Ashia Vaughan, standing with dozens of other children on a dock in Baltimore City, said she understood the historical significance of the boat anchored before her, a replica of the storied ship Amistad.
But as the boat’s ceremonial captain told the rich history behind the revolt of the Africans illegally held captive aboard the Amistad nearly 170 years ago, the 13-year-old Dr. Carter Goodwin Woodson Middle School student said her peers “don’t care much about the history” that has paved the way for blacks like her.
“This is very important. The way things are now for us was because of what those people on the Amistad did,” Vaughan said Friday.
That’s the kind of enlightenment the crew and operators of the replica schooner hoped it instilled in today’s youth as the boat reached the end of a year-long tour celebrating the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
“We are not divorced from events in 1838 or in 2008. We’re just farther from it … This boat helps bring the history to [the children],” said Capt. Bill Pinkney, who is the replica’s first captain and the master of ceremonies during Friday’s event.
The original Amistad in 1839 was to sail from Cuba to Puerto Rico with 49 men and four children who were sold into slavery in Sierra Leone, which violated laws passed in 1808 prohibiting Africans from being turned into slaves and shipped across the Atlantic Ocean.
But the Africans revolted and seized the ship, which landed in New York where the men and children were arrested.
The U.S. Supreme Court eventually ruled the captives were not slaves but free men and were returned to Africa.
The Amistad case is considered a key factor in the anti-slavery movement that led to the Civil War.
Donald George, a sailor and native of Sierra Leone, joined the replica’s crew as an educational ambassador during Amistad’s visits to Africa, England and Canada.
“In Sierra Leone, the story of the Amistad was not properly told,” George said.
“We’ve used this ship as an educational tool to show the ills of the past, so our future can be bright.”
U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., spoke at the Friday event of how far blacks have come since the Amistad’s time, eluding to the significance of him being a black man in Congress, and that in less than 30 days the United States could have its first black president in Sen. Barack Obama.
“Racial injustice is still with us today,” Cummings said.
“But on this day, our children have an opportunity to visit this ship … and understand how far we’ve come and how far we have yet to go.”
