Black Odyssey: The Case of the Slave Ship `Amistad' [Paperback]

Mary Cable (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 8, 1977

In August 1839, what appeared to be a listless "pirate ship," unidentified by any flag, was spotted off the North Atlantic coast of the United States. On board were thirty barely clad black men armed with cutlasses, and two white men - Spanish slave owners with an incredible story to tell. A month erlier, the Amistad had set sail from Havana with a valuable cargo of slaves and $40,000 worth of gold doubloons. She was headed fot the Cuban coastal town of Puerto Principe - but in a matter of days the captain and the cook were dead, and the ship was in the control of the slaves. Thus began "the Amistad affair," which reports Mary Cable, "was to bedevil the diplomaic relations of the United States, Spain, and England for a generation; intensifly bitterness over the question of slavery; and...lead an ex-president (John Quincy Adams) to go before the Supreme Court and castigate the administration" in an eloquent plea for the slaves' freedom. In her fascinating and carefuly researched account, Cable takes us right to the heart of these complex matters, dramatically replaying an incredible series of events that conerged to form a uiquely exciting and challenging chapter in American history.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This work tells the story of the schooner Amistad, which was seized by its cargo of slaves while en route to Havana in 1839. The ship was piloted to New York and seized by the U.S. Navy. In a subsequent trial the slaves were charged with mutiny and murder. Though the book is interesting in itself, additional readership will be generated by the current Steven Spielberg film Amistad. A "historical study of a real event that reads like fiction" (LJ 10/1/71). [Besides the film version, coverage of this formerly little-known episode includes several new titles, among them Helen Kromer's Amistad, reviewed in this issue, p. 99.]
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 183 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (December 8, 1977)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140046941
• ISBN-13: 978-0140046946
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 4.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,065,615 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars lucky mistake?, November 7, 2002

By 

rafael (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Black Odyssey: The Case of the Slave Ship `Amistad' (Paperback)

I read this book for a summer reading assignment; not until my history teacher returned the reviews we had written did I learn that the book assigned was actually a different book of the same title! I took MY Black Odyssey out of a library in Pennsylvania (I live in New England), and as it is listed on Amazon as "rare/out of print" I suppose I was fairly lucky (if you could call it that) to find it. Anyway on to the book itself...
Black Odyssey is about the landing of the Spanish slave ship Amistad (bound for Cuba) on American soil, and more importantly, the events and controversies which this precipitated. The(black) slaves on the ship rebelled against their white masters and crew, killing all but a few of the free men on board, and to make a long story short the Amistad landed off the coast of long island sound and caused a major controversy, leading to multiple highly-publicized court cases. The surviving Spaniards who had been on the ship, as well as the Spanish government and most American politicians, obviously held the opinion that the blacks were a)of course still slaves, and b)had committed a crime and should be deported to Cuba. Abolitionist groups and politicians, however, held the conviction that since the slaves had come to America and were on free soil (this was Connecticut in the 1840s), they were no longer slaves; furthermore, allowing the Spanish government to force deportation of people on American soil violated the principles of republican solidarity and statehood on which the US was founded. It was this last point which drove the argument of ex-President John Quincy Adams, who agreed to represent the Amistad Africans in court (an entire chapter is devoted to his opening statement; its really boring but the themes in it are interesting in my opinion). In the end, the Africans who had taken over the Amistad were, after much trial and tribulation, set free (some of them later assisted in setting up Christian missions in their native Sierra Leone; the last section of the book deals with this).
A lot of Black Odyssey is somewhat boring or overly detailed, and some sections, for instance the last section about African missionaries, seem superfluous. However I thought it was impressive how the book used the Amistad-related court cases to demonstrate some very BIG ideas about government and statehood. The Amistad case becomes an example of the fundamental differences between two different types of government which existed in the West in the early 19th century. The author talks about the Spanish ambassadors' conviction that the American President should order the slaves' deported to Cuba, and their ignorance to the fact that the American President was NOT royalty and could not make such an order. The country must decide instead through legal and democratic process what to do about the Amistad slaves, and the Spaniards could not interfere with the processes of American politics. This distinction is put forth in John Q. Adams court arguments where he equates deporting the slaves on command of the Spanish government to giving up the country's democracy and sovereignty.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent book, June 28, 2003

By 

K Scheffler (Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Black Odyssey: The Case of the Slave Ship `Amistad' (Paperback)

I found this book to be very interesting and fairly approachable for someone who is not overly knowledgeable about this period. Some parts were a little dry; but how else is a discussion of the legal procedures pertaining to the legal issues surrounding ownership of the mutinous slaves, salvage rights and legal jurisdiction, etc.? Have to disagree with the previous reviewer: the whole missionary aspect of the story is quite relevant, as it shows in the end how the Amistad slaves were manipulated and exploited, how essentially the goodwill of their abolitionist supporters was conditional.

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Case of the Slave Ship Amistad, February 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Black Odyssey: The Case of the Slave Ship `Amistad' (Paperback)

This book is great!It's very detailed and is very entertaining,it feels like puts you on the Amistad itself and you are watching everything happen, like a movie.I liked the slave ship because it was true in some ways Africans were captured and brought to places around the world. If you read this book you'll know how it must have been for them with a new land and they maybe even lost some family members.