Description
Written by David Lester, Paul Buhle, and Marcus Rediker; illustrated by David Lester.
136 pages; softcover.
From the trio of Rediker, Lester, and Buhle comes another graphic “history from below” about the Amistad rebellion of 1839 when 53 enslaved Africans on the slave ship Amistad slipped out of their restraints and overpowered their enslavers and ships crew. Sold into slavery in their homeland of Sierra Leone and later bound for Puerto Príncipe, Cuba, from Havana, these Africans, led by the charismatic warrior Cinqué, forced the ships remaining crew to sail homeward.
Divided into 3 parts, The Black Schooner begins with the intense night of the uprising and takes readers on a reconstructed journey: from sailing on the open ocean to a New Haven, Connecticut, jail, where the captured Africans awaited trial for mutiny and murder; to the Supreme courtroom that found that the rebels had been illegally enslaved and would now be free to return to their native land. Through it all, artist David Lester chronicles their story using striking imagery, showing how they achieved an unexpected and powerful international victory for the abolitionist movement and forced some of the most powerful people in the world to confront the issue of human bondage.
Based on Redikers book The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom, The Black Schooner challenges a whitewashed history and instead, puts the Africans back at the center of their own freedom storywhere they belong.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.