Qualla: La Amistad https://qualla.com/la-amistad en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:17 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/d/r/k/g/la-amistad-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: La Amistad https://qualla.com/la-amistad La Amistad: Introduction https://qualla.com/la-amistad/ Photo credit Public domain. On the third night out of Havana, a man named Sengbe Pieh found a rusty file in the hold of a two-masted schooner called La Amistad -- The Friendship. He used it to saw through his manacles. Within hours, 53 Mende captives from West Africa had broken free below decks. Armed with machete-like cane knives they found in the cargo, they climbed into the tropical darkness and took the ship. They killed the captain and the cook. Two of their own died in the fighting. And then Pieh gave the two surviving Spanish plantation owners an order: sail us back to Africa. It was July 1, 1839, and what followed would become one of the most important legal battles in American history, reaching the Supreme Court, dividing a nation already fracturing over slavery, and giving the abolitionist movement the human face it desperately needed.

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]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/r/k/g/la-amistad-wp/drkg-la-amistad-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full La Amistad: Stolen Twice Over https://qualla.com/la-amistad/ Photo credit La_Amistad_(ship).jpg: Unknown authorUnknown author derivative work: TheCuriousGnome (talk), Public domain. The 53 Africans aboard La Amistad had already survived one nightmare. Captured in what is now Sierra Leone, they had been sold to European slave traders and transported across the Atlantic aboard the Portuguese slave ship Tecora, a voyage that violated treaties both the United St...

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Image: La_Amistad_(ship).jpg: Unknown authorUnknown author derivative work: TheCuriousGnome (talk) | Public domain

]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/r/k/g/la-amistad-wp/drkg-la-amistad-stolen-twice-over.mp3 0:06 2 full La Amistad: The Treacherous Course North https://qualla.com/la-amistad/ Photo credit Vitsuha, CC0. After Pieh and his companions seized La Amistad, they faced an immediate problem: none of them knew how to navigate. Pieh ordered Ruiz and Montes to steer toward Africa, toward the rising sun. But the Spaniards had a plan of their own. By day, they sailed east as commanded. By ni...

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]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/r/k/g/la-amistad-wp/drkg-la-amistad-the-treacherous-course-north.mp3 0:06 3 full La Amistad: A Nation on Trial https://qualla.com/la-amistad/ Photo credit La_Amistad_(ship).jpg: Unknown authorUnknown author derivative work: TheCuriousGnome (talk), Public domain. The case that followed entangled three governments and tested the conscience of a young republic. Spain demanded that President Martin Van Buren return the captives to Cuba under international treaty. The officers of the Washington filed salvage claims, asserting the Africans wer...

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Image: La_Amistad_(ship).jpg: Unknown authorUnknown author derivative work: TheCuriousGnome (talk) | Public domain

]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/r/k/g/la-amistad-wp/drkg-la-amistad-a-nation-on-trial.mp3 0:06 4 full La Amistad: Echoes Across Centuries https://qualla.com/la-amistad/ Photo credit La_Amistad_(ship).jpg: Unknown authorUnknown author derivative work: TheCuriousGnome (talk), Public domain. The Amistad case became a rallying cry for the American abolitionist movement, a concrete demonstration that the legal system could, when pressed, recognize the humanity of enslaved people. The Mende survivors eventually raised enough money to return to Sierra Leone. La Amistad i...

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Image: La_Amistad_(ship).jpg: Unknown authorUnknown author derivative work: TheCuriousGnome (talk) | Public domain

]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/r/k/g/la-amistad-wp/drkg-la-amistad-echoes-across-centuries.mp3 0:06 5 full La Amistad: Where the Waters Remember https://qualla.com/la-amistad/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The Connecticut coastline where this story played out looks deceptively peaceful from above. The waters off Montauk Point where the Washington intercepted La Amistad are the same waters that fishermen and sailors navigate today. New London, where the ship was towed and the captiv...

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]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/r/k/g/la-amistad-wp/drkg-la-amistad-where-the-waters-remember.mp3 0:06 6 full