A stunning graphic history of how enslaved Africans on board the Amistad rebelled and captured the slave ship in 1839, challenging a whitewashed version of history and putting the Africans back at the center of their own freedom story
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 ship’s 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 ship’s 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 Rediker’s 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 story—where they belong.
“The Black Schooner is a vivid and graphic depiction of the 1839 Amistad rebellion, when African slaves seized control of a slave ship near Cuba. While most histories focus on the work of white abolitionists in the US in defending the Africans during their subsequent trial in Connecticut, The Black Schooner shows the Africans themselves as the central figures. David Lester’s powerful black-and-white art depicts their story, from the uprising on the ship to their subsequent imprisonment in the US and concluding with their return to Africa.”
—Gord Hill, author-artist of The 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance Comic Book and The Antifa Comic Book