The Black Schooner TPB

From the trio of Rediker, Lester, and Buhle comes another graphic “history from below” about the Amistad rebellion of 1839 when 53 enslaved Africans on the slave ship Amistad slipped out of their restraints and overpowered their enslavers and ships crew.

Sold into slavery in their homeland of Sierra Leone and later bound for Puerto Principe, Cuba, from Havana, these Africans, led by the charismatic warrior Cinqu , forced the ships remaining crew to sail homeward.

Divided into 3 parts, The Black Schooner begins with the intense night of the uprising and takes readers on a reconstructed journey: from sailing on the open ocean to a New Haven, Connecticut, jail, where the captured Africans awaited trial for mutiny and murder; to the Supreme courtroom that found that the rebels had been illegally enslaved and would now be free to return to their native land.

Through it all, artist David Lester chronicles their story using striking imagery