COLLECTION 094 · SGC-94
New Haven · Connecticut
Faces, a ship and a city: the Africans who fought enslavement and the New Haven places connected to their freedom struggle.
This is an event history, not a building opening. The modern Freedom Schooner is a reconstruction, not the original La Amistad.
LOOK CLOSER · OPEN ANY IMAGE
May 2007
A photograph of the modern reconstruction built at Mystic Seaport in 2000. The ship carries the Amistad story into public memory; it is not the original 1839 vessel.
January 11, 2003
The Freedom Schooner photographed at Key West, Florida. This later scene is included as the history of the reconstruction, with its location distinguished from New Haven.
1839
A contemporary painting depicts La Amistad near Culloden Point on August 26, 1839, with the American vessel Washington. This is a painted historical view, not a photograph.
between 1839 and 1840
Sketch of an Amistad prisoner, drawn as they awaited trial in New Haven.
1839
An 1839 print of Sengbe Pieh, also known as Joseph Cinqué. Its original title uses an inaccurate description of his origins; that wording is preserved at the source rather than adopted as the archive’s identification.
October 4, 1839
The first page of James Covey’s deposition concerning the Africans held in New Haven jail. His testimony helped make their account understandable within the legal proceedings.
James Covey, deponent (written in an unknown hand); Public domain; Wikimedia Commons
Original sourceCOLLECTION HISTORY
The Amistad story reached New Haven because Africans who had been kidnapped and illegally enslaved resisted. Aboard La Amistad in 1839, Sengbe Pieh and his companions fought to regain their freedom. Their capture by an American vessel brought them into another legal system and another confinement. The portraits and drawings in this collection should be read as images of people struggling for self-determination, not merely as illustrations of a court case. [SGC94-S2]
From September 1839 until August 1840, the survivors were held in the jail on the east side of New Haven Green. They exercised on the Green, while paying spectators visited the jail. Support, curiosity and exploitation occupied the same streets. They were later moved to a warehouse in Westville while the case continued. This was not the Whalley Avenue jail that burned in 1910; that later building had a separate history. [SGC94-S1]
On March 9, 1841, the United States Supreme Court ruled in the Africans’ favor. The legal victory did not undo kidnapping, the Atlantic crossing or the lives lost along the way. Images of the vessel, contemporary portraits and James Covey’s testimony preserve different aspects of that struggle. Historical printed titles sometimes misidentify origins or use language that the archive does not adopt as fact. [SGC94-S2]
New Haven later placed a memorial by sculptor Edward Hamilton at the former jail site, dedicated in 1992. Photographs of the modern Freedom Schooner belong to this later work of remembrance. They show a reconstruction built to carry the story forward, not a surviving photograph of the 1839 ship. [SGC94-S3]
This is an event history, not a building opening. The modern Freedom Schooner is a reconstruction, not the original La Amistad.
THE SEARCHABLE CATALOG
Search includes catalog notes and the OCR text included with this edition. OCR may misread names or dates; use the original scan to verify a match.
PHOTO-2391058 · Photographs · May 2007
Amistad & New Haven
A photograph of the modern reconstruction built at Mystic Seaport in 2000. The ship carries the Amistad story into public memory; it is not the original 1839 vessel.
Read item & source notes
PHOTO-50834418 · Photographs · January 11, 2003
Amistad & New Haven
The Freedom Schooner photographed at Key West, Florida. This later scene is included as the history of the reconstruction, with its location distinguished from New Haven.
Read item & source notesExtract the ZIP and open START_HERE.html. It includes the catalog, selected images, acquired source text, credits and a searchable SQLite database. New photo additions are hosted in the SGC media library and require an internet connection; original bundled images remain available offline.
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
