Education: Telling the Amistad story

Margru - A Dramatic Reading or Story
(adapt for use in worship or education for children)

My name is Margru. My name means “black snake,” though in America some people came to know me as “the child of many prayers.”

I was born in Ben-dem-bu, Mandingo country in Western Africa. Like all little children I spent my days playing, singing and working with my family, gathering food and water in the lush countryside of my home.

One day when I was six years old, everything changed when awful men came searching for me. They hurt me and tied me up and sold me to Spanish slave traders to repay a family debt. Why did these men catch us? Why did they treat us so cruelly? And where was my family? Where was my mother?

Men, women and children were forced to walk one hundred miles to the west African coast, and there more men with cruel whips herded us into stinking slave pens waiting for...??...we knew not what would happen next.

We were crowded together horribly in that pen, pushed and flogged, naked and hungry and so very frightened. Then the men dragged us into a filthy, dark ship’s hold where we couldn’t even stand up. They chained all the adults together, stacked on top of each other, in half-sitting, half-lying positions, like animals without a soul. Though I pray no animal was ever treated as horribly. The ship set sail and lumbered across a great water for too many horrible weeks.

The men fed us rice and water. Everyone was sick; one third of us living in that filthy ships hold died of malnu-trition, abuse or disease. We screamed and vomited and no one took care of us...no one came for us.

Three other children were forced into the ship’s hold with me: a boy, “Kali,” and two girls, “Teh-me” and “Kah-ne.” We children weren’t chained, but O we might have been. What had we done wrong? Where were we go-ing? Where was my mother? I wanted my mother!

Finally the ship landed in Havana. We were sold for money, and forced onto another ship called La Amistad (which is Spanish for “friendship”). Where would the cruel men take us this time? Where would we live? Where were we going?

After four days on that ship, my people found guns and knives... they fought for our freedom and took control of that ship! I was so happy; I knew I was going home! Home to Mendeland, to my family in Africa.

But no, again we were caught and forced into chains. In New Haven we were paraded through the streets and thrown into jail for murdering the ship’s crew. We were seen as criminals because we had dared to fight back! Because we wanted to live free! Because we were black Africans.

And yet God is good. Inspiring faithful people from Congregational churches in Connecticut to come to our aid. Mr. Lewis Tappan became our friend and our benefactor, as he formed the Amistad Committee to raise money for my people’s legal defense. John Quincy Adams finally argued our case before the Supreme Court in March 1841 – two and a half years after our capture from the Amistad ship.

We were free! Now 10 years old I was free to return to my home in Africa! The Congregationalists in Farmington, Connecticut, had clothed and fed us, and taught us to read and write. We learned about the Lord who had inspired our new friends to act so faithfully and courageously in befriending us. We were given new names: my new name was Sarah.

In November of 1841, thirty-six of my people boarded another ship for our return home to Mendeland. Ah, such joyfulness in our hearts as the ship sailed toward our homeland … joyfulness for our new friends in America ... joyfulness for our Lord who guided us home.

One of our group, Kinna, wrote Lewis Tappan this 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 savior 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.”

Note: Seven years later, in the summer of 1846, Sarah Margru was chosen to attend Oberlin College in America. After graduation, Sarah returned to Africa in November 1849 as the “schoolmistress” of a girls school.

This story written by the Rev. Diane Mix, Senior Pastor of the Hingham Congregational Church, UCC, May 2003.