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Minister
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Amistad visit will be good for UCC, Boston and state
January-February,
2003
By
Nancy S. Taylor
In October 2003 the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church
of Christ will bring the Freedom Schooner Amistad to Boston Harbor.
The Amistad is a floating civil rights classroom that tells the story
of the Amistad Incident. The original ship, La Amistad, was a coastal
vessel carrying 53 kidnapped Africans who, in 1839, had been sold into
slavery. The Africans mutinied and seized the ship. They attempted
to sail home to Africa but were tricked by the pilot and apprehended
off the coast of Long Island. Brought to New Haven, Connecticut, they
were jailed on charges of mutiny and murder.
Abolitionists from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York – including
such luminaries as John Quincy Adams – took up the Africans’ case
and defended them all the way to the US Supreme Court, where in
1841 their
freedom was restored to them. This is the only time in history that
Africans who were captured for the Atlantic slave trade won their
freedom before the US Supreme Court and returned home to Africa.
Blacks and
whites – many of them noted citizens of Boston and Massachusetts
– worked together across racial boundaries to fight for the democratic
ideals of freedom, equality, democracy, and justice. The Amistad
case
was a turning point in the cause of abolition. The case raised and
explored searching legal questions about the nature of US citizenship,
relations between countries, federalism and states’ rights, and natural
and positive law.
Today, 162 years after the Amistad captives mutinied, a replica
of the ship serves as a floating civil rights classroom. The ship
is piloted by the noted sailor Captain William Pinkney – the first
African
American
to sail solo around the world – and a crew who are devoted to teaching
the story and the lessons of the Amistad affair. The Amistad serves
as a living monument to the millions of lives shattered or lost
as a result of the North American and Caribbean slave trade. Amistad also
celebrates the resistance by courageous Africans and abolitionists
– white and black – to the institution of slavery. Finally, it
celebrates
the triumph of law, freedom, justice, and democracy.
What is our
relation to the Amistad? In 1839 – the year of the Amistad Incident
– many Congregationalists were “evangelical” abolitionists.
They were sometimes called “immediatists” because they advocated
for an immediate end to the evil of slavery. For instance, 20,000
church
members read the organ of these evangelical abolitionists, the
American
Missionary. By contrast, the Boston Liberator, published by abolitionist
William Lloyd Garrison, had 2,000 subscribers at its height.
The evangelical abolitionists deeply believed in the equality of the
races. Unlike
William Lloyd Garrison and even the Quakers, they insisted on
racial
integration in their activities and societies.
The United Church of Christ was a major sponsor of the building
of the Freedom Schooner Amistad. Since it was launched
in April 2000,
Amistad (“Friendship” in Spanish) has sailed from port to port
teaching the story of the Amistad Incident. Today the United
Church of Christ continues to be informed and challenged by
the legacy of freedom,
justice, and equality bequeathed to us by those Christians – many of
them Congregationalists
– who worked across racial differences to fight for the freedom of
the Amistad captives.
The Conference Board of Directors has voted unanimously to sponsor
the ship’s visit to Boston Harbor. We believe Amistad will be good
for Boston and Massachusetts and for the United Church of Christ.
The ship greets groups of school children and tourists offering
educational tours, activities, materials and video. The AMISTAD
America curriculum
Voices of Freedom, serving K-12, will be made available to Sunday
schools
as well as public, private and parochial schools and we will seek
to create public forums on the meaning of freedom, justice and
law in
a democratic nation.
I hope you will join UCC congregations across the country in celebrating
Amistad Sunday on March 9th as a way of introducing or remembering
this remarkable story for your congregation. Material has been
sent to every local church.
