FARMINGTON, Ct. -- You've seen the movie, but there's much more to the story of blacks and their struggle for freedom in Colonial America .
               Steven Spielberg in 1997 captured the nation's attention with his cinematic story about how black slaves revolted and took control of the slave ship Amistad in 1839.
                The complete story of what happened to those slaves is compelling history and is one part of  the role the Farmington Valley area played in regard to the abolition of slavery in America.
                This picturesque town, some 10 miles west of Hartford, was perhaps the nation's biggest hotbed of abolitionists in the 17-1800s.
                 Over some five decades thousands of freedom-seeking blacks were funnelled to Farmington along the Underground Railroad, a series of secret waysides in several states which hid escaped slaves and helped them make their way along this Freedom Trail to New England.
                 Farmington, which had favorable roads and a canal, had dozens of anti-slavery residents, who risked life and property to hide slaves from the grasps of bounty-hunters, who had carte blanche police powers in invading homes, churches and businesses in search of runaway slaves.
                The bounty for such slaves was about $5,000 at the time, equating to about $100,000 or more in modern American currency.
                  The abolitionists were not always successful in keeping runaway slaves hidden as several were recaptured and returned to slaveowners.
                  Farmingtonians used ingenuity in finding ways to hide slaves, building secret enclosures within fireplaces, underground rooms, tunnels, behind fake walls, etc. Some of these Freedom Trail and Amistad sites now open to the public include the Elijah Lewis House, Norton House, Canal House, Austin F. Williams House, Samuel Deming House, Barney House, Smith-Cowles House, Rev. Noah Porter House and Timothy Wadsworth House. Other historical points of interest include the Union Hall, First Church of Christ Congregational, the Art Guild and Riverside Cemetery.  Several of these locations are available to the public via tours through Farmington Historical Society (800-678-1645).
                    Farmington has perhaps more surviving early American homes than any region, including restored Colonial Williamsburg, Va., with more than 100 homes dating back to at least 1835.
                     Many of Farmington's historical sites relate to the blacks from the slave ship Amistad.
                      While the fate of the Amistad blacks was being debated in the nation's courts they were jailed in New Haven for two years. But the 43 surviving hijacked slaves (9 died aboard the ship and one was killed during the mutiny) were later sent to Farmington to live with local residents, who opened their homes, schools, churches and businesses to them pending the final Supreme Court ruling.
               The Amistad case is now seen as a notable event in the growth of the abolitionist movement before the Civil War. This was the true story of  how the 53 Africans were kidnapped by slave trade merchants in their homeland (now Sierra Leone) in 1839 and transported aboard the Amistad (ironically, the Spanish word for friendship) to Cuba as sugar plantation slaves. They revolted in Cuban waters and escaped after killing several crew members. But they were later captured off the coast of  America and went on trial in Connecticut in a case that became a national sensation.
                 What to do with the slaves was a hugely important question at the time. Some argued they should be jailed as murdering mutineers. Some said they should be returned to their slaveowners. Some argued they were illegally jihacked and should be freed and allowed to return to their own country. It was the first big civil rights issues facing the relatively new country, preceding the famed Dred Scott decision of 1857.
            Farmington played a central role in housing the slaves while the debate raged.
           Joseph Cinqué, 26, who led the Amistad revolt, was a member of the African Mende tribe and served as an unofficial leader of the Amistad blacks during their time in Farmington.
           The Amistad survivors had their own seating section in local churches and were taught English.
           After the historic Supreme Court ruling freed the Amistad survivors they were allowed the right to return to Africa, but the government did not provide them free transportation.
            Farmington residents over about an eight-month period conducted a series of fund-raising events and made sufficient contributions to provide ship passage for the blacks to return to Sierra Leone. 
        On Nov. 25, 1841, the remaining 35 Amistad captives and five missionaries, returned to Sierra Leone, almost three years after their initial capture.
         One of the Amistad girls, Margru, later studied at Oberlin College in Ohio, becoming a missionary in Sierra Leone. She was educated at the expense of the American Missionary Association (AMA), established in Farmington in 1846.
           Cinqué returned to his home, where tribal wars had scattered or perhaps killed his family. He remained in Africa, working as an interpreter at the AMA mission in Kaw-Mende before his death around 1879.
      The Amistad case was significant in the fight against slavery by helping to lay the basis for its abolition through the 13th Amendment to the Constitution in 1865. 

This story was published on 18 Nov 2002.