With thoughtful words, inspired movement and music, and enthusiastic applause on Saturday, the Montauk Historical Society, Eastville Community Historical Society, and Southampton African American Museum gathered leaders and community members at Culloden Point Beach to pay tribute to the crew of La Amistad, a group of illegally enslaved Africans who came ashore in Montauk in 1839 following a mutiny aboard the schooner, seeking fresh water, food, and a way back home.
Instead of finding freedom, the crew was captured and their ship was seized and towed to Connecticut, where they were jailed for mutiny. The crew was ultimately freed after a lengthy legal fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court, buoying the abolitionist movement along the way, and 35 freed Africans returned by boat to Sierra Leone in 1842.
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