The Amistad Revolt: Memory, Slavery, and the Politics of Identity in the United States and Sierra LeoneUniversity of Georgia Press, 2010 M07 1 - 216 pages From journalism and lectures to drama, visual art, and the Spielberg film, this study ranges across the varied cultural reactions--in America and Sierra Leone--engendered by the 1839 Amistad slave ship revolt. Iyunolu Folayan Osagie is a native of Sierra Leone, from where the Amistad's cargo of slaves originated. She digs deeply into the Amistad story to show the historical and contemporary relevance of the incident and its subsequent trials. At the same time, she shows how the incident has contributed to the construction of national and cultural identity both in Africa and the African diasporo in America--though in intriguingly different ways. This pioneering work of comparative African and American cultural criticism shows how creative arts have both confirmed and fostered the significance of the Amistad revolt in contemporary racial discourse and in the collective memories of both countries. |
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abolitionists Adams African American Amistad Africans Amistad captives Amistad committee Amistad event Amistad incident Amistad Kata Kata Amistad narrative Amistad revolt Amistad story archives artists attempt audience Bai Bureh Benito Cereno Blango British Broken Handcuff century Chap Cinque collective memory colonial Connecticut context cultural Delano Desouza George discourse Dodson drama Ed Hamilton film freedom Freetown French Grama Haffner Haitian Haitian Revolution Hamilton Haven History of Sierra Hollywood identity Insurrections Joadson killed L'Ouverture La Amistad letters Lewis Tappan Melville Melville's Benito Cereno Mende mission Mendi Middle Passage movie Mutiny Nat Turner Negro NPRC onboard Owen Owen Dodson play playwright plot political present Prosser racial Rebellion resistance revolutionary Saint Domingue scene schooner Sengbe Pieh Sengbe's Sierra Leone folder Sierra Leoneans significance slave revolts slave trade slaveholders slavery social society Spanish Spielberg's Spirit struggle Supreme Court symbol Tappan Tecora theater Thorpe tion United University Press Vesey West York