The Amistad Rebellion

The riveting account of the slave ship rebellion told for the first time from the slaves’ perspective. The slave ship Amistad set sail from Havana on July 2, 1839, on a routine delivery of human cargo. A few days into its voyage, the fifty-three African captives aboard would seize control and steer a new course—one that took them to freedom and ultimately into history. Though the Amistad rebellion has been celebrated in films and books, its story has largely been told through the eyes of white abolitionists, with the Supreme Court victory by the Africans as the ultimate triumph. Now, Marcus Rediker’s captivating new history turns the lens on the Africans themselves. Using the story of their horrific plight back to the roots of their shared culture a continent away, he reframes the Amistad story as a crucial moment in the great chain of resistance stretching from the earliest slave revolts through the civil rights struggles of the twentieth century.