In one of the most dramatic moments of his speech, Cinqué reenacted how, with the help of Grabeau, “he freed himself from the irons on his wrists and ancles [sic], and from the chain on his neck. He then, with his own hands, wrested the irons from the limbs and necks of his countrymen.” Like Child and everyone else who saw and heard Cinqué’s account, Tappan was tremendously moved by the drama that unfolded before him: “It is not in my power to give an adequate description of Cinque when he showed how he did this and led his comrades to the conflict and achieved their freedom. In my younger years I saw [the great British actresses] Kemble and Siddons, and the representation of Othello, at Covent Garden, but no acting that I ever witnessed came near that to which I allude.” What Cinqué had learned in the bari and its palavers outshone the brightest lights of the English stage.42
Other reviews of Cinqué’s performance were equally glowing. One observer noted, no one “can hear him, and resist the conclusion that he is a master-spirit, and a great natural pastor.” Another added, “so far as we could judge, without understanding his language, we should think him a natural and powerful orator. Indeed we could not resist the impression, that no ordinary mind was addressing us, though we were unable to sympathize fully with the sentiments expressed.” Even the correspondent for the hostile New York Morning Herald was forced to admit that the speech represented “a high order of oratorical display.” When Cinqué expressed gratitude for the solidarity of the abolitionists, he “shewed himself able also, to touch with a master’s hand the finer chords of the human heart.” He moved many to tears.43
After Cinqué finished his stirring speech, the organizers seized the moment to appeal to the audience for additional donations. They resumed, and concluded, the program with a singing of “Greenland’s Icy Mountains,” known as the “Missionary Hymn,” written in 1819 by Reginald Heber, who would soon become the Anglican Bishop of Calcutta. The song reflected the missionary desire to spread the Gospel to the “earth’s remotest nation,” to India, Ceylon, and Africa, where “the heathen in his blindness bows down to wood and stone” rather than to the Christian “Redeemer, King, Creator.” The Amistad Africans sang the hymn with “great propriety” and were joined in the final verse by the congregation. The song pointed the way to a Mende Mission in Africa. Once again “weeping eyes” looked on from the audience.44
Amid its many successes, the tour aroused controversy. Joseph Tracy, a Congregational minister from Vermont, complained that the tour events looked too much like a “show”—that is to say, a cheap popular entertainment unbecoming the lofty ideals of the Christian-based abolition movement. This may have been the issue in Springfield, Massachusetts, where an event was held in Town Hall rather than a local church as “as some of the Parish committee objected…fearing it would desecrate the place.” The New York Morning Herald had snorted early on: “if the performances had been diversified with a few summersets, in which the negroes are very skillful, the entertainments would have been more complete, and more agreeable to the audience.” A writer from Boston added, “if these men are carried about the country as shows, as they have been in one or two instances, they will be thoroughly spoiled for all missionary purposes, so that the necessity of being encumbered with them will be reason enough for not attempting a mission in Mendi.” Even abolitionists complained that after the first tour Kinna was “puffed up,” as “proud as Lucifer,” Cinqué was demanding and difficult, and three people refused to work.45
Someone at the Emancipator, probably editor Joshua Leavitt, a member of the Amistad Committee, insisted that these critics had given an incorrect impression of the meetings, which “were calculated to remove prejudice—awaken sympathy—excite prayer, and stimulate Christian enterprise.” He explained, “It was no part of the design to show off these Mendians for the purpose of indulging mere curiosity. Those who attended the examinations or exhibitions did not have such an impression, and it is carping to insinuate to the contrary.” No matter what their intentions, the organizers continued to attract criticism.46
Around the same time, an unnamed “Native African” joined the fray and took it to a higher level. He published a scathing critique of the “Mendian Exhibitions” in the Hartford Observer. He maintained that the Amistad Africans “enter very reluctantly into the exercises of the meetings at which they are exhibited, and are evidently disgusted at the idea of being made puppet shows.” Again, the point of reference was the “low” entertainment of popular culture. It is not clear whether the writer had actually talked to the Amistad Africans about the shows, but he had, he claimed, heard Cinqué say, in Hartford, “that he did not like to be carried to and from New York.” The critic added that the rehearsal of the traumatic events aboard the Amistad “must have an unhappy effect upon the minds of these his brethren, &c.” His harshest criticism was that the Amistad Africans did not appreciate being carried about “as a giraffe of their native plains.” Clearly the writer thought the exhibitions were in poor taste. They had crossed the line from humanitarian event to a crass commercial effort to make money, degrading the Amistad Africans in the process.47
The Amistad Committee, who had organized the tour, was stung by the critique and felt compelled to respond. One of its members, in all likelihood Lewis Tappan, answered that the committee had considered all of the issues the critic had raised. He admitted that the Amistad Africans initially resisted the idea of performing “before the public to exhibit their improvements,” but once it was explained to them that the events were necessary “not only to raise funds for their support and education, but to raise a fund to aid in their return to their native land,” they agreed to do them, and did them cheerfully, the organizer maintained. Yet Tappan’s answer did not entirely satisfy even himself, for he continued to feel uneasy about the matter. At an exhibition in November, he apologized to the crowd “for having the duties of ‘showman’ devolve upon him.”48
The social composition of the Amistad campaign and the larger abolitionist movement of which it was a central component was reflected in the decision to hold six meetings in fundamentally proletarian locations: one was held in a factory and another five were held in African American churches made up mostly of poor but extremely interested people. The Amistad Africans visited the cotton mills of the Boott Corporation in Lowell, Massachusetts, where they inspected the machinery and fabrics and met their fellow textile workers, who spontaneously and collectively gave $58.50 to the “Mendi Fund.” Other venues included the Reverend Amos Beman’s African Methodist Episcopal Church in Boston, where it was “impossible for all to get in” to see the program; the Reverend James Pennington’s Talcott Street Church in Hartford, Connecticut; and the Reverend C. W. Gardner’s “Colored” Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. Pennington’s flock contributed a hard-earned $8 to the Amistad cause, which may have been a greater portion of their collective income than any other church visited on the tours.49
The two meetings held at the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church at Church and Leonard streets in New York seem to have had special qualities and meanings, for both the abolitionist organizers of the events, who were, for the most part, African American, and the “Mendi People.” The church was a large one, into which a massive crowd consisting mostly of black people jammed themselves. A correspondent for the New York Journal of Commerce noted, “A more compact mass of human beings was perhaps never seen in a church,” while another, for the Colored American, added, “We do not recollect of ever having seen a larger assemblage of our people upon any occasion.”50
In the black churches, the content of the program changed. Tappan and Booth made briefer comments as the leaders of the black community—the Reverend Christopher Rush; the Reverend Timothy Eato (a founder of the New York African Society for Mutual Relief); and William P. Johnson—made the meeting their own. Dr. James McCune Smith, the first professionally trained African American physician in the United States, offered a series of resolutions, which were seconded by Charles B. Ra
y, publisher of the Colored American and a founder of the New York Vigilance Committee. Other leading black activists who took part in the resolutions were Philip A. Bell, George Downing, Junius C. Morel, the Reverend Theodore S. Wright, and John J. Zuille, all of whom were active in one way or another in the Underground Railroad.51
The resolutions affirmed the revolutionary implications of the Amistad rebellion and the larger struggle against slavery. The assembled resolved that in “their resistance against the captain and crew of the Amistad,…the Mendi people did no more than exercise that natural resistance against tyrannical oppression, which the consent of all ages of mankind, and the example of the American Revolution has sanctioned as both right and lawful.” They also resolved that the Amistad case, based on a “just and righteous decision” by the Supreme Court, “has a powerful influence on the question of human rights, not only in this country, but throughout the world.” It represented “the faint glimmering of a more auspicious morn, which will usher in that bright and glorious day, when the judges of our land, and men high in power, will be compelled by the force of reason and truth, to throw aside the bigotry and prejudice which too often soils the ermine of justice, and boldly declare that property in man cannot be held, wither by inheritance, purchase, or theft.” The “Mendi People” embodied the revolutionary force of reason and truth.52
When it came time for the Africans to speak, James Covey joined the program. Having studied with missionaries in Freetown after his liberation from a slave ship in 1834, he “made an admirable address, which drew tears from nearly every eye, and the manner in which he quoted and illustrated Scripture was amazing, and would serve as quite a lesson to a learned divine.” Covey also described his relationship with the Amistad Africans, especially their joy on meeting him and discovering that he was a Mende speaker. He and the other “Mende People” were, in the Zion Church, more expansive and “more interesting, we [the Colored American] thought, than at any of the previous meetings.” Kinna greeted the audience with “you are my brethren, the same color as myself.” He “seemed to feel himself at home, and his address was exceedingly concise, distinct and happy.” A joyous pan-African mood animated the occasion.53
Mission to Africa
At the May 17 meeting at the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, the Reverend Theodore S. Wright resolved that “in connection with the ardent desire of these people to return to their own country to communicate the truths of the gospel, a favorable opportunity is providentially presented to the friends of missions, to unite for the evangelization of Africa.” According to Lydia Maria Child, who attended the event, this resolution “rejoiced the hearts” of the African Americans who heard it, for it promised a “pure mission,” in contrast to that of the detested American Colonization Society, which had “joined hands with the slaveholder” and accepted his money for the racist removal of black people to Africa. “Not a cent from those who bought or sold human beings would ever be allowed to pollute” the funds of what would become the Mende Mission. The project to establish a mission in southern Sierra Leone was gaining strength and momentum.54
The origins of the idea lay in conversations that took place in the New Haven jail. An anonymous visitor described an interaction between teacher Benjamin Griswold and the Amistad Africans in late November 1839. When Griswold suggested that the captives might go home to Mende country, they responded with joy. The teacher then pointed to himself and then to them, saying, “I, you, you, Mendi!” They did not understand his meaning. Then he said, “You, me, Mendi, go!”—or, “I will go with you to Mende country.” The Africans all agreed, yes, yes, but Griswold apparently thought the response tepid. He put on a stern look, rose from his seat, folded his arms, and walked away, indicating “neglect and ill-will.” They in turn extended their arms “as if embracing some object of affection, clasping it to their bosom,” insisting that they did want him to go. One man made a gesture of eating, promising that they would feed him in Africa, adding “you Merica man, yandinguo, yandinguo” (good, good). Griswold’s students then gathered around him, warmly grasping and shaking his hand, to emphasize the truth of their pledge.55
Griswold reported this conversation to Lewis Tappan, who construed it as an African request for the teacher to go home with them, as he wrote in a letter to abolitionist John Scoble on January 20, 1840: “Mr. Benjamin Griswold of the Theological Seminary was…strongly solicited by the Africans to accompany them home.” Tappan visited the captives in jail and asked “if they wished to have teachers go with them to Mendi.” They answered yes. Tappan then asked, more specifically, if they wanted Griswold to go with them. The teacher then interjected his own question: “I asked them what they would do to me, if I should go?” Cinqué, Griswold reported, expressed “a willingness to do whatever I should wish & all assured me that they would take care of me & not let any one injure me.” As the leader, Cinqué vowed to take responsibility for any missionaries who might accompany them to Mende country. Griswold trusted the response: “I think I have the certain confidence of these men & I believe they would defend & protect me at all hazards.” In a war-torn land he would certainly need protection.56
It is not clear how the Amistad Africans thought about this proposition. Did they understand the difference between a teacher and a missionary, especially in a time when communications remained difficult? The two roles were in many respects inseparable to the Christian abolitionists as they ministered to pagans, but the Africans probably held a different view. Did they support the idea for instrumental and strategic reasons, because they thought the arrangement would increase the likelihood of their eventually returning home? Is this why Cinqué declared his willingness to do whatever Griswold wanted? If so, his judgment was sure, for in the coming months the prospect of establishing a mission in Sierra Leone would become a leading motivation of many associated with the Amistad case, including a significant number of African American Christians. The mission idea became part of the working misunderstanding in the alliance between the Amistad Africans and the abolitionist movement.
As Tappan and others continued to think about a mission, a new initiative came from another quarter of the abolitionist movement. As Farmington attorney and abolitionist John Hooker later recalled,
The first public movement made with reference to doing something to carry the Gospel to Africa, and for the aid of colored people in America, was by the Rev. James W. C. Pennington, the colored pastor of the First Colored Congregational Church, Hartford, Conn., who called a meeting in his own church, May 5, 1841, at which a committee was appointed to call a general meeting of the friends of missions, which was held in Hartford, August 18, 1841, to consider the subject of missions to Africa. This was the origin of associated society work for Africa, and some of the antecedents of the American Missionary Association, which has done so great and good a work for the freedmen, Chinese, and Indians.57
At a large public meeting held at the Talcott Street Church (“1st Colored Congregational Church”) in Hartford on May 5, 1841, Pennington expressed “his sense of the obligations of Christians, colored Christians, to do something in relation to carrying the gospel to Africa.” Pennington challenged the members of his congregation, saying that unless “our whole people, and this church particularly” should do something, “I don’t know but that I shall have to go myself.” Many of the world’s greatest enterprises had “small beginnings” like their own. Deacon James Mars spoke about the “providential arrival, defence and deliverance of the Mendi people of the Amistad,” and hoped that young missionaries would accompany them home. The African Augustus W. Hanson, who had briefly served as a translator for the Amistad Africans, added that “the destiny of a portion of his brethren in the country, was ultimately connected with the regeneration of Africa.” Those attending the meeting resolved that because “Divine Providence has now, in the case of the citizens of Mendi, (late Amistad captives,) most evidently opened a wide door for access to the heart of that country” and that �
�a mission should be established in the interior [of Africa].” They decided to hold a larger meeting in August 1841 to unite all evangelical groups in the cause.58
The call for the missionary convention was reiterated and publicized in the Colored American in July 1841. Although directed primarily at the African American community, the message was come one, come all: “Let the artist forsake his studio, and the merchant his counting-room; let the student forego the fascinations of literature, let the mechanic quit his workshop, and the husbandman his rural domicil and healthful occupation.” It was of special importance that “something should be done by us for the land which our fathers loved as the land of their nativity.” The call quoted Mark 16:15 as its mandate from God: “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.”59
Crisis
As the plans for a mission developed, the “Mendi People” were living in Farmington, under the care of abolitionist John Treadwell Norton, studying hard, cultivating fifteen acres of land, and hoping to go home. They still had no idea when, how, or if their ultimate goal would be achieved. The Amistad Committee had petitioned the administration of President John Tyler for the funds to pay their way back to their native lands, but the request had been unceremoniously denied as being without legal precedent. Getting thirty-six people across the Atlantic and back to their homelands was a complex and expensive proposition still under discussion in abolitionist circles. As the debate dragged on, several of the Amistad Africans began to despair.60
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