History
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On this site, on August 29, 1839, a federal investigative inquiry indicted 38 enslaved Mende Africans accused of revolt on the high seas and murder of the captain and cook of the Spanish slave ship Amistad, which had been captured and brought into New London by U.S. Revenue Cutter Washington, Lt. Gedney commanding. This first step to freedom revealed resources which ultimately, through trials in Hartford and New Haven and an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court by former President John Quincy Adams, won their liberty as persons to return home by missionary ship to Sierra Leone in 1841. Thames River waves lapped against the white-striped loft black hull of Amistad for 14 months until it was refurbished and sold for salvage nearby at Joseph Lawrence’s dock. The cargo of silks, satins, and other treasures were auctioned off at this Custom House on these front steps. Amistad had unjustly held leader Joseph Cinque and his people as slaves in its hold before it became the vehicle for their passage to freedom. Never before, or since, has there been record of such freedom won!
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New London, Connecticut · United States
