Black Odyssey

On June 28, 1839 the slave ship Amistad sailed from Havana bearing a valuable cargo of 53 black people and a fortune in gold doubloons. Her destination was the Cuban coastal town of Puerto Principe, but she never reached it for, by July 2, the captain was dead and the Amistad had been seized by the slaves. Weeks later, a mystery ship appeared off the coast of New England, manned by cutlass-carrying blacks who could neither identify themselves nor declare what their intentions might be...thus began the notorious Amistad affair, which was to embroil Spanish American diplomacy for a generation, and inflame the slavery issue within the United States.