A Congregational Event for All Ages
“All
We Want Is ‘Make Us Free’:
Living History, Living Faith”
Introduction
to the Event: The true story of the ship La Amistad
and its unusual cargo of kidnapped African men and children
is both riveting and amazing. As an account of the big business
of slave trading on and off the shores of New England in
the 19th century, it is revealing. As a glimpse of the politics,
legal system, and the impassioned abolitionist arguments
of the time, it is both a story of racism and injustice as
well as a story of the struggle for equality. It is a story
with which every American should be familiar.
The Amistad story is one that recognizes the courage and faith of the human
spirit in the actions of the Mende captives to achieve their right to freedom.
It is also a story of individuals and communities whose Christian conviction
led them to courageous acts that would help achieve equal treatment and justice
for the illegally captured Africans. A coalition of New England Congregationalists
formed themselves into the Amistad Committee, to obtain freedom for the captives
and provide them educational and religious instruction while they were in
jail awaiting trial. Five years later the Amistad Committee became the American
Missionary Association (AMA), the forerunner of today’s Justice and
Witness Ministries of the United Church of Christ.
Objective of the Event: The objective of
this intergenerational event is for a congregational group
to become acquainted with the Amistad events, bringing them
to life in six tableaus, with individuals taking the parts
of the characters and “living” the story. In
this way, individuals will begin to feel the uniqueness and
importance of what happened aboard La Amistad, at the trial,
and beyond. It is hoped that many people of all ages from
your congregation will be able to visit the Freedom Schooner
Amistad with a deeper understanding of these pages of U.S.
and U.C.C. history. As well, we pray that these experiences
will encourage folk to see justice concerns calling them
to action today.
Options for Scheduling: This intergenerational
experience can be used A) as a stand alone intergenerational
event (perhaps as a family night or as a church school wide
lesson) being sure to allow time for the fellowship of a
meal and refreshments before or after the central activity
of staging the Amistad story in six tableaux; or B) as part
of a worship service that uses Amistad as the theme of the
liturgy and the sermon, and then leads worshippers on a “walk” through
the Amistad tableaux on their way to coffee hour or a simple
meal. Plan “All We Want Is Make Us Free” for
a time and in a way that works best for the size, style and
the spirit of your congregation!
Leadership and Planning: Leadership should
be recruited as early as possible. Leaders will be responsible
for advanced publicity in newsletter and bulletins, in live
announcements during worship, and, if the wider community
will be invited, in local newspapers, etc. Preparation of
scripts, costumes, props, and event handouts needs to be
planned. If a meal is part of the plan, that will need to
be coordinated. If the event’s theme will be connected
to Sunday worship, the pastor and deacons should be part
of the planning.
If the decision is made to hold it as a “walk” immediately after
an Amistad worship service, the church school, with the help of teachers, Confirmation
class or youth group, and other volunteers, could prepare it over two Sundays.
The first Sunday would be listening to the story as it is read, or viewed on
one of the videos (see Bibliography), along with some guided discussion. Then
the tableaux can be described, and a plan developed for the following Sunday’s
rehearsal and presentation of the tableaux at the close of worship. In the
space where the tableaux are presented, assign a place for each scene. If possible,
plan to darken the room at presentation time, so that a flashlight or a floodlight
can spot each group in turn to maximize the dramatic effect. The day of the “walk
through”, present the scripts, costume and props resources and have your
participants create their tableaux…
General Instructions for the Tableaux
A tableau is a moment frozen in time. None of the participants in a tableau
moves or speaks once a pose is taken. A small group can easily organize and
present a tableau.
First look at the tableau script, photocopied from this resource, for the scene
your group will present. Have someone read it aloud to the group. Decide
what your “moment in time” should look like. What characters
will you need? Assign roles regardless of age or gender. Decide what each
character will be doing. What positions will they take? What facial expressions
will help the audience understand the significance of this scene?
Then think about the props you will need in order to communicate the action
and mood of the tableau. What ordinary objects, like furniture, could be
used for props? What could you make simply and quickly out of construction
paper and cardboard? What costume materials will you look for in the items
provided by the leaders for this purpose?
Whatever format you decide to use, you will need to divide your intergenerational
group into six smaller groups to prepare the tableaux. Provide the appropriate
photocopied script to each group and guide them to their tableau-rehearsal
area. Give each group a copy of these “General Instructions,” as
well. Photocopy enough “Closing Devotions” for every participant.
For the presentation, select one or two members of your group to read the tableau
script while everyone else takes part in the tableau. Practice together,
and make any necessary adjustments in the arrangement of your scene before
the preparation time is up.
Note: You want to have an audience for each tableau and script. Therefore,
if you choose a stand-alone event in which all are included in a tableau,
plan to present the tableau scenes one at a time while the rest of the group
watches. As each small group of “actors” sets up its scene and
takes its pose, others can sing hymns or spirituals (see suggestions below)
or fill the moments between scenes with something else creative such as:
historically relevant slide or PowerPoint presentation; a storyteller; a
musical soloist, etc—keeping the group together, focused, and energized.
Event Agenda
For a freestanding event, use these time estimates as a guide. The total is
1.5 hours, though “tableau preparation” may take longer. If a
meal is part of the total event, add that time onto the ones suggested below.
Arrival Time and Opening Prayer... 10 minutes
Becoming Acquainted with the Story... 25 minutes
Tableau Preparation... 30 minutes
Present the Tableaux... 20 minutes
Closing Devotions... 5 minutes
If the church school or other group prepares the tableaux over one or two Sundays
while others are in the worship service, these time estimates will be only
marginally useful.
Costumes
• Shipboard: cloth
and material (old white sheets, sashes, scarves, vests) to
use as clothing for sailors and captives aboard ship; straw
hats; chains; ropes; cardboard knives and guns (have construction
paper, cardboard, scissors, tape, and markers available); a
few nails
• Courtroom
scenes: men and boys: coats, bow ties, dark neck
scarves, solid-color shirts; women and girls: loose, long
female clothing and head scarves
Props
• African setting: farm tools, large drawing of grass
homes, palm trees, large live plants
• Shipboard settings: anything that suggests masts, water,
rigging, boxes of cargo, cramped quarters in the hold of the ship, shackles,
bowls of rice, a large whip
• Havana, Cuba, at the slave auction: shackles, ropes,
wooden boxes for captives to stand on, items suggesting palm trees, sand, etc.
Readers’ Scripts
Tableau 1: Kidnapped!
We remember La Amistad, the ship that set sail bearing captives for sale. In
1839, human beings were yanked from their fields and their homes; their culture
and their freedom. West Africans in Sierra Leone were paid well by slave
traders to kidnap their own tribal neighbors, the Mende people, who were
then loaded onto a Portuguese slave ship to be sold into slavery across the
sea.
Tableau 2: Chained!
Five hundred kidnapped Mende Africans, men, women and children, were chained
by the neck and force-marched for three days to the West African coast, where
they were packed into the slave ship Teçora. There they were chained
two by two, hands to feet, forced to lie in filth on a lower deck under a
four-foot ceiling, fed rice and water, and disciplined with a whip throughout
the long voyage from Africa to Cuba. More than a third of the captives died
during the two-month trip.
Tableau 3: Sold!
The Teçora landed on the beach in Cuba, and
the entire cargo of captives was marched for three miles into
the jungle. They were jammed into crude dwellings, where they
were warehoused for two weeks. One night in June, the Teçora
captain ordered the captives to form lines, and they began
another long trek in the woods until they came to the city
of Havana. There they were put in long enclosures without roofs.
During the day these were slave markets. At night they were
prisons. In late June two wealthy Spaniards, Jose Luiz and
Pedro Montes, appeared in the crowd bartering for slaves. Ruiz,
looking closely at the teeth and bodies of the blacks standing
in a row to be examined, bought 49 males at $450 apiece. Montes
bought four young children, three of them females. Six days
later Ruiz and Montes loaded their newly purchased cargo of
53 Africans onto the ship La Amistad to transport them to plantations
in Puerto Príncipe, another port in Cuba, two-days’ sail
away.
Tableau 4: Uprising! (two
readers can share this)
There was one captive among the 53 Africans who was horrified and bewildered
by what was happening to him and the others, and his mind began to work. His
name was Sengbe, given the name Joseph Cinqué, by the Spanish crew.
Sengbe was twenty-five years old and tall for a Mende African at five feet,
eight inches. He was courageous and curious, and upon hearing from the ship’s
cook – who was joking – that Sengbe and his fellow captives were
to be killed and eaten, he made the decision that, if they were to die, they
would die for their freedom.
With a nail he had found, Sengbe picked the lock on the iron collar around
his neck and on their third night at sea, he and fellow captives found sugar-cane
knives in the cargo, went up on deck, and attacked the captain and crew.
The captain and cook were killed; two crewmembers slipped overboard into
a boat, another begged for mercy and was tied to the anchor. Montes was injured
and hid, bleeding, behind a food barrel. Ruiz was mildly wounded and surrendered.
Sengbe took command of La Amistad. Sengbe ordered Ruiz and Montes to sail
the ship toward the sun – to Africa. This they did by day, but by night
they secretly steered the ship toward the north.
Tableau 5: Charged!
Finally, after two months of zigzag sailing, the United States Coast Guard
ship Washington off the coast of Long Island, New York captured the tattered
La Amistad. Sengbe and the other Mende people were arrested and jailed for
mutiny and piracy in New Haven, Connecticut. Once again they were in prison – in
a strange land with a strange language – and they were headed to a
trial.
This time they had allies. Many New England Congregationalists, members of
one of the four denominations that today make up the United Church of Christ,
came together believing that the teachings of Jesus Christ called for freedom
for all people regardless of race or color. Providing the Africans with clothing
and education, these Christians joined with other abolitionists to support
the cause that Sengbe described in his newly-learned English when he said
in court: “All we want is make us free!” The legal case against
the African captives eventually went to the Supreme Court in 1841, and it
ruled in favor of the Mende people. Former president of the United States,
John Quincy Adams, argued the case on behalf of the captives.
Tableau 6: Free at Last!
Three of the American Abolitionists, who were Congregationalists, had formed
the Amistad Committee. Lewis Tappan, a prosperous businessman, and Joshua
Leavitt and Simeon Jocelyn, Congregational pastors, provided leadership of
this committee. They had publicized the plight of the captives to the American
people throughout the court proceedings. Now they raised funds to allow the
Mende people to return home. The 35 survivors boarded a ship and set sail,
following an eastward course by day AND by night, and sailed back to their
West African homeland. After their seven-week trip, one of them, named Kinna,
wrote Lewis Tappan the following letter in English:
“We have reached Sierra Leone and one little while
after we go Mende and we get land very safely. Oh dear
friend pray to God… We will pray for you… We
have been on great water. Not any danger fell upon us.
Oh, no… Our blessed saviour Christ have done wondrous
works. Dear Mr. Tappan, how I feel for these wondrous things.
I pray Jesus will hear you; if I never see you in this
world, we will meet in heaven.”
Closing Devotions
A Reading from Scripture Isaiah
61 (have a few readers share the reading)
Responsive Reading (In Unison) From
The New Century Hymnal, c Pilgrim Press 1995, 822
Leader: Beautiful are the works of God!
People: Beautiful are the skins of God’s people!
Leader: Beautiful is the mind of God!
People: Beautiful also are the hearts of God’s people!
Leader: Beautiful is the heart of God!
People: Beautiful are the souls of God’s people!
Leader: God made the heavens and the earth!
People: To God be the glory for the things God has done.
Unison Prayer
God of justice and love, help us to love you with righteousness and praise.
Reassure us of your presence today to us and to all who mourn and are not
free. As we seek to be bold in our faith and bold in our witness for love
and justice, we know you will provide us strength and courage for that witness.
As we seek to serve you in our daily tasks, enable us to see all persons
as your children. We go forth now as Christ’s disciples to make the
world a better place. Amen.
Hymn (such
as these from The New Century Hymnal)
“We Cannot Own the Sunlit Sky”... NCH 563
“I Will Trust the Lord”... NCH 416
“In Egypt Under Pharaoh”... NCH 574
“For the Healing of the Nations”... NCH 576
“Lead Us from Death to Life”... NCH 581
This
resource written by the Rev. Beverly Duncan, Associate
Pastor, The Pilgrim Church UCC, Duxbury
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