Sengbe Pieh was born in 1814 in the village of Mani in West Africa. He was a member of the Mende tribe. His father was a leader in the village. Sengbe learned from his father so that perhaps he could grow up to be a leader.
The Mende people are a
large tribe in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Sierra Leone and Liberia are in West
Africa. They are both on the Atlantic Ocean. The Mende are an important group
of people in West Africa today.
Sengbe grew up and got
married. He and his wife had three children. He was a rice farmer like most
people in his village. He was an
enslaved African who led a revolt on the Amistad coastal
slave ship in 1839. He was later taken into custody in the United
States but was freed by a decision of the U.S.
Supreme Court. The revolt came to be known as the Amistad mutiny.
ABDUCTION
While in his 20s, he was captured by four Black strangers as he
walked along a well-traveled path. His wife and three children were unaware of
what had happened and feared that he might have been eaten by animals. He later
thought the captors might have been members of a rival tribe or debt
collectors. After being forced to walk for days to reach the coast, he boarded
the Portuguese slave ship Teçora along
with hundreds of other prisoners. Unsanitary conditions and lack of food caused
many to die during the two-month voyage to Cuba.
Because it was illegal to import enslaved people into Cuba,
the captives were smuggled in during the night. Slavery itself was
still legal there, so efforts were made to pass off the new arrivals as
Cuban-born enslaved people. Sengbe Pieh was given the Spanish Christian
name Joseph Cinque (sometimes written as Cinque or Cinquez) and soon found
himself bound for Puerto Principe (later Camagüey), Cuba, aboard the
Amistad.
The Spaniards who bought Cinque planned to sell him and other
captives to plantation owners. However, the cook on board led Cinque to believe
that the prisoners would soon be killed and eaten. Cinque convinced his fellow
prisoners that they had nothing to lose by trying to free themselves. On a
stormy night, Cinque used a nail he had been hiding to free himself and others
from their iron collars. Armed with sugarcane knives found on board, they
killed the ship’s captain and the cook.
Cinque ordered the surviving injured slave traders to sail to
Africa, but the crew managed to zigzag northward on the Atlantic Ocean instead.
After about two months, the vessel reached U.S. waters near Long
Island, New York. While Cinque and others went ashore to gather supplies,
crew members of the USS Washington went
on board the Amistad. The Africans
were charged with murder and mutiny, and they were transported to New
Haven, Connecticut, to await trial.
THE AMISTAD REBELLION
In 1839, Cinque and over fifty other Mende
people were kidnapped, illegally enslaved, and forced onto the Spanish
schooner, La Amistad. The ship was intended to transport them across the
Atlantic to Cuba, where they would be sold into brutal bondage. The voyage was
a horrific experience filled with suffering and deprivation. However, Cinque,
refusing to accept his fate, planned and executed a daring rebellion. Using
ingenuity and exploiting the crew’s negligence, Cinque and his fellow captives
seized control of the ship, killing several crew members in the process. This
act was not simply an impulsive outburst; it was a calculated act of
resistance, driven by a deep desire for freedom and a powerful sense of self-preservation.
The rebellion wasn’t chaotic; it was organized, demonstrating Cinque's
strategic thinking and leadership.
The Spaniards claimed that the Africans had already been
enslaved in Cuba at the time of purchase and were therefore legal property
without rights. Two men who knew the Mende language were brought in
to help translate and allow the captives to tell their side of the story in
court. When Cinque took the stand, he proved to be an eloquent speaker.
In January 1840 the U.S. district court ruled that the Africans had mutinied
only to gain back their due freedom after being illegally kidnapped and sold.
The judge ordered them to be returned to Africa, which went against the wishes
of U.S. Pres. Martin Van Buren. The case went to the Supreme Court, where
former president John
Quincy Adams represented the Africans. The original verdict was upheld in
March 1841.
Cinque and the others, accompanied by a translator and five
missionaries, reached their homeland in early 1842. Details of his life
following the return remain sketchy, and he is thought to have died sometime
between 1852 and 1879.
CINQUE
RETURN TO SIERRA LEONE
Following the Supreme Court's decision, Cinque
and the surviving members of the rebellion were finally returned to their
homeland of Sierra Leone. Though he became a symbol of resistance and a figure
of hope for many, details of his life after returning to Africa remain scarce.
The transition back to his native land was likely complex, challenging, and
perhaps even bittersweet after experiencing the horrors of slavery and the
turmoil of the legal battle. However, Cinque's legacy endures, immortalized not
just by his own courageous act but also by the broader impact of the Amistad
case on the fight against slavery in the United States and beyond. His story
became a powerful narrative used to fuel the abolitionist movement and helped
to solidify the growing momentum towards emancipation.
References
https://globaldatabase.ecpat.org/pdf/sign-pdf-form/Files:B8L8/download/Joseph-Cinque.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Cinqu%C3%A9
https://www.britannica.com/event/Amistad-mutiny
https://whereilivect.org/the-long-journey-of-sengbe-piehjoseph-cinque/