Travel the Amistad Story

Collections include original printings of the arguments of Roger Sherman Baldwin and John Quincy Adams before the U.S. Supreme Court, and abolitionist publications from the 1830s and 1840s. The Museum of Connecticut History features a Connecticut Freedom Trail Quilt, with the Amistad Incident as a central theme. The work of 186 quilters, it contains 78 squares depicting historic moments along the Freedom Trail, Connecticut's African American heritage trail.

The New Haven Colony Historical Society's collections include a number of important items associated with the Amistad Case. They include Nathaniel Jocelyn's oil portrait of Cinque and a mid-19th-century watercolor of the schooner La Amistad being approached by the U.S. brig Washington. The collection also includes documents and artifacts relating to the case.

Visit Connecticut's Old Statehouse to learn more about the location where the Amistad trials were held for 2 months.

The house operates as a museum, and it is where the Mende performed household tasks while in Connecticut. They have several items related to the Amistad captives and their time at the Stanley-Whitman House. Please call in advance about seeing their Amistad collection.

Check out the Custom House, now the Custom House Maritime Museum, and their exhibit entitled Amistad: A True Story of Freedom. Also remember to visit the bronze plaque on the building's exterior that memorializes the Amistad captives and New London's role in their freedom.