Video: 'History of the Slave Ship Amistad'

(Tuesday, July 2, 1839, at approximately 4:00 a.m. local time) — 53 slaves recently abducted from Africa revolted and seized the Spanish schooner La Amistad today while sailing from Havana to Puerto Príncipe, Cuba.

Led by Joseph Cinqué, the slaves killed the captain and the cook but spared the life of a Spanish navigator, so that he could sail them home to Sierra Leone.

The navigator managed instead to sail the Amistad generally northward. Two months later, the U.S. Navy seized the ship off Long Island, New York, and towed it into New London, Connecticut.

After a trial and lengthy appeal process, 35 surviving Africans arrived in Sierra Leone in January 1842.