Beyond Amistad: The African American Struggle for Citizenship, 1770-1850
An NEH Landmarks of American History
and Culture Workshop for Schoolteachers
June 17-22, 2007 and July 22-27, 2007
View Workshop Photos in our Photo Gallery
Program Materials
In 1839, a "long, low black schooner," La Amistad, arrived in Connecticut manned by forty-four Africans. Kidnapped from their homeland and sold in Cuba as slaves, they had seized the ship and killed its crew, and had sought to pilot it back to Africa. Their struggle for freedom dramatized the criminality of the slave system and put a human face on an institution most Americans preferred to ignore. The Amistad story, nearly forgotten for a century and a half, has led in the last dozen years to a remarkable flowering of understanding about the Atlantic slave system and its destruction, and the role of Connecticut natives, black and white, in the struggle to realize the American promise of freedom. The Amistad "incident," as it is known, is a small window through which we can view many of the issues that were central to the struggle for African American freedom and citizenship.
Tracing African American History in Connecticut from the Revolutionary War to the powerful movement of a cohesive national black leadership in the first half of the 19th century, this workshop offers participants the opportunity to explore the development of an African American community so crucial to the large-scale enlistment of colored troops during the Civil War, and to the Reconstruction amendments that ended slavery and conferred the rights of equal protection and the franchise. Most interpretations of African American history view it chiefly as a "counter-narrative" of resistance, protest, or strategies of survival through imitation and appropriation of "white" paradigms and institutions. Building on historian James Horton's maxim that "African American history is American history made by Americans in America," this workshop will employ a broad range of sites in Connecticut to show how the African American struggle for liberty and equal justice under law stands at the core, rather than the periphery, of the American experience.
Through daily site visits and lectures, participants will gain a thorough knowledge of the formative role played by African Americans in the shaping of Connecticut, and by extension, the American republic. Furthermore, the workshop will provide teachers with key concepts that will enable them to interrogate historic sites and structures in their own communities for insights about liberty, culture, citizenship, and the hidden historical roots of contemporary social and political movements. Primary source documents, maps, portraits and landscapes, and other visual aids to actively engage K-12 students in investigating and comprehending history will also be incorporated into the workshop.
Successful applicants to the program can access materials and detailed logistical information about the workshops through the links listed below.
| June 17-22, 2007 Workshop | July 22-27, 2007 Workshop |
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