This book is the first full-scale treatment of the only instance in history in which African blacks, seized by slave dealers, won their freedom and returned home.
In 1839, Joseph Cinque led other blacks in a revolt on the Spanish slave ship Amistad in the Caribbean. They steered the ship northward to Montauk, Long Island, where it was seized by an American naval vessel. With the Africans jailed in Connecticut and the Spaniards claiming violoation...