Sengbe Pieh

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Joseph Cinqué, Portrait of Nathaniel Jocelyn (1839)
Portrait around 1839

Sengbe Pieh , also Joseph Cinqué (* around 1815 in Sierra Leone ; † around 1879 ibid), was the leader of the slave revolt on board the Spanish ship La Amistad .

In 1839 , the married rice farmer and father of three children, a member of the Mende , was captured by slave traders in his West African homeland and disembarked for America on board the infamous Portuguese slave ship Teçora .

It was sold in Havana and ended up on board the La Amistad , where it sparked a rebellion in the course of which all but two of the crew were killed. Africans, it was possible the US to reach coast, arriving in New Haven , Connecticut of mutiny and murder were charged. After long trials ( Amistad processes , among other things, due to the then-President Martin Van Buren powered vocation and therefore necessary hearing before the Supreme Court , as well as disputes over a Seerechtsabkommen with Spain), about the fate of (d. E. The legal status ) of Africans decided, the Africans obtained their freedom in 1842 - after having established their right to personal freedom. The American abolitionists took on their defense . The Africans were represented by John Quincy Adams .

In 1842 Sengbe Pieh returned to Sierra Leone, where civil war was raging at the time . He didn’t find his family anymore, they had probably been a victim of slave traders themselves.

Little is known about his later life.

In the film Amistad (1997, directed by Steven Spielberg ) Cinqué is portrayed by Djimon Hounsou .

Sengbe Pieh's portrait is featured on the 5,000 leone banknote.

literature

  • Arthur Abraham: Sengbe Pieh. In: Dictionary of African Biography, Volume 2. Algonac, Michigan, 1979. Pages 141-144.
  • Arthur Abraham: Sengbe Pieh: A Neglected Hero? In: Journal of the Historical Society of Sierra Leone, Volume 2, Issue 2, 1978, pages 22-30.
  • Joseph Cinqué and The Amistad Mutiny , In: Golden Legacy, Issue 10, Fitzgerald Publishing, 1976.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Iyunolu Folayan Osagie: The Amistad Revolt: Memory, Slavery, and the Politics of Identity in the United States and Sierra Leone . University of Georgia Press, 2000. ISBN 9780820327259
personal data
SURNAME Pieh, Sengbe
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cinqué, Joseph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Leader of the slave revolt aboard the Spanish ship La Amistad
DATE OF BIRTH around 1815
PLACE OF BIRTH Sierra Leone
DATE OF DEATH around 1879
Place of death Sierra Leone