A Man from Another Land: How Finding My Roots Changed My Life by Isaiah Washington
Authors: Isaiah Washington
Tags: BIO002000
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own experiment and see just how much of an impact I could make over the next
ten years. I closed my eyes and began to meditate. In my mind’s eye I saw images of “the Rerun.” “This is it,” I thought to
myself. “This is what I was born to do. This is my purpose.”
C HAPTER 6
Now What?
I t is difficult to explain the sense of oneness I felt with the people of Sierra Leone, even though I had yet to visit the
country. For eight months I conducted intense research, learning all I could about it, its people, and its history. The Portuguese
gave Sierra Leone its name in 1462. It means “Lion Mountain.” Those same Portuguese goods traders turned into slave traders
during the 1550s, making Sierra Leone the “testing ground” to kick off the transatlantic slave trade.
The story that interested me most was that of Sengbe Pieh, later known as Joseph Cinque, who was the most well known defendant
in the case of the slave ship
La Amistad.
Like me, he was a child of Sierra Leone.
The case involved fifty-three Africans who were abducted from Sierra Leone in February 1839 by Portuguese slave hunters to
be sold as slaves in Havana, Cuba. About five months into the journey, the Africans took control of the ship, killing the
captain and the cook in the process, and ordered the ship to return toAfrica. When the ship was captured by a U.S. brig off the coast of New York, the Africans were initially imprisoned on charges
of murder which were later dismissed. Yet the Africans were still held as “property” even though they had been made slaves
illegally. Former president John Quincy Adams represented the Africans. 2
I had some awareness that Sengbe Pieh was the Mende leader who led the revolt on the slave ship
La Amistad,
but as I read more about him, it hit me. “Wait a minute,” I thought. “This guy is one of my ancestors!”
I believe we owe Sengbe Pieh and the people of Sierra Leone a huge debt for the courage that many, including the great Professor
Joe Opala, a Sierra Leonean expert and historian at James Madison University, considered to be the beginnings of the Civil
Rights Movement. I would later have the honor to meet and work with Professor Opala.
I pulled the book
Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience,
edited by Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates Jr., off my shelf and read about the history, politics, language, and
culture of Sierra Leone.
I discovered that in 1839 Lewis Tappan, a wealthy New York merchant and prominent abolitionist, for whom the Tappan Zee Bridge
is named, launched a campaign to defend the
Amistad
Africans and created the Amistad Committee. Three long trials later, the United States Supreme Court issued its final verdict
in the
Amistad
case on March 9, 1841, that the Africans on board were kidnapped and transported illegally. The captives at last were free!
John Quincy Adams had overturned President Van Buren’s attempt to have the
Amistad
Africans sentenced to death for mutiny.
Sengbe Pieh became such a public figure in the United States that the newspapers compared him to the heroes of ancient Greece
and Rome. Pieh’s cause and return to Sierra Leone garnered the attention of thousands of people and raised millions of dollars for the Amistad Committee and its Mende missions.
The first Mende mission arrived in Freetown with Sengbe Pieh in 1842, designed to persuade their new African friends to adopt
the American dress and manners. This attempt failed once the
Amistad
Africans became anxious to return to their individual villages. The Amistad Committee evolved into the American Missionary
Association and built the most celebrated schools of its time—the Harford School for Girls and the Albert Academy, which predated
the government-run Bo School by several years.
The village of Bo the school is named for has an interesting story behind its name which I found on the Web site www.sierra-leone.org . The
ten years. I closed my eyes and began to meditate. In my mind’s eye I saw images of “the Rerun.” “This is it,” I thought to
myself. “This is what I was born to do. This is my purpose.”
C HAPTER 6
Now What?
I t is difficult to explain the sense of oneness I felt with the people of Sierra Leone, even though I had yet to visit the
country. For eight months I conducted intense research, learning all I could about it, its people, and its history. The Portuguese
gave Sierra Leone its name in 1462. It means “Lion Mountain.” Those same Portuguese goods traders turned into slave traders
during the 1550s, making Sierra Leone the “testing ground” to kick off the transatlantic slave trade.
The story that interested me most was that of Sengbe Pieh, later known as Joseph Cinque, who was the most well known defendant
in the case of the slave ship
La Amistad.
Like me, he was a child of Sierra Leone.
The case involved fifty-three Africans who were abducted from Sierra Leone in February 1839 by Portuguese slave hunters to
be sold as slaves in Havana, Cuba. About five months into the journey, the Africans took control of the ship, killing the
captain and the cook in the process, and ordered the ship to return toAfrica. When the ship was captured by a U.S. brig off the coast of New York, the Africans were initially imprisoned on charges
of murder which were later dismissed. Yet the Africans were still held as “property” even though they had been made slaves
illegally. Former president John Quincy Adams represented the Africans. 2
I had some awareness that Sengbe Pieh was the Mende leader who led the revolt on the slave ship
La Amistad,
but as I read more about him, it hit me. “Wait a minute,” I thought. “This guy is one of my ancestors!”
I believe we owe Sengbe Pieh and the people of Sierra Leone a huge debt for the courage that many, including the great Professor
Joe Opala, a Sierra Leonean expert and historian at James Madison University, considered to be the beginnings of the Civil
Rights Movement. I would later have the honor to meet and work with Professor Opala.
I pulled the book
Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience,
edited by Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates Jr., off my shelf and read about the history, politics, language, and
culture of Sierra Leone.
I discovered that in 1839 Lewis Tappan, a wealthy New York merchant and prominent abolitionist, for whom the Tappan Zee Bridge
is named, launched a campaign to defend the
Amistad
Africans and created the Amistad Committee. Three long trials later, the United States Supreme Court issued its final verdict
in the
Amistad
case on March 9, 1841, that the Africans on board were kidnapped and transported illegally. The captives at last were free!
John Quincy Adams had overturned President Van Buren’s attempt to have the
Amistad
Africans sentenced to death for mutiny.
Sengbe Pieh became such a public figure in the United States that the newspapers compared him to the heroes of ancient Greece
and Rome. Pieh’s cause and return to Sierra Leone garnered the attention of thousands of people and raised millions of dollars for the Amistad Committee and its Mende missions.
The first Mende mission arrived in Freetown with Sengbe Pieh in 1842, designed to persuade their new African friends to adopt
the American dress and manners. This attempt failed once the
Amistad
Africans became anxious to return to their individual villages. The Amistad Committee evolved into the American Missionary
Association and built the most celebrated schools of its time—the Harford School for Girls and the Albert Academy, which predated
the government-run Bo School by several years.
The village of Bo the school is named for has an interesting story behind its name which I found on the Web site www.sierra-leone.org . The
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