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Drawing of the Deck of La Amistad
Date and Artist unknown |
Author: Shanna Campbell
"A child's experience of enslavement is qualitatively different from that of an adult for a number of reasons, not least of which is that even when they are ostensibly free, as children they remained dependents and wards of others" (Lawrence, 89). The stories of children who were in enslaved families are often overlooked for the stories of the enslaved adults. It can be difficult to get the stories of children of enslaved families during this time, which is why they are often overlooked. However, in the case of La Amistad, due to its high profile, access to details around the children became easier. The Mende children on board La Amistad were closely tied to the 1839 case, and their freedom also came into question during the trial. Lawrence, in chapter 3 of his book, discusses that children and women were the most vulnerable to "the notion that African slave status must be positioned on a continuum of kinship systems - wherein lineage heads cultivated rights-in-persons" (93). This argument details that if your forebearers were slaves, then you, too, were a slave. Once they were returned to an enslaved state, they were returned to the possibility of being traded and removed from their families. And since many of the children on La Amistad couldn't remember who their parents were, or even their own names, it was easier for them to be given off as wards to others who would exploit them in an enslaved matter, no matter what the court case decided. The children aboard slave ships often experienced similar conditions to the adults, although to a lesser extent due to being children, and often arrived before the adults. The reasoning for little being known about La Amistad's orphans can simply be attributed to the commonality of children being transported as slaves was not unusual at the time. As a result, it would have been easy to pass over their stories in favor of the adults' stories and experiences.
Lawrance, Benjamin N. “The Enslavements of Amistad’s Orphans.” In Amistad's Orphans: An
Atlantic Story of Children, Slavery, and Smuggling, 88-129. Yale University Press, 2014. Accessed April 23, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt13x1tc9.8.
Lawrance, Benjamin N. “Epilogue: An Age of Child Enslavement.” In Amistad's Orphans: An
Atlantic Story of Children, Slavery, and Smuggling, 266-72. Yale University Press, 2014. Accessed April 23, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt13x1tc9.12.
Lawrance, Benjamin N. “The Journeys of Amistad’s Orphans.” In Amistad's Orphans: An
Atlantic Story of Children, Slavery, and Smuggling, 130-78. Yale University Press, 2014. Accessed April 23, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt13x1tc9.9.
Lawrance, Benjamin N. “The Origins of Amistad’s Orphans.” In Amistad's Orphans: An Atlantic
Story of Children, Slavery, and Smuggling, 47-87. Yale University Press, 2014. Accessed April 23, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt13x1tc9.7.
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