The Amistad Rebellion (44 page)

34
. William H. Townsend, Sketches of the Amistad captives, [ca. 1839–1840]. GEN MSS 335, Beneicke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection, Yale University.

35
. Family tradition had it that Townsend produced his pencil sketches around the time of one of the several trials of the
Amistad
captives: September 1839, November 1839, January 1840, or March 1841. The sketch of Faquorna suggests an earlier date. See Charles Allen Dinsmore, “Interesting Sketches of the Amistad Captives,”
Yale University Library Gazette
9 (1935): 51–55.

36
. David Grimsted,
Melodrama Unveiled: American Theater and Culture, 1800–1850
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), 149; Rosemarie K. Bank,
Theatre Culture in America, 1825–1860
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 159. Phillips was apparently employed by the Bowery Theatre in May 1838, when he wrote a statement to be read to “an overflowing house” when the theatre reopened after a fire. Another suggestive fact is that Inez, the only female character in the play, was played by a “Mrs. Phillips.”

37
. The playbill is in the Harvard Theatre Collection. See also “Bowery Theatre,”
NYCA
, September 4, 1839; “The Long, Low Black Schooner,”
NYS
, August 31, 1839. I am especially indebted in this section to Bruce A. McConachie, “‘The Theatre of the Mob’: Apocalyptic Melodrama and Preindustrial Riots in Antebellum New York,” in McConachie and Daniel Friedman, eds.,
Theatre for Working-class Audiences in the United States, 1830–1980
(Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985), 17–46; the same author’s
Melodramatic Formations: American Theatre and Society, 1820–1870
(Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1992); and Reed,
Rogue Performances
. See also Shane White,
Stories of Freedom in Black New York
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007).

38
. Christine Stansell,
City of Women: Sex and Class in New York, 1789–1860
(New York: Knopf, 1986), 89, 90, 93–95; McConachie,
Melodramatic Formations
, 122; Reed,
Rogue Performances
, 9, 11, 15; Bank,
Theatre Culture in America
, 84; Peter George Buckley, “To the Opera House: Society and Culture in New York City, 1820–1860,” Ph.D. dissertation, State University of New York at Stony Brook, 1984, 181–82.

39
.
Philadelphia Inquirer
, September, 2, 1839. The
New York Mirror
(“The Theatre,” September 14, 1839) listed the play as one of the successes of the season. The Bowery Theatre was known for pioneering longer runs. See McConachie,
Melodramatic Formations
, 120. The estimated revenue comes from a well-researched but unfootnoted article by Perry Walton, “The Mysterious Case of the Long, Low Black Schooner,”
New England Quarterly
6 (1933): 360. Walton also notes that the play was performed at the Park Theatre, the National Theatre, and Niblo’s Garden as well as the Bowery. I have not been able to confirm the revenue or the other venues in primary sources. The last newspaper mention of the play was in the
New Orleans Bee
, September 17, 1839.

40
. “Bowery Theatre,”
NYCA
, September 4, 1839; “Theatricals—The Seven Ages,”
NYMH
, February 28, 1840; Bank,
Theatre Culture
, 72.

41
. The name Zemba apparently came from a story, “Tales of the Niger: Zemba and Zorayde,” published in
The Court Magazine, containing Original papers by Distinguished Writers
(London: Bull and Churton, 1833) 3 (July–December 1833): 71–74, republished in the
Philadelphia Inquirer
on January 2, 1838. Zemba is Muslim guide to a British traveler, who kindly saves him from a despotic African king, allowing him to marry his beloved Zorayde.

42
. The use of the hold of the schooner as a setting made the play unusual. Heather Nathans has noted that the Middle Passage “virtually disappeared” from the American stage at midcentury as the slave trade was rethought as something internal to the nation’s borders. See her
Slavery and Sentiment on the American Stage, 1787–1861: Lifting the Veil of Black
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 129–30.

43
. Peter Reed writes that a staged execution was not likely and that a more common plot outcome at the time would have been a reprieve for the hero. Personal communication to the author, December 14, 2010.

44
. Rosemarie K. Bank notes that
The Gladiator
was “considered too rebellious for black ears,” hence free people of color were banned from the audience, but the ban may not have been enforced. See her
Theatre Culture
, 96. Three-fingered Jack was called a “daring freebooter” in the
Supplement to the Royal Gazette
, January 27–Feb 3, 1781, 79, cited in Diana Paton, “The Afterlives of Three-Fingered Jack,” in Brycchan Carey and Peter J. Kitson, eds.,
Slavery and the Cultures of Abolition: Essays Marking the Bicentennial of the Abolition Act of 1807
(London: Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2007), 44. See also McConachie,
Melodramatic Formations
, 70–71, 142, 143, and Reed,
Rogue Performances
, 21, 37, 100, 122, 159–160. For the pirate plays of the era, see George C. D. Odell,
Annals of the New York Stage
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1928), vol. IV (1834–1843), 30, 144, 149, 151, 163, 313, 315, 373, 390, 481, 488. Other plays included
Pirates of the Panda, or the Plunder of the Mexican
(1834–1835, based on current events);
The Pirate Boy
(1837);
Pirates of the Hurlgate
(1839); and
The Pirates Signal, or the Bridge of Death
(1840).

45
. Reed,
Rogue Performances
, 5, 13 (quotation), 43; McConachie,
Melodramatic Formations
, 97–100.

46
. “Private Examination,”
NYCA
, September 13, 1839; “The Long, Low Black Schooner,”
NYS
, August 31, 1839.

47
. Reed,
Rogue Performances
, 10, 175–85; Jonas B. Phillips,
Jack Sheppard, or the Life of a Robber! Melodrama in Three Acts founded on Ainsworth’s Novel
(written and performed in 1839). On Sheppard, see Peter Linebaugh,
The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century
(London: Allen Lane, 1991),
chap. 1
.

48
. “Incarcerated Captives,”
NYCA
, September 6, 1839.

49
. Dwight P. Janes to Rev. Joshua Leavitt, New London, August 30, 1839, ARC; “Incarcerated Captives,”
NYCA
, September 6, 1839. For other efforts to find interpreters, see Seth Staples to Roger Baldwin, September 4, 1839, and Ellis Gray Loring to Roger Baldwin, September 19, 1839, Baldwin Family Papers.

50
. “To the Committee”
NYJC
, September 10, 1839; “Captured Africans,”
NYMH
, October 4, 1839.

51
. “To the Committee,”
NYJC
, September 10, 1839. A controversy surrounded the issue of whether Antonio could translate for the
Amistad
Africans, although in practical terms the question was moot as he was segregated from them after September 10, 1839. Around this time, Ruiz insisted that “the cabin boy knows nothing of the language” of the Africans and could not translate. Yet there is abundant evidence to contradict that claim, some of it provided by Ruiz himself. In an earlier account of the rebellion he had explained that the Africans would have killed Antonio, but for the fact that “he acted as interpreter between us, as he understood both languages.” The pro-Ruiz
Morning Herald
also reported that “no one but Antonio can understand” the
Amistad
Africans. During his court testimony in November 1839, Burna looked to Antonio every time he did not understand a question. The
New Bedford Mercury
also reported that “Antonio is the only one able to communicate with them,” although “very imperfectly.” On top of all this is the practical evidence of his abilities to translate provided by Ruiz and Montes in their account of the
Amistad
’s
voyage after the rebellion. See “The Case of the Captured Negroes,”
NYMH
, September 9, 1839; “Important from Washington—The Captured Africans,”
NYMH
, September 10, 1839: and “Herald on Amistad Trial,”
NYMH
, November 21, 1839; “The Long, Low Black Schooner,”
NYS
, August 31, 1839; “The African Captives,”
New Bedford Mercury
,
September 13, 1839;
NLG
, October 16, 1839.

52
. “Funds Appeal,”
NYCA
, September 5, 1839.

Chapter Four: Jail

1
. “The Long, Low Black Schooner,”
NYS
, August 31, 1839; Charles Dickens, “The Italian Prisoner,” no. XVII in
The Uncommercial Traveller
from
All the Year Round
(October 13, 1860): 13–17. The definition of “political prisoner” used here is someone incarcerated for a technically illegal act that a substantial part of the population considered ethically justified.

2
. “Education of the Africans—Doubtful whether they are Negroes Personal History—Sketch of their Country, &c.,”
NYMH
, November 12, 1839. This chapter builds on the work of James L. Huston, “The Experiential Basis of the Northern Antislavery Impulse,”
Journal of Southern History
56 (1990): 609–40. See also the excellent essay by Susan Eva O’Donovan, “Universities of Social and Political Change: Slaves in Jail in Antebellum America,” in Michele Lise Tartar and Richard Bell, eds.,
Buried Lives: Incarcerated in Early America
(Athens, GA : University of Georgia Press , 2012), 124–46.

3
. Henry Mayer,
All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery
(New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2008),
chap. 5
.

4
. Tappan had written the day before that attorney Seth Staples was to attend the September 10 interview along with Baldwin and the others, but he was not listed among those who did. See Tappan’s letter, “To the Committee on Behalf of the African Prisoners,”
NYJC
, September 10, 1839. Bau (or Bahoo) was incorrectly identified as “Bowle” in the first accounts of the interview, according to a correspondent of the
NYS
. See “The Amistad Case,”
NYS
, September 23, 1839.

5
. “The Captured Africans of the Amistad,”
NYMH
, October 4, 1839. Antonio also gave testimony in the hearing conducted by Judge Andrew Judson aboard the U.S. brig
Washington
. His remarks were published in “The Long, Low Black Schooner,”
NYS
, August 31, 1839.

6
. “Private Examination of Cinquez,”
NYCA
, September 13, 1839. This paragraph and the seven following are based on this article and another, published as “To the Committee,” in the
NYJC
, September 10, 1839, both by Lewis Tappan. Shorter summaries of the interviews also appeared in the
NLG
, September 11, 1839, and the
NYS
, September 12, 1839.

7
. Arthur Abraham, “Sengbe Pieh: A Neglected Hero?”
Journal of the Historical Society of Sierra Leone
2 (1978): 22–30.

8
. “To the Committee,”
NYJC
, September 10, 1839; “The Slaves,”
NLG
, September 11, 1839; “Private Examination,”
NYCA
, September 13, 1839.

9
. John Warner Barber later recorded that Bau had lived “near a large river named Wo-wa,” probably the Moa. See Barber, 11. Based on evidence gathered from Liberated Africans by linguist Sigismund Koelle in Freetown, Sierra Leone, around 1850, P.E.H. Hair suggests that the peoples of the region began to form families around the age of 25. See “The Enslavement of Koelle’s Informants,”
Journal of African History
6 (1965): 193–203. Cinqué’s age would have increased his authority within the relatively young group.

10
. “To the Committee,”
NYJC
, September 10, 1839; Lewis Tappan to Roger Baldwin, November 21, 1840, Baldwin Family Papers; Deposition of Dr. Richard R. Madden, November 20, 1839, U.S. District Court, Connecticut, NAB; “Adams Letter on Amistad Africans,”
NYJC
, December 25, 1839; “Plans to Educate the Amistad Africans in English,”
NYJC
, October 9, 1839; “Amistad Trial—Termination,”
Emancipator
, January 16, 1840; L. N. Fowler, “Phrenological Developments of Joseph Cinquez, Alias Ginqua,”
American Phrenological Journal and Miscellany
2 (1840): 136–38;
New England Weekly Record
, May 23, 1840; “Peale’s Museum and Portrait Gallery,”
NYCA
, June 16, 1840; “Visit to Hartford, Connecticut,”
NYMH
, September 24, 1839.

11
. “The Captured Africans,”
NYMH
, September 17, 1839; “The Amistad Africans in Prison,”
NYMH
, October 9, 1839.

12
. Phillip Lapsansky, “Graphic Discord: Abolitionists and Antiabolitionist Images,” in Jean Fagan Yellin and John C. Van Horne, eds.,
The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994), 218–21; Marcus Wood,
Blind Memory: Visual Representations of Slavery in England and America, 1780–1865
(Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2000), 172–76; Richard Powell, “Cinqué: Antislavery Portraiture and Patronage in Jacksonian America,”
American Art
11 (1997): 56–57.

13
.
Haverhill Gazette
, September 27, 1839; “Removal of the African Prisoners,”
NYCA
, September 16, 1839.

14
. Roderick Stanley, “Journal of Farmington Farmer,” 1837–1843. (Ms 74260), CHS;
Emancipator
, September 19, 1839.

15
. “The Amistad,”
NYCA
, September 19, 1839; “Amistad,”
NYCA
September 20, 1839; “Visit to Hartford, Connecticut,”
NYMH
, September 24, 1839.