Exhibition Review

Long-term exhibition, open Feb. 18, 1998. Tu-Su 12-5; adults $5, seniors $3, students over 18 $3, youth 6-17 $1, children under 6 free. 2,000 sq. ft. David M. Kahn, director; Kate Steinway, project director and curator; Andrea Rapacz, exhibition assistant; Threshold Studio, planning and design; City Stage Co. and VDA, sound and lighting.	1
School classroom resources available.	2
Internet: a summary of the exhibition that includes a timeline and information on people involved in the trial, http://www.hartnet.org/chs/	3
"On her deck were grouped . . . the remnant of the Ethiop crew, some decked in the most fantastic manner in the silks and finery pilfered from the cargo, while others in a state of nudity, emaciated to mere skeletons, lay coiled upon the decks" (New London Gazette and General Advertiser, Aug. 28, 1839). This arresting depiction of the slave ship Amistad's African voyagers, at once adorned and vulnerable, captures an essence of the superb exhibition in which it appears, especially in the way that it confers power upon contemporary observation. In 1839, the Portuguese slaver docked in Havana and unloaded her human cargo. But the short trip remaining, to transport some of the slaves to sugar planters on the nearby islands, ran afoul. A violent mutiny of the slaves held on this ship followed. Two Spanish sailors were left alive. The Africans ordered them to navigate the ship toward Africa, but they instead subverted this course and turned the ship toward North America. An American naval vessel seized it off the port of New London, Connecticut, in Long Island Sound. The ensuing trials in Connecticut and in Washington, the latter featuring John Quincy Adams for the defense, are legendary.	4
But the wistful journey of the black men, women, and children, a journey that ended on the same continent where it began, in West Africa, is perhaps more faithfully recounted than ever before, in the unlikely domain of Connecticut's most venerable Yankee history clubhouse—the home of the state's historical society. At long last, the new winds that have blown across her mansion premises have brought with them the ghosts of slave rebellion and abolitionism past. How fitting that "Amistad: A True Story of Freedom" should grace the halls of the Connecticut Historical Society (CHS). The new director and his staff, using resources from the trustees and honorary trustees of the CHS, the Connecticut Humanities Council, and the Beatrice Fox Auerbach Foundation, have ushered in the new century with dissenting inspiration.	. . .