turned over its mission stations in Sierra Leone to the United Brethren in Christ (UBC). Apart from evangelization work, the UBC was responsible for establishing an expansive system of mission schools in the southern part of the country, especially among the Mende and Sherbro peoples. Many schools were established and many new technological skills introduced as part of vocational training. The most celebrated of these schools are the Harford School for Girls at Moyamba and Albert Academy in Freetown. It should be remembered that Albert Academy, founded in 1904, was the first secondary school for upcountry boys (pre-dating the government Bo School in that capacity by many years), and that many of the early students were promising boys on scholarship. The long-term impact of these developments was to help create an elite group that excelled not only in Sierra Leone, but in the United States as well.

Some of the students who had their early education in American mission schools in Sierra Leone proceeded to the United States for further studies, and left a mark in America. Two important examples are Barnabas Root and Thomas Tucker. Root and Tucker attended the original Mendi Mission school and, after completing further studies in the United States, were employed by the American Missionary Association -- Tucker in 1862 as a teacher in a school for freedmen in Virginia, and Root in 1873 as pastor for a Congregational Mission Church for freedmen in Alabama. While Root later returned to Sierra Leone, Tucker stayed on in America and founded the State Normal College (for blacks) at Tallahassee, Florida, together with Thomas Van Gibbs, in 1887. Tucker was the first President of the College, which grew into the present-day Florida A&M University.

In the 20th century, American missionary activity helped give rise to a nationalist elite which pressed for independence. Significantly, the first Prime Minister of Sierra Leone, Dr. (later Sir) Milton Margai, and the first Executive President of Sierra Leone, Siaka Stevens, were both products of American mission primary schools in the southern part of the country and, later, graduates of Albert Academy.

By the time the Amistad Case came to an end, it had so embittered feelings between the anti-slavery North and the slave-holding South that it must be counted as one of the events leading to the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1860. Although the Supreme Court's decision in the Amistad Case was not an attack on slavery, it drew the abolitionists together and prevented their movement from breaking up. Moreover, the missionary work that began with the freedom of the Amistad Africans led to the foundation of the American Missionary Association in 1846, which was the largest and best organized abolitionist society in the United States before the outbreak of the Civil War. After the War, the Association established more than five hundred schools and colleges in the South and in the border states for the education of newly liberated blacks. These schools evolved into Atlanta, Howard, Fisk, and Dillard Universities; Hampton University; Talladega College; etc, to which countless Black Americans owe their higher education. The Amistad Case, thus, gave rise to this tremendous network of institutions in the South that educated the leaders of the modern-day Civil Rights Movement, including the venerable Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Amistad Rebellion, which began with the determination of Sengbe Pieh and fifty-two other Sierra Leoneans not to accept enforced slavery, has had far reaching consequences on two continents. Although the origins are mostly forgotten today, the processes set in motion by this revolt will continue to influence the course of historical development in both the United States and Sierra Leone -- thanks, in large measure, to the courage of Sengbe Pieh.

Kali was one of the four Mende children, and the only little boy, among the Amistad captives. He had been kidnapped from the streets of his own village, taken to the slave-trading base at Lomboko, and then sent across the Atlantic to Havana, Cuba. Later, aboard the Amistad, ten-year-old Kali was of some help to Sengbe Pieh. He sat with the three little girls and kept them quiet while Sengbe and the others, armed and unshackled, waited for their opportunity to climb up to the deck and surprise their captors. In the United States, little Kali, at his young and adaptable age, was able to learn to speak and read English much faster than the Amistad adults. In 1840, while awaiting the final decision of the United States Supreme Court on the issue of his freedom, young Kali wrote this thoughtful letter to former President John Quincy Adams, his lawyer. Kali's feelings come through clearly -- he is angry at his arrest and imprisonment; thankful to those who, like Mr. Adams, have helped him and his fellow captives; and deeply homesick.

When the Amistad captives gained their freedom and went on a speaking tour to raise money for their return passage to Sierra Leone, Kali was a star performer. He impressed audiences with his ability, after less than two years of instruction, to write correctly any sentence read to him from the Christian gospels. Kali returned with the others to Sierra Leone in 1842. He stayed with the American missionaries and was ultimately employed by the Mendi Mission. Kali married, but, while still young, contracted a disease that crippled him for the remaining years of his life.

Dear Friend Mr. Adams:

I want to write a letter to you because you love Mendi people, and you talk to the grand court. We want to tell you one thing. Jose Ruiz say we born in Havana, he tell lie....We all born in Mendi....

We want you to ask the Court what we have done wrong. What for Americans keep us in prison? Some people say Mendi people crazy; Mendi people dolt; because we no talk American language. Merica people no talk Mendi language; Merica people dolt?

They tell bad things about Mendi people, and we no understand. Some men say Mendi people very happy because they laugh and have plenty to eat. Mr. Pendleton come, and Mendi people all look sorry because they think about Mendi land and friends we no see now. Mr. Pendleton say Mendi people angry; white men afraid of Mendi people. The Mendi people no look sorry again--that why we laugh. But Mendi people feel sorry; O, we can't tell how sorry. Some people say Mendi people no got souls. Why we feel bad, [if] we no got souls...?

Dear friend Mr. Adams, you have children, you have friends, you love them, you feel sorry if Mendi people come and carry them all to Africa. We feel bad for our friends, and our friends all feel bad for us...If American people give us free we glad, if they no give us free we sorry -- we sorry for Mendi people little, we sorry for American people great deal, because God punish liars. We want you to tell court that Mendi people no want to go back to Havana, we no want to be killed. Dear Friend, we want you to know how we feel. Mendi people think, think, think. Nobody know what we think, the teacher he know, we tell him some. Mendi people have got souls....All we want is make us free.

• Abraham, Arthur. "Sengbe Pieh: A Neglected Hero?" Journal of the Historical Society of Sierra Leone, vol. 2, no. 2, 1978, pp. 22-30.