Fifty-three unwilling passengers, recently abducted from Africa…

Fifty-three unwilling passengers, recently abducted from Africa and enslaved, revolt aboard the Spanish schooner Amistad, en route from Havana to her home port of Guanaja, Cuba, on July 2, 1839.

Led by Joseph Cinqué, they kill the captain and the cook as the ship nears port but spare the life of a Spanish navigator, so that he can sail them home to Sierra Leone.

The navigator will manage instead to sail the Amistad generally northward.