The Historical Significance Of The Amistad Rebellion By Marcus Rediker

In March 1807, the Atlantic slave trade in America is formally abolished by Article 1, Section 9, clause 1 of the United States Constitution. However, in January 1839, smugglers kidnapped fifty-three natives of Sierra Leone, sold them into the Spanish slave trade, and the slaves subsequently led a successful slave rebellion while aboard the Amistad slave ship. Understanding the Amistad Rebellion and its historical significance in the institution of slavery in America is critical for to properly analyze slavery and politics in the United States. The Amistad Rebellion by Marcus Rediker attempts to help readers understand the cause of the slave rebellion and also provides reasons for why the rebellion is historically significant to slavery in

Rediker dedicates an entire chapter to a detailed discussion of the origins of the Africans aboard the Amistad slave ship. Rediker writes that “the original fifty-three consisted of people from at least nine different groups,” including Mende, Gbandi, Kono, Sando, Temne, Loma, Gola, Bullom, and Kondo. Rediker gives the historical and cultural significance of each of these groups, which certainly helps show that these kidnapped slaves were humans with families and deserved the human rights entitled to each human

For example, Rediker only mentions American president Martin Van Buren in the Amistad Rebellion after the victory in which a Connecticut circuit court ruled in favor of the African captives. Perhaps the author could more extensively discuss the political implications of the Amistad Rebellion in American politics. What we read in the book is “Martin Van Buren supported the Spanish crown.” Perhaps readers could benefit from a more in-depth discussion of how the political elite in the United States responded to the rebellion and the court cases that soon followed. Even though this is an unfortunate shortcoming of the book, it does not necessarily detract from the overall argument of the book - which is that the Amistad Rebellion drastically changed the institution of