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The African Origins of the Amistad Rebellion by Marcus Rediker

On June 28, 1839, the Spanish slave schooner Amistad set sail from Havana on a routine delivery of human cargo. On a moonless night, after four days at sea, the captive Africans rose up, killed the captain, and seized control of the ship. They attempted to sail to a safe port, but were captured by the U.S. Navy and thrown into jail in Connecticut. Their legal battle for freedom eventually made its way to the Supreme Court, where their cause was argued by former president John Quincy Adams. In a landmark ruling, they were freed and eventually returned to Africa. The successful Amistad rebellion changed the very nature of the struggle against slavery. The rebellion became one of the best-known events in the history of American slavery, celebrated as a triumph of the legal system in films and books. In this powerful and highly original account, Marcus Rediker reclaims the rebellion for its true proponents: the African rebels who risked death to stake a claim for freedom.
Marcus Rediker is Distinguished Professor in History at the University of Pittsburgh. Among various publications, he is the author of The Slave Ship (2007) which won the George Washington Book Prize, Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age (2004), and Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700–1750 (1987).