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.