This portrait is of the freed Amistad captive Cinque. Or at least that is what we are told. How do we know that this is what he actually looked like? Cameras were in their infancy, so we cannot look at another image to compare. And the toga-like garment and the scenery, was that all the artist’s imagination or is there some basis in fact? Continue reading
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The true price of slavery
When the men and children aboard la Amistad decided to take over the ship and return home, they initiated one of the more memorable events in Connecticut’s history. Steven Spielberg even made a movie about it. But some people actually lived it, like Charlotte Cowles of Farmington, Connecticut, and we are fortunate that she wrote about it. When the Africans were finally set free, they settled for a time in Farmington, and one of the children, a girl called Kenyeh, lived with Charlotte’s family.
Charlotte’s letters to her brother are full of anti-slavery sentiments and relate her many activities against the institution. She also writes about helping slaves escape north, so we know she knew Africans and African Americans. However, it is not until she meets the Africans from the Amistad, who had never been enslaved, that she truly understands the horrors of slavery. I will let her tell you in her own words: Continue reading