|
|
|
A sermon by Donel McClellan La Amistad A sermon by Donel
McClellan La Amistad A sermon by Donel
McClellan La Amistad A sermon by Donel
McClellan La Amistad Today is full of significance. It
is Thanksgiving Sunday, an observance, I need not remind you, which goes back to our
Pilgrim forebears. It is also the last Sunday in the church year, generally called Christ
the King Sunday, or by those with contemporary sensibilities, The Reign of Christ, a title
I always have felt appropriate for the wet season in Bellingham. So, I could preach on the way in
which the majestic elevation of Christ as the ruler of our lives leads us into the world
to become champions of love and justice. Or, I could preach about those earliest
Congregational ancestors of ours, who settled New England with a passion for righteousness
and a stubborn independence in their worship of God. Instead I am going to preach on
both topics - and neither. To put it another way, I hope to encompass both topics with
another one which has some timeliness. It is a story of an event and a trial in 1839, a
event which galvanized some progressive Americans including a number of our Congregational
ancestors. The trial went to the Supreme Court and was argued by an ex-president against
the administration of his successor. The story ought to be as well known as the
Thanksgiving story. And it may be widely appreciated next month when it comes to the movie
screen. The story is the saga of La Amistad. On December 12th the
Stephen Spielberg film, Amistad will be released. Staring Anthony Hopkins, Nigel
Hawthorne, Matthew McConaughey and Morgan Freeman, the film has a score by John Williams
and is clearly aimed for the Academy Awards. This morning, I want to give you
the shorthand version of the Amistad story and to make some connections which I fear will
be lost in the Hollywood version. Then I invite you to see the movie when it is released
and, perhaps to engage me in conversation later. I. The story is set two decades
before the Civil War. A Portuguese slave trip brought its cargo of several hundred slaves
across the Atlantic from Africa to Cuba. The human cargo was stowed on four-foot high
lower decks, chained in pairs and forced to live in filth for the duration of the long sea
voyage. In Havana, a number of slaves who
were taken from the Mendi Tribe in what is now Sierra Leone, West Africa, were bought by
two Spaniards, Jose Ruiz and Pedro Montez. They were placed aboard a coastal schooner
named La Amistad which means friendship in Spanish. Ruiz had bought
about 49 adult male slaves for $450 each. He insured his cargo for $20,000 Montez owned
four slaves, a boy and three girls, all children. He insured them for $1,300. With Captain Ramon Ferrer at the
helm they set to sea again to reach Puerto Principe, Cuba where they were destined to work
on a plantation. During the journey, one of the slaves used sign language to ask the cook
what would happen to them when they arrived. The cook, with a grisly sense of humor,
pantomimed that their throats would be slit and they would cut up and salted as meat to be
eaten. The short two-day voyage was
extended because of rough seas. One night, one of the captives, Sengbe Pieh managed to
unlock his shackles with a nail. He freed the other men on the ship. Quietly rummaging
around in the hold they found a number of sugar cane knives and with them, seized the
vessel, killing the captain and a crewman in the fight. They spared Ruiz and Montez who
convinced them they would useful to sail the ship back to Africa. Sengbe, a twenty-four year old
son of a village chief in Mendi, married with three children, was originally captured by
black slavers and taken to Guinea to be sold. He now became the leader of a rebellion and
the commander of a ship. Ruiz and Montez promised to sail to Africa and by day they sailed
in the direction of the rising sun as Sengbe directed them. At night, however, they
reversed their course, hoping to return to the eastern seaboard. Through July and August of 1839,
the boat slowly made its zig-zag way up the Atlantic coast. The weather was bad and food
was not plentiful. During the voyage eight or nine of the Africans died. The ship was
sighted from time to time by other boats, and stories of a mysterious, black schooner
spread up and down the Eastern seaboard. On the 24th of August
1839, La Amistad reached Montauk Point, Long Island and Sengbe went ashore with a few
others to buy food and water. While he was ashore, The U.S.S. Washington under the command
of Lieutenant Thomas Gedney spotted the ship and sent a crew to board her. They claimed
her as salvage and La Amistad was towed to New London, Connecticut. Sengbe and the other Mendi's were
charged with murder and piracy, claimed as salvage property, and sent to prison in New
Haven. Here, the real struggle for freedom began. II. On the one hand, the situation
looked bleak. The captives did not speak Spanish or English and could not make their story
known. The charges brought against them were based entirely upon the testimony of Ruiz and
Montez. The incident became headline news throughout America and soon took on
international importance. The Spanish governor demanded the immediate return of the
prisoners so they could be tried for murder in Cuba. President Martin Van Buren, had
no definitive view on the issue of slavery, but 1840 was an election year. He wanted the
ship, the passengers, and the conflict it brought his administration to be dealt with. Van
Buren allowed Secretary of State John Forsyth to take the lead in formulating the
administration's policy. Forsyth, formerly a Georgia congressman and governor and minister
to Spain owned three slaves himself. He arranged for a ship to take the slaves immediately
to Cuba following the trial to prevent an appeal. Arrayed against the forces of the
federal government was a group of three citizens who came together to form the Amistad
Committee. All were Congregationalists. Lewis Tappan was wealthy entrepreneur and
evangelical abolitionist. Joshua Levett, an attorney and Congregational minister, edited The
Emancipator, the journal of the American Anti-slavery Society. Simeon Jocelyn was a
white congregational minister and the first pastor of a black Congregational church in New
Haven which today is the Dixwell Avenue United Church of Christ. They drew their resources
from the scattered ranks of the Abolitionist movement which was active at that time.
Considered by many to be the "lunatic fringe" the abolitionists were people who
took the Bible so seriously that they could not tolerate a just society which allowed some
members to own other members. In response to their appeal, many
in the New Haven community and beyond provided resources to assist the jailed Africans.
Dr. Josiah Gibbs, professor of Theology and Sacred Literature at Yale University visited
the men in prison. He held up one finger and learned the Mendi word for "one".
Then he held up two fingers and learned the word for "two". When he had learned
to count to ten in Mendi, he traveled to New York and walked the docks counting loudly in
Mendi. Finally he came across James Covey, a former slave from Sierra Leone who spoke both
English and Mendi. Covey came to New Haven and when he had gained their trust, he was able
to translate the story as the captives had experienced it. The Amistad Committee convinced
two of the Africans to press charges against Ruiz and Montez for kidnapping, assault and
false imprisonment. The two were arrested and jailed in New York. Montez posted his bond
and fled to Cuba. Ruiz refused to post bond and remained in jail to gain sympathy for his
case. At this point Roger Baldwin an
attorney and future governor of Connecticut joined the committee to represent the
Africans. Baldwin argued that the Africans were born free and were not subjects of Spain
and therefore the intervention of the Spanish government was uncalled for. Judge Judson
ruled among other things, that. 1) Lt. Gedney and his crew were
entitled to salvage, but only 1/3 the value of the vessel, the rest would be delivered to
Spain. 2) There could be no salvage
rights for Africans, since under the laws of Connecticut, slaves had no value and
therefore were not salable, and 3) The Africans would be
delivered to President Van Buren for transportation back to Africa under the statute of
1818 which prohibits the importation of slaves into the US and required those brought to
be returned to Africa. Stunned by the verdict, federal
government appealed immediately and the case was scheduled for argument in the Supreme
Court. The Amistad Committee felt it needed stronger support and succeeded in convincing
former president John Quincy Adams, "Old Eloquence" to argue the case for them.
Adams, a member of the House of Representatives at the time, agreed and argued most
effectively. While awaiting their trial, the prisoners were moved to more comfortable
quarters and were tutored in English and the Christian faith by Yale students. Adams, failing in health and
nearly blind, was magnificent. In his four hour opening statement he instructed the court
on federal law and the treaty of 1795 with Spain. He tore apart every aspect of the
government's case and raised issues of justice and human rights. Following his concluding
statement, he grandly closed by reminding the court that it had been 37 years since he
last appeared in court and that this, as his last time, was to plead in the cause of
justice, liberty and life in behalf of his fellow men, just as before. After several days of
deliberation the Supreme court agreed with the district court except for one thing. They
determined that the Amistad was in possession of the Africans at the time they were
captured and therefore they were not slaves to be sold but free men. The provision for
their return to Africa was not valid and they were to be released immediately. As wonderful as this was, the
decision presented a problem. If the government was not going to pay for the African's
passage back home, who would? The answer, of course, was the Amistad committee. They
constructed housing for the men in Farmingdale, CT and continued their education. In nine
months ,the surviving thirty-five Africans along with five missionaries and teachers
returned to Sierra Leone where a mission school was established. Later one of the young
girls attended Oberlin College where she received her degree in education and returned to
teach in the mission school. That school provided the educational base and political
training which led to Sierra Leone's independence from the British Empire. III. The Amistad Committee? The work
for the captives was over, but the issue of racial justice in America was barely begun.
Five years later it helped create the American Missionary Association, the first
anti-slavery mission society on American Soil. In the ensuing years the AMA supported
missions in Hawaii and Siam, among liberated slaves in Jamaica, fugitive slaves in Canada,
Native Americans in Minnesota and Chinese immigrants in California. After the Civil War
the AMA started over five hundred schools for black children in the South. By 1883, the
AMA had establishes seven normal schools and colleges to train black teachers. Those
colleges are still centers of learning in their regions: Brea College, Fisk University,
Atlanta University, Hampton Institute, Talladega College, Tougaloo University and Dillard
University. What happened to the American
Missionary Association? It is now part of the United Church of Christ Board for Homeland
Ministry. It is still part of our heritage, and still encouraging us to work for justice
for all people. IV. Let me leave you with a couple of
observations. I do not know what Mr. Spielberg
will do with this story. I am sure he will focus on the incredible drive for freedom which
brought those Mendi slaves through their long ordeal. I suspect he will miss the simple
fact that the passion for justice among the Amistad Committee and the American
Abolitionists was rooted in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I hope you will remember that
justice is always the fruit of faith. I sometimes wonder how average
Congregationalists viewed those brave and radical souls who joined the anti-slavery
movement. I suspect they were considered odd, too passionate, off balance and something of
an embarrassment to the polite life of the Christian church. I wonder even more, who their
counterparts are today? Do we, as a congregation, have the vision and the courage to
support issues of justice in our time? Finally, I hope you will join me
in Thanksgiving gratitude for this denomination and its history. As Charles Shelby Rooks,
the former executive of our Board for Homeland Ministries put it: "One political
consequence of the story of [Sengbe] and his companions aboard La Amistad was a
nation embroiled in a civil war twenty-two years later. Another, less well-known religious
consequence was the shaping of convictions in one protestant denomination about the
responsibilities of the church and its members in society. During the past 150 years the
United Church of Christ and its predecessor denominations developed a clearer and clearer
vision about God's kingdom on earth, a vision in which justice and peace are available
continually for everyone."(1) Pilate asked [Jesus], "So
you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born,
and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the
truth listens to my voice." When the Mendi people arrived
home, one of them, Kinna wrote Lewis Tappan and the Amistad Committee: "We have reached Sierra
Leone and one little while after we go to Mendi and we get land very safely. Oh dear
friend, pray to God . . . We will pray for you . . . We have been on great water. Not any
danger fell upon us. Oh, no . . .Our blessed savior Christ have done wondrous works. Dear
Mr. Tappan, how I feel for these wondrous things. I pray Jesus will hear you; if I never
see you in this world, we will meet in heaven." Amen. 1. Charles
Shelby Rooks, Conversation Piece: The Amistad Event, New Conversations,
Winter/Spring 1989, p. 1
|