Joseph Cinqué

Joseph Cinqué
Portrait by Nathaniel Jocelyn, 1840
Born	c. 1814 Sierra Leone
Died	c. 1879 (aged 64–65) Sierra Leone
Other names	Sengbe Pieh
Known for	Amistad case
Signature

Joseph Cinqué (c. 1814 – c. 1879), formerly known as Sengbe Pieh, was a West African man of the Mende people who led a revolt of fellow Africans on the Spanish slave ship, La Amistad. After the ship was taken into custody by the United States Coast Guard, Cinqué and his fellow Africans were eventually tried for killing officers on the ship, in a case known as United States v. The Amistad. This reached the US Supreme Court, where Cinqué and his fellow Africans were found to have rightfully defended themselves from being enslaved through the illegal Atlantic slave trade and were released. Americans helped raise money for their return to Africa.

Cinqué was born c. 1814 in what is now Sierra Leone. His exact date of birth remains unknown. He was a rice farmer, married, with three children, when he was captured illegally by African slave traders in 1839, sold to Portuguese slave traders, and imprisoned on the Portuguese slave ship Tecora, in violation of treaties prohibiting the international slave trade. Cinqué was taken to Cuba, where he was sold with 110 others to Spaniards José Ruiz and Pedro Montez.

The Spaniards transported the captives on the schooner Amistad, with the intention of selling them as slaves in Cuba for work at sugar plantations. On June 30, Cinqué led a revolt, killing the captain and the cook of the ship; two slaves also died, and two sailors escaped. The Africans took prisoner Ruiz and Montez, the merchants who had made the purchase, and demanded that they direct the ship back to Sierra Leone. Instead, at night, they directed the navigator in the opposite direction, towards the Americas, in the hope of attracting the attention of one of their fellow Spaniards who would save their ship and regain control. However, the ship vacillated between the coasts of the United States and Africa. After about two months, Amistad reached United States waters near Long Island, New York. Members of the USS Washington boarded the vessel. When they discovered what had happened (according to the Spaniards), they charged the Africans with mutiny and murder, and took them to New Haven, Connecticut to await trial.