Talk:La Amistad

The ship
This talk page concerns the ship.

The description of the ship comes from the wikisource description in the court case. RPellessier | Talk 16:56, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I removed the description of La Amistad as a "slave ship" from the beginning text and added a description of what the term "slave ship" means in common useage (and the related article) as well as some material about the vessel's normal use as a coastal trading ship. I also added information about the (American) origin of the ship, a couple links, and a sentence about the play that was inspired by the ship and the incident that it was involved in.

geeman 28 June 2006

Of Slavery and Slave Ships
First, at the time of the La Amistad incident slavery itself was legal in the Americas, but the transport of slaves accross the Atlantic was illegal in Spain, the Americas and Britain. This fact is not particularly esoteric, but is also not commonly known, and so has been called into question a couple of times on this page. Perhaps the article should make this distinction outright, but I think going into the issue is better handled by articles dedicated more directly to that issue such as the Slavery, History of Slavery, Abolitionism, Asiento de Negros articles not to mention that of the legal case itself. The categories at the bottom link directly or indirectly to those articles, but perhaps an extension to the "See Also" links is in order. I'm thinking, though, that maybe an article that fully describes the legality of slave transport is in order? Anyone have thoughts on this?

Second, I think its important that the article draw the distinction between La Amistad and slave ships. The term slave ship in common usage (and as used on WP) refers to ships as described in the Slave Ship article: vessels that were built for speed to avoid/outrun the authorities across the Atlantic with a maximum of human cargo kept securely in a specially designed hold. While La Amistad is infamous for carrying slaves, not every vessel that did so should be defined as a slave ship. Not every rowboat, barge or ferry used to transport slaves across a body of water was, by default, a slave ship. Similarly, La Amistad was occasionally employed transporting slaves along the coast of Cuba. Changing the prose of this article from "Strictly speaking La Amistad was not a slave ship" or words to that effect to something that is arguably more direct and grammatical like "was not designed as a slave ship" unfortunately misses the distinction, and even implies that La Amistad actually was employed as a slave ship when that's not the case. Geeman 07:28, 14 November 2006 (UTC)


 * The Amistad was a slave ship, but not only a slave ship.
 * --Nnemo (talk) 16:12, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
 * --Nnemo (talk) 16:12, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

legal
The article needs to discuss the legal stuff.--207.233.88.250 16:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * That's covered in the article Amistad (1841), mentioned in the "See Also" section. I can move the link up to the text covering the incident, if you think that would work better.  scot 16:53, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I just read the article and was confused by the reference to the supreme court case in the picture caption but no mention on the text. On close examination I found a link to the "legal case" at the top and a link for more info at the bottom. I too think it deserves a sentence in the body of the text. 70.162.156.229 (talk) 02:01, 9 March 2008 (UTC)


 * A very brief description certainly seems reasonable, so I've added one. I also added a link in the body of the text to the court case and changed a sentence to segue a little better. Geeman (talk) 02:13, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

"The film adhered closely to the historical events with minor changes that did not affect the overall account." This is an incredibly bold statement. Sorry, but I felt the need to revert it. Do a bit of research on the movie and you will find that this is not true. Sorry. TheFSaviator (talk) 00:13, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

What a BEAUTIFUL Illustration!
To the editor who provided the painting of the Amistad, I know little of images, but this one is just fantastic. If they have such a thing as featured images, this should be one!!--leahtwosaints (talk) 23:15, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Name of the owner
So what was the name of the ship owner? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.68.248.240 (talk) 23:46, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the proposed Merges
The sections in this article are brief summaries of the events, not really worthy of merging into the article on the court case. A short description is good (and necessary) for this article to make it a "one stop" description of the ship, so I don't think they should be merged or removed from this page. The current method (a paragraph or two and a few links) seems like the prudent way to go. Geeman (talk) 08:31, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Street sign illustration
Is there any proof that the street sign is related to the subject of this page? Amistad means friendship in Spanish and such a name for a street would be common in a Spanish-speaking country. In any case the graphic does little to illustrate the topic and I believe could be removed. GS3 (talk) 18:33, 7 September 2009 (UTC)


 * You're right. — Malik Shabazz 19:34, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Where was La Amistad built?
In the first paragraph this article says that the ship was built in Spain. Later on in the article it says that it was built in the United States. Which is right?

Plaasjaapie (talk) 07:25, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Came here to ask the same question; 3 months, no resolution. Someone, please fix it. --Golbez (talk) 17:48, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Identify African people
In this case, all the slave captives were Mende people, so I think they should be identified as such, not referred to generically as Africans, as in cases where nothing is known.Parkwells (talk) 13:53, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Flag
As depicted by a contempoarary artist (on 1839) while flying the Federal Republic of Central America flag, not the Spanish one, moreover the port of registry was Guanaja then part of the Federal Republic of Central America, no longer Spain since 1821. Here is the source,, please zoom the image to enlarge. --Nicola Romani (talk) 12:48, 12 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Please read WP:No original research and WP:REDFLAG. Unless you can cite reliable sources written by, you know, authorities in their field, we're not going to change the article because of what an editor thinks he can discern in a reproduction of a 200-year-old painting. Thank you. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 05:03, 13 January 2017 (UTC)


 * This is not an original research! Since is clearly written than the port of registry was Guanaja nowadays Honduras, than Federal Republic of Central America, if they registered the ship there, it was not possible to fly the Spanish flag! It would have been possible only if they registered that ship in some Cuban ports, than under Spanish rule, and Guanaja was no longer under Spanish rule since 1821. You cannot register a ship in Los Angeles and flying a Spanish Flag, it would have been possible until Los Angeles was still a Spanish dominion, you need "a genunine link" with the country, i.e. the same country of the port of registry. The paints is a contemporary and a reliable source and the painter had no reasons to depict a totally different flag but that one! As everyone can see He also depicted the US Flag and the commissioning pennant flying from USS Washington (1837).
 * By the way at the moment:
 * I do not see any sources stating the ship was built in Baltimore
 * I do not see any sources stating the ship was named Friendship
 * I do not see any sources stating the ship was Flying the American flag before to be sold to Spaniards (wich does not mean Spanish nationals)
 * I do not see any sources stating the ship was Flying the French flag after being sold as Ion
 * I do not see any sources stating the ship was registered in Guadaloupe
 * I do not see any sources stating the ship was named "La Amistad" and not simply "Amistad".
 * The only one who has a source it's me. --Nicola Romani (talk) 08:29, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Port of registry
I've tried to find out sources stating the ship was registered in Guanaja, Honduras but I did not succeed. Original sources stated that the ship was bound to Guanaja, Puerto Principe, nowadays Camagüey, wich is in the countryside of Cuba. As per Facebook Guanaja is between Nuevitas and Playa Jigùey ; and as you can see, I've found that city on this old map of Cuba (by Moreno, Miguel, Carta Esferica De una parte de la Costa se-tentrional y Meridional de la Ysla de Cuba desde Nuevitas hasta el Rio Camarioca y desde Sabana la Mar hasta los Jardines, Madrid: Direccion Hydrografica, 1836, scale: 1:554,000); ; --Nicola Romani (talk) 13:38, 13 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Facebook? You looked it up on an old map? Really?
 * Please read WP:No original research and WP:Identifying reliable sources. If you can't cite reliable secondary sources, please don't waste your time. Or mine. This is not an obscure incident about which historians have been silent. Thank you. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 21:00, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * There are no sources (zero!) mentioning they where bound to Honduras, just en.wikipedia beacause of a wikilink. --Nicola Romani (talk) 21:32, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Check the map and the sources please, not facebook !!! The other ones! (this ones: ; (by Moreno, Miguel, Carta Esferica De una parte de la Costa se-tentrional y Meridional de la Ysla de Cuba desde Nuevitas hasta el Rio Camarioca y desde Sabana la Mar hasta los Jardines, Madrid: Direccion Hydrografica, 1836, scale: 1:554,000)) The Amistad, set sails from Havana to the port of Guanaja, Cuba, nowadays part of Esmeralda municipality, Puerto del Principe wich is toaday called Camagüey, not the Guanaja (Honduras) just because of an unsurced wikilink!!! --Nicola Romani (talk) 21:15, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Please read WP:NOR! — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 21:46, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I've asked for additional assistance from editors at WP:No original research/Noticeboard. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 21:54, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Please stop bullying! I'm a 10 years long editor and I do not need you cinting policies, read the sources! They were bound to Guanaja, Cuba! not the unsourced Honduras just because of a wikilink. --Nicola Romani (talk) 21:57, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Here on page 27: : ""sailed from Havana for the port of Guanaja, in the island of Cuba""

- Page 27; Africans Taken in the Amistad: Congressional Document, Containing the Correspondence, &c., in Relation to the Captured Africans, U.S. Dept. of State, 1840. Wich is not Honduras. --Nicola Romani (talk) 22:28, 14 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Same source, page 37: ""The Amistad is a Spanish vessel; was regularly cleared from Havana, a Spanish port in Cuba, to Guanaja, a Spanish port in the neighborood of Puerto Principe another Spanish port;""

- Page 37; Africans Taken in the Amistad: Congressional Document, Containing the Correspondence, &c., in Relation to the Captured Africans, U.S. Dept. of State, 1840. --Nicola Romani (talk) 22:39, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

I think those are primary sources. Many historians have written about the Amistad. Doesn't one of them support your assertions? — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 22:43, 14 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Of course! i.e.: Josep M. Fradera,Christopher Schmidt-Nowara, Slavery and Antislavery in Spain's Atlantic Empire and many others like Howard Jones, Mutiny on the Amistad or Barbara A. Sommervill, The Amistad Mutiny: Fighting for Freedom. --Nicola Romani (talk) 22:56, 14 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Now we're getting somewhere! I've been asking you for reliable secondary sources and you've posted many primary sources. These are the first secondary sources you've cited. Thank you.
 * By the way, the first book dispels your misconception—borne of original research—that Puerto Príncipe is the same as Port-au-Prince. It's not; the former is in Cuba. See page 209. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 23:11, 14 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I know sometimes Puerto Príncipe culd be used by Spanish speakers as an exonym for Port-au-Prince (Haiti) '-_-, it's the same problem We had with Guanaja (a lot of places named on the same way). By the way there is also this good work made by the Faculty of Law of the University of Missouri-Kansas City: ; . --Nicola Romani (talk) 23:47, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Just to note that, regardless of the heat and noise of battle, I have started going more systematically though this article to improve the referencing, remove or tag unreferenced contentious or unlikely material, as well as remove duplication - and I will then fill out the narrative a little to give the article better balance. I will come back here on the question of the ship's actual name - I do not wish to stoke fires now by boldly reverting the wholesale deletion of "or Amistad", but a large proportion of references (maybe even a majority) prefer that name, with no definite article. There should certainly be a separate proper discussion on this, and maybe even a WP:MOVE. Davidships (talk) 03:17, 15 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Hi I agree, thank you in advance, here below some useful sources:


 * Benjamin Nicholas Lawrance, Amistad's Orphans: An Atlantic Story of Children, Slavery, and Smuggling, Yale University Press, 2015. ISBN 978-0-30019-845-4
 * Josep M. Fradera, ‎Christopher Schmidt-Nowara, Slavery and Antislavery in Spain's Atlantic Empire, New York, Berghahn Books, 2013. ISBN 978-0-85745-933-6
 * 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 978-0-82032-725-9
 * The Amistad Case, National Archives (NARA)
 * --Nicola Romani (talk) 11:43, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * --Nicola Romani (talk) 11:43, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Numbers of slaves
They were 53 on board the Amistad, but 36 only faced the Trial, What happened to the others?
 * Here we are: The Friend, vol 15, page 114.: "At Lomboko they were put on board the Portoguese ship Tecora, in chains, with 700 of other Africans, and taken to Havana. Here they were landed, and kept in a Baracoon [...] for ten days, when Ruiz purchased them, 49 in number. Montes also purchased the (1) boy Ka-li and 3 girls, who were brought from Africa in another ship. The whole 53 were put on board the Spanish coaster Amistad, wich cleared for Principe about 300 miles distant, where Ruiz and Montez lived [...]" ; "2 were killed in the rencontre, 7 died on board the Amistad, 8 died in New Haven, 1 was drowned in Farmington, and 35 (sic! instead of 36) survived.". Is the 700 slaves on board the Tecora correct?
 * here the say about 500-700 hundred and telling that a revolt occured also on board the Teçora; here 300 hundred, suggestions? Other secondary sources?
 * Here a biography of the Capt. Ferrer who was a Spanish from Ibiza: El capitán ibicenco del ´Amistad´. --Nicola Romani (talk) 18:12, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Here some other sources by Prof. Michael Zeuske and Orlando García Martínez with the state of the art relating the Amistad case research. On page 205 (pdf p. 7) is written the Amistad was built in Cuba (footnotes nr. 34), and here the names of the two sailors escaped with the life boat from the Amistad: Jacinto Verdaguer, from Catalunya e Manuel Antonio Padilla from Santo Domingo. --Nicola Romani (talk) 19:59, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Apologies, Nicola. I had meant to progress this over the last week but have been rather unwell - and now off on holiday. But I will certainly return to it before too long. Davidships (talk) 22:02, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Adding a mention to French artist Booba in the section "La Amistad in popular culture"?
The French article for La Amistad alludes to the song "Petite fille" by French rap singer Booba, "ils pensent Afrique, ils pensent soleil. je pense aux nègres sur Amistad. Mais petite fille, vivre à ton époque est une époque formidable." which can be translated to "when thinking about Africa, they think sun, I think about neggros on the Amistad. But little girl, living the current time is an amazing time".

I don't know of Wikipedia's policies to refer to foreign artists, your opinion is welcome. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lboukoko (talk • contribs) 16:39, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

"Amistad", "La Amistad", "The Amistad", "The La Amistad"?
Could we clarify the correct way of referring to the ship? The article currently uses a mixture of styles. "La" is the article "the" in Spanish, so it would seem tautological to call the ship "the La Amistad", but we conventionally use "the" to refer to ships ("the Titanic", "the Mary Rose" etc.) and "La Amistad" is the correct name of the ship, since "friendship" in the abstract in Spanish is "la amistad".

Examples of each:
 * "The revenue cutter Washington seized Amistad off Montauk Point ..."
 * "La Amistad was a 19th-century two-masted schooner of about 120 feet ..."
 * " ... the pilot-boat cut the rope that was attached to the Amistad."
 * " ... the Gratitude pilot boat came across the La Amistad..."

Are all these styles acceptable? What say you all? Jean-de-Nivelle (talk) 13:50, 25 May 2023 (UTC)


 * My view is that "La Amistad" should be exclusive, and the others wrong, or not to be preferred.. "La Amistad" has an identity—the ship in question—that the others don't. There was never a boat called Amistad. There's also somehing to be said stylistically for using a Spanish article with a Spanish noun. . And thanks for bringing it up. deisenbe (talk) 14:56, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Follow the style of the article title: La Amistad; no English definite article.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 15:02, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 15:02, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

I'll take that as consensus. I've made the change to "La Amistad" as the standard style. There are a few cases where the name occurs in an English phrase such as "the Amistad revolt" or "the Amistad Committee" that I haven't altered. Any thoughts? I've also left "The Amistad" intact where the phrase occurs in titles and references, of course. Jean-de-Nivelle (talk) 21:01, 25 May 2023 (UTC)


 * "the Amistad revolt/committee" is OK. "The" is modifying the revolt, not the name of the ship, which has now become an adjective. deisenbe (talk) 01:12, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

The owners were Cuban, not Spanish
Don Pedro Montes was born in Cuba, and so was Don Jose Ruiz. I don´t wan to change without agreement, but thought it may matter Cateyed (talk) 04:46, 19 December 2023 (UTC)