Word: cinque
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Dates: during 1953-1953
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...happily down the jungle path that led from the ricefields to his village home. He arrived three years later, the survivor of an almost incredible adventure that had carried him through slavery and mutiny on the high seas to freedom and a place in history. The story of Cinqué and the band of enslaved Africans he led is told with competence in Slave Mutiny, by William A. Owens, a 47-year-old assistant professor of English at Columbia University...
...Cinqué's great adventure began when three husky bucks leaped at him from the brush beside the trail and carried him off to be sold to a Spanish slaver. From the Spanish barracoons he was shipped to Cuba, and there sold with 48 other Negroes, many from his own tribe, to a Señor Ruiz. Ruiz loaded his human goods aboard a schooner named Amistad (Friendship), Captain Ferrer commanding; later a Señor Montes took passage. On June 27, 1839, the schooner weighed anchor and headed eastward along the coast of Cuba...
...Cinqué, by plain force of character, took command of the captives and organized a mutiny. He found machetes stowed in the hold, and with them one hot night the slaves, having ripped out their shackle bolts, cut the captain and his half-breed son to pieces. The Spanish crew ducked overside into the dinghy, and were gone. The slaves were masters of the ship...
Ashore on Long Island. That night they set out to drink everything on board, including the ship's medicine. Next day, cracking the white man's whip, Cinqué put everybody to work, headed the Amistad back to Africa with Montes at the wheel. By night, while Cinqué slept and less alert men kept watch, Montes eased the schooner north, hoping to land in the U.S. These tactics brought the vessel, about a month after the mutiny, within sight of Long Island, in the main sea road to New York...
Friends in New York. The commander of the Washington claimed the slaves and their ship as salvage. So did a retired sea captain, who had palavered a little with Cinqué near Montauk. Ruiz and Montes claimed everything for themselves, and the Spanish government endorsed their claim. President Martin Van Buren made up his mind that the Spaniards had the right...