Subject Areas |
History and Social Studies
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U.S. History - African-American |
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U.S. History - Civics and U.S. Government |
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U.S. History - Civil Rights |
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World History - Human Rights |
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Time Required |
| Three to four class periods
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Skills |
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historical comprehension
historical interpretation
historical research
critical analysis of historical texts and images
critical thinking
production of a biographical profile
primary document analysis
Internet skills
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Date Posted |
| 4/12/2002 |
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Who Was Cinque?
Introduction
This lesson plan focuses on Cinque, the
leader of the 1839 Amistad revolt, drawing on a variety of documentary
resources to examine how he was perceived by Americans on both
sides of the debate over slavery. Students first review the
facts of the Amistad revolt, including the legal proceedings
that ended in the Supreme Court decision that the Amistad captives
were free Africans, not slaves. Then, using newspaper reports
of the times, students examine how Cinque and his companions
were described by reporters, tracing the shifts in public opinion
that occurred on both sides as the case developed. Students
next look at visual representations of Cinque from those times,
noting how these images reflect the views of those who made
them as much as the physical reality of the man. Finally, students
attempt to lift away these layers of partisan perception by
examining transcripts of Cinque's testimony and letters written
by his companions, to see if they can arrive at an unmediated
view of this individual whom many now recognize as a hero. To
conclude the lesson, students produce their own portait of Cinque,
in a biographical profile or an editorial.
Learning Objectives
(1) To learn about the Amistad revolt
and its significance in the American debate over slavery;
(2) To trace shifts in public perception of the Amistad captives
and their leader as reflected in contemporary newspaper reports
and illustrations; (3) To examine court transcripts and letters
for direct evidence about the Amistad captives and their leader;
(4) To reflect on the process by which historians arrive at
an understanding about past individuals and events; (5) To
gain experience in working with newspaper reports, illustrations,
official documents, and other primary materials as resources
for historical study.
1
Introduce this lesson by reminding students of the story of
the Amistad revolt, which many of them may know from the Steven
Spielberg film, Amistad (1997). Ask those who have
seen the film to summarize the story, then draw on resources
available through EDSITEment to provide a fully accurate account.
- A detailed narrative of the Amistad
case, which traces events back to the Amistad captives'
life in Africa and includes contextual information about
the slave trade, is available at the Exploring
Amistad website, along with a timeline of events surrounding
the revolt and trial. (At the website's homepage, click
on "Discovery
Section" for a summary of the Amistad case with links
to the separate chapters of a more detailed narrative. At
the homepage, click on "Amistad
Timeline" for a chronology of events covering the period
from 1839 to 1846, with links to corresponding news reports.)
- More background on the Amistad revolt
is also available at the National
Archives Digital Classroom website homepage. Click on
"Primary Sources and Activities," then select "The
Amistad Case" for background and links to archival documents.)
- Discuss how students' knowledge about the Amistad revolt,
whether gained from the film or elsewhere, may differ from
the facts supplied by the historical record. Explain that
in this lesson they will discover that the facts about this
case, and the man at its center, have been in dispute from
the very start.
2
Use the resources available through
EDSITEment at the Exploring
Amistad website to provide students with examples of the
conflicting reports about Cinque, the leader of the Amistad
revolt, that appeared in various newspapers at the time. (To
access the website's newspaper archive from the homepage,
click "Library," then click "Newspapers"
and hit the "List All Newspaper Articles" button to browse
the collection.) The following are news reports that include
a description of Cinque during the period when he first came
to public attention:
- New
York Journal of Commerce, 30 August 1839: brief sympathetic
description of Cinque in custody aboard the brig Washington,
with comment on positive traits discerned in him "by physiognomy
and phrenology."
- Charleston
Courier, 5 September 1839: extended report on the U.
S. Navy's capture of the Amistad, with sympathetic descriptions
of Cinque and transcripts of two speeches he is supposed
to have made to his companions.
- New
York Morning Herald, 9 September 1839: report on "The
Case of the Captured Negroes" with demeaning descriptions
of Cinque and his companions.
- New
York Journal of Commerce, 10 September 1839: letter
from Lewis Tappan, a leading abolitionist and organizer
of the Amistad Committee, who reports on an interview with
Cinque conducted through a qualified interpreter.
- Charleston
Courier, 24 September 1839: brief account of Circuit
Court proceedings, with a sympathetic description of Cinque's
appearance at the trial.
- New
York Morning Herald, 4 October 1839: extended report
on "The Captured Africans of the Amistad," which ridicules
their abolitionist supporters and comments unsympathetically
on Cinque's character and behavior.
- Colored
American, 5 October 1839: response to critical reports
in other journals on the Amistad captives and their leader,
who is compared to Patrick Henry.
- Colored
American, 19 October 1839: extended essay on Cinque,
describing him as "the African hero."
3
Divide
the class into study groups and have each group read
and assess two or more contemporary newspaper accounts of
Cinque and his companions.
- Have students determine the point of view represented
in each article -- anti-slavery, anti-abolitionist, neutral,
etc.
- Have them mark in each article specific words and passages
that reveal the writer passing judgment on Cinque and thereby
prejudicing the reader's view of him, for better or worse.
- Have them note also the use of characterizations and comparisons
in each article that serve to categorize Cinque, whether
as "the son of a chief" or as "the ringleader" of the revolt.
- Have each group report its conclusions,
then work together as a class to describe the shifts of
public opinion toward Cinque recorded in these press reports.
Refer to the "Amistad
Timeline" available at the Exploring
Amistad website to gauge how legal developments may
have influenced public opinion. What different roles is
Cinque made to play by those who reported on the Amistad
case? How can historians choose among these versions of
Cinque to gain an understanding of him as he really was?
4 Turn next to images of Cinque, using the
resources available through EDSITEment to provide students with
a selection of the many drawings made of him during the height
of the Amistad controversy. The most comprehensive collection
of images can be found at the Exploring
Amistad website. (Click "Library" at the website's
homepage, then select "Gallery"
and click on the "List All Gallery Images" button to browse
the collection.) Included here are:
- Cinque
Addressing his Compatriots (1839): a lithograph published
soon after the Navy's capture of the Amistad, as a souvenir
of the event.
- Portrait
of Joseph Cinque (c. 1839): a color lithograph showing
the "leader of the gang" posed with his machete.
- The
Captured Africans of the Amistad (1839): a newspaper
cartoon showing Cinque and his companions diverting themselves
in prison.
- Phrenological
Developments of Joseph Cinquez (1840): illustration
taken from an article applying the then-accepted science
of phrenology to the task of assessing Cinque's character.
- Death
of Capt. Ferrer (1840): frontispiece of a pamphlet that
compiled news reports and court records of the Amistad case,
showing Cinque and his companions in the midst of their
revolt.
- Profile
of Cinque (1840): illustration from the same pamphlet
which accompanies a "biographical sketch" of Cinque and
is said to be based on casts made of his face while he was
imprisoned. (The illustration appears on page 8 of this
electronic text.)
Another important image of Cinque can
be found in the "African American Odyssey" exhibition at the
American
Memory Project website. (Click "Browse" at the website's
homepage, then select "African American Odyssey" and click on
the "Slavery" section of the exhibit; select "Part 2" and click
on "The
Amistad Mutiny," then scroll down to the image.)
The most celebrated image of Cinque is
an oil portrait made by Nathaniel Jocelyn in 1840; a contemporary
reproduction of this portrait can be found at the National
Portrait Gallery website. (Click on "Collections" at the
website's homepage and select "The
Amistad Case," then scroll down to the image.)
5
Provide each student group with a selection
of contrasting images for study. Have them first decide which
images correspond to the points of view they identified in their
study of newspaper reports. Are there additional points of view
reflected in any of the images?
- Next have students analyze each image to determine how
the artist has conveyed a particular point of view. Have
students consider the postures in which Cinque is portrayed
(e.g., arm raised in oration, holding a staff, standing
with arm akimbo, etc.); the clothing he wears (e.g., a breechcloth,
a toga-like robe, a scarlet shirt open at the neck, etc.);
the expression on his face (e.g., eyes seemingly closed
in sleep, gazing openly at the viewer, looking off to one
side, etc.); the settings in which he is placed (e.g., a
pastoral landscape, a ship's deck, a jailyard, etc.).
- Call attention also to the different media used for these
images: What kind of person appears in an oil portrait?
What kind of person appears in a newspaper cartoon? What
kind of person is presented as a scientific specimen?
- Have students consider as well the captions and texts
that accompany several of these images. How do they comment
on the picture? Are the writer's words always consistent
with the artist's point of view?
- Have each group offer a "reading" of two contrasting images
of Cinque in a class presentation, explaining the point
of view each offers on his actions as leader of the Amistad
revolt. Then discuss as a group whether the same man appears
in all these images. Compare, for example, the round-faced
Cinque in the pamphlet profile with the long-faced Cinque
who addresses his compatriots, or the youthful Cinque in
the Jocelyn portrait with the older-seeming "brave Congolese
Chief." How is it possible to tell from the evidence what
Cinque actually looked like? To what extent do all these
images show us instead what Americans at the time saw in
him?
6
Turn finally to what should be the most
unbiased evidence upon which to base a modern assessment of
Cinque's character and historic significance: transcripts
of court testimony and copies of personal letters. Such documents
can be found among the archives at the Exploring
Amistad website. Share with students:
- Deposition
by Cinque (7 October 1839): Cinque describes events
leading up to the revolt. (To retrieve this document, click
on "Library" at the website's homepage, then select "Newspapers";
click on the "List All Newspaper Articles" button and scroll
down to find the article titled, "A
New Movement," which reprints Cinque's deposition. Or
click "Search" on the website's homepage and type "A New
Movement" into the "Library Catalog" search engine.)
- Testimony
of Cinque (8 January
1840): Cinque describes his capture in Africa, his treatment
by slave-traders, and the Amistad's voyage to the time of
his arrest. (To retrieve this document, click on "Library"
at the website's homepage, then select "Court Records" and
click on the "List All Court Documents" button. Scroll down
to "Cinque's
District Court Testimony.")
- Letter
from Kale to John Quincy Adams (4 January 1841): One
of the Amistad captives urges Adams to win their freedom
before the Supreme Court. (To retrieve this document, click
on "Library" at the website's homepage, then select "Personal
Papers;" click on "letters written by the Africans to Adams,"
then scroll down and click "Kale
to Adams, January 4, 1841.")
- Letter
from Kinna to John Quincy Adams (4 January 1841): One
of the Amistad captives urges Adams to "talk hard" before
the Supreme Court and "make us free." (To retrieve this
document, click on "Library" at the website's homepage,
then select "Personal Papers;" click on "letters written
by the Africans to Adams," then scroll down and click "Kinna
to Adams, January 4, 1841.")
- Letter
from Cinque to the Amistad Committee (5 October 1841):
Cinque appeals for assistance to make the voyage back home.
(To retrieve this document, click on "Library" at the website's
homepage, then select "Personal Papers;" click on "letters
written by the Africans to Adams," then scroll down and
click "African
Repository in December 1841.")
7
Have students work with these documents
in their study groups. Ask them to compare these first-person
accounts of Cinque and his companions to those found in newspapers
at the time.
- Are there factual discrepancies between Cinque's description
of what happened and the journalists' reports? What differences
in emphasis are there between his version of events and
theirs? What differences in point of view? In the newspapers,
the Amistad revolt appears sometimes as a savage uprising,
sometimes as a noble crusade. How does Cinque characterize
their actions? What is the point of his story in his own
eyes? What role does he see for himself, and how does that
role compare to the roles assigned to him by his American
admirers and detractors?
- In their letters, Kale and Kinna respond directly to some
of the characterizations that had been made about the Amistad
captives. How do they see themselves? Call students' attention
to the "put yourself in our place" arguments used in both
letters. How do Kale and Kinna ask to be perceived by this
shift of perspective? What other arguments do they advance
to correct misperceptions about their people? How do these
arguments affect the views one might have formed based on
newspaper reports about the Amistad captives and their culture?
- Cinque's letter, like those of his companions, reflects
in its language the influence of his abolitionist supporters,
who sought to convert the Amistad captives to Christianity.
To what extent did the abolitionists affect the captives'
perceptions of their own experience by this teaching? Have
students mark in these letters the words and phrases that
seem to derive from the captives' course of Bible studies.
In what respects might one say that this language represents
a "veneer of Christianity"? In what respects might one say
that the abolitionists enriched the Amistad captives' perspective
on their own condition by sharing with them one of the core
texts of Western culture? Have students compare this religious
vocabulary with the competing vocabularies proposed by newspaper
writers who similarly sought to make meaning out of the
Amistad affair.
8 Conclude this lesson by having students
reflect in a class discussion on the difficulties of recovering
historic "truth" from documentary materials that offer several
versions of the truth to choose from. To what extent is it
the historian's responsibility to reduce such conflicting
points of view to a single set of facts? Have students explore
this issue firsthand by producing a report on Cinque based
on their research, answering the question "Who was he?" in
a biographical profile or editorial.
Extending the Lesson
Exploring
Amistad offers a wide range of lesson plans for helping
students learn more about this episode in American history.
They might investigate "The
Amistad as a Diplomatic Incident," examine "The
Amistad as Maritime History," explore "Abolition
and the Amistad Incident," or consider "A
Scientific Approach to the Amistad Incident." There are
also lesson plans that provide materials for staging "Amistad
Mock Trials" and for testing "The
Amistad as Campaign Issue." (Click on "Teaching" at the
website's homepage, then select "Curriculum" for links to
all these lesson plans.) Additional teaching ideas are available
at the Digital
Classroom website, which offers a chart that students
can use to sort out the many competing interests involved
in the Amistad legal battle. (Click on "Teaching with Documents" at the website's homepage, then select "Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)" and click on "The Amistad Case.")
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