africa – HoPful Media

Joseph Cinquez was the leader of a revolt among African slaves aboard the Spanish ship "Amistad" en route to Cuba in June 1839. The slaves seized control of the ship but were soon recaptured and charged with murder and piracy. This portrait was done while Cinquez (or "Cinque") awaited trial in New Haven, Connecticut. John Quincy Adams represented the Africans before the Supreme Court, and thanks to his eloquence, they were set free and allowed to return to Africa. Sheffield's portrait is sympathetic and informal. The text quotes Cinquez's sober and moving speech to his comrades on board ship after the mutiny. He said, "Brothers, we have done that which we purposed, our hands are now clean for we have Striven to regain the precious heritage we received from our fathers. . . . I am resolved it is better to die than to be a white man's slave . . ." Commissioned by the publisher of the New York "Sun," the print was described and advertised for sale in the account of the capture of the "Amistad," published in that newspaper's August 31, 1839 issue. (The "Sun" account, evidently erroneous in this detail, names the artist as "James" Sheffield.) The Library's impression of the lithograph was deposited for copyright the same day. - from Wikimedia Commons — Print portrait of Sengbeh Pieh (a.k.a. Joseph Cinquez) in The Sun, August 31, 1839. Possibly the same portrait that Madison Washington reportedly saw during his time in Philadelphia.

America: Secret Wars is back with a five part series about the skirmishes between the US and Canada that almost led to a third war with the British Empire in the 1830s. In Part 4, Trevor is joined Bailey and Nic from Totalus Jeffianus (@jeffianus.bsky.social) to discuss the Creole Case, the struggle for emancipation in antebellum America, and how the slaver states wanted to use a war against British Canada to their own advantage.
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Totalus Jeffianus – https://pod.link/1689272611

Douglass – The Heroic Slave

Home – Negro Comrades of the Crown: African Americans and the British Empire Fight the U.S. Before Emancipation

Jervey and Huber – The Creole Affair

Jones – The Influence of SLavery on the Webster-Ashburton Negotiations

Momodu – The Creole Case

National Archives – The Amistad Case

Rediker – The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom

Sorrell and Berry – This 1841 Rebellion at Sea Freed More Than 100 Enslaved People

US DOS – The Amistad Case, 1839

Webster-Ashburton Treaty