Press Releases
Conference on "Amistad" Impact on U.S. History
July 3, 2008
The Public Affairs Section of the U.S. Embassy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is organizing a lecture on the topic “The Amistad Slave Ship and Its Importance in U.S. History” , on Monday July 7, 2008 at 3:30 pm at the American Corner of the Protestant University in Kinshasa. The speaker will be Mr. Samuel Brock, Deputy Chief of Mission of the American Embassy.
Amistad is the name of a slave ship traveling from Cuba to the U.S. in 1839. It is carrying a cargo of Africans who have been sold into slavery in Cuba, taken on board, and chained in the cargo hold of the ship. As the ship is crossing from Cuba to the U.S., Cinque, who was a tribal leader in Africa, leads a mutiny and takes over the ship. They continue to sail, hoping to find help when they land. Instead, when they reach the United States, they are imprisoned as runaway slaves. They do not speak a word of English, and it seems like they are doomed to die for killing their captors when an abolitionist lawyer decides to take their case, arguing that they were free citizens of another country and not slaves at all. The case finally gets to the Supreme Court, where former-President John Quincy Adams makes an impassioned and eloquent plea for their release.
This program is open to the public.
