The Slave Trade: Africa

Although slavery was legal in many U.S. states in the 19th century, the importation of slaves was not:

"Just as demand for slaves was increasing, supply was restricted. The United States Constitution, adopted in 1787, prevented Congress from banning the importation of slaves before 1808. On January 1, 1808, Congress acted to ban further imports. Any new slaves would have to be descendants of ones that were currently in the U.S. However, the internal U.S. slave trade, and the involvement in the international slave trade or the outfitting of ships for that trade by U.S. citizens, were not banned." (Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_the_United_States)

The Amistad landed at New York in 1839: its crew--persons taken from Africa who had managed to mutiny--had thought they were headed back to Africa, but one of the crewmen spared by the mutineers to help them steer to Africa had changed the course. What happened then?

• A complete collection on the Amistad, with newspaper accounts of the trial, sketches of the defendants, the defendants' biographies plus biographies of others involved, story of how language of defendants deciphered(http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/amistad/AMISTD.HTM); this site also contains a post-trial account of what happened after the trial is done: (http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/amistad/AMI_BRAY.HTM)

   * * *

• Andrew T. Judson Mystic Seaport--Connecticut Maritime History Collection Collection of documents relating to the Amistad--fascimiles and text transcriptions of Observations relating to seizure and testimony of ship's occupants, maps of the slave trade, and more (http://amistad.mysticseaport.org/main/welcome.html)
  See also: Site Map Seaport's collection (http://amistad.mysticseaport.org/sitemap/welcome.html)

  Contents Include:

  • The Slave Ship (http://www.amistadamerica.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.viewPage&page_id=3084F715-E5EB-1DCE-8C30AC8EB512A2B4)

  • Timeline (http://www.amistadamerica.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.viewPage&page_id=2C5F2B3F-9459-BFDE-98005057F4083D7C)
    

  • Lewis Tappan's letter descibing the mutineers once taken into custody (http://www.amistadamerica.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.viewpage&page_id=13684366-039C-FEF6-CF2DF7E5B81EC71F

  • Children on board the Amistad (http://www.amistadamerica.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.viewPage&page_id=9983240A-D281-8340-64E688844780E616

  • Letter from Amistad Prisoner/Mutineer Kale (http://www.amistadamerica.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.viewpage&page_id=136F6610-E0F4-2E14-28B8D708BDB87192

  • Join the 2007 Crew! (http://www.amistadamerica.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.viewpage&page_id=64FFCE22-CDC4-6C97-B4FE570DAAF599DB)

   * * *

• Cornell Law Schools Discussion of the Amistad (http://www.law.cornell.edu/background/amistad/amistad3.html
  This site includes John Q. Adams' testimony (he was an attorney for the defendants; see http://www.multied.com/amistad/amistad.html ), and the Court's decision, With Case Summary & Arguments.

  * * *

• Henry Gilpin, who represented the U.S. government in the case, is discussed at this site(http://www.fjc.gov/history/amistad.nsf/page/henrygilpin)

   * * *

• Education World's The Amistad story, with lesson plans (http://www.education-world.com/a_lesson/lesson043.shtml)

 * * *

Africa Maps: These Depict Countries supplying people as slaves: Senegal, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Congo (now Central African Republic) are among the countries I think from reading the literature on the Amistad; other countries, including Ethiopia, also supplied slaves according to other sources!

• The Atlantic Slave Trade from the University of Virginia (http://hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu/Slavery/index.php)
  (Images from slavery)

• P. Forlani Venetia's 1562 Map (http://diglib1.amnh.org/cgi-bin/tpicmap?n=c0232-01.tjp)

• Africa 1885 ( http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/africa_1885.jpg)

• Africa 1890 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/africa_1890.jpg (NOTE: Senegal and Gambia are together--one country--in this map)

Women in Pre-Colonial Africa and in the Diaspora--a book review (http://www.africa.ufl.edu/asq/v2/v2i3a7.htm)

Senegal On-line's The Slave Trade http://www.senegal-online.com/anglais/histoire/esclavage.htm
(NOTE: Click [no] several times if you do not want to install flash player; keep clicking at the prompt till site loads; it will!)

BBC Religion & Ethics - Islam: Abolition: "Muslims and the abolition of slavery" (http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/history/slavery_8.shtml)

Estelle Whiting (February, 1992), "Sojourn to Senegal," in Black Enterprise (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1365/is_n7_v22/ai_11849769

• Running the Sahara (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/runningthesahara/) A run about water!
  
  

• David Quammen, "End of the Line," photographs by Michael Nichols, in National Geographic (http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/data/2001/08/01/html/ft_20010801.5.html) . National Geographic magazine describes ecologist J. Michael Fay's 2000-mile expedition and survey of Africa's forests, extending from Central Africal to Gabon's Atlantic coast,

  "Blackwater swamps give way to hippos in the surf as ecologist J. Michael Fay reaches Gabon’s Atlantic coast, concluding his 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) survey of central Africa’s forest treasures."

• MSN Encarta Article on Juneteenth (http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/RefArticle.aspx?refid=761595967)

Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938 (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/)
(Note: If you have problems locating the complete narrative of a person, when you ask to read the rest of the narrative, click to view the page image; then you may have to click to go to the next page a time or two as sometimes you end up viewing the wrong page--there is an error at the site alas!)

The Narrative of Walter Rimm. (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/snvoices08.html)
Born in slavery around 1860, he lived at 913 East 2nd Street, Fort Worth, Texas, just around the corner from the Near Southeast!; see also: the more complete narrative, in image format (http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mesn&fileName=163/mesn163.db&recNum=252&itemLink=r?ammem/mesnbib:@field(DOCID+@lit(mesn/163/252247)) ). (For more stories about Near Southeast residents, see the Timeline of the Near Southeast!)

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Documenting the American South(http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/texts.html) North American Slave Narratives

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Documenting the American South (http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/) First Person Narratives of the American South

(not on-line) Douglass, Frederick. (2003). Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. 2nd. ed. Ed. David W. Blight. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's Press.

McGovern, Ann. (1965). "Wanted Dead or Alive": The True Story of Harriet Tubman. Illust. R. M. Powers. New York: Scholastic.
See also the Narrative of Harriet Tubman told by Bradford at Documenting the American South
Tubman is depicted at The National Library of Canada's History Site on the Influence of the U.S. Civil War

Ball, Edward. (1998). Slaves in the family. 1st ed. New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
This book contains both excellent historical as well as genealogical information for descendants of the Ball slaves.