A replica pair of shackles rested next to a nail and sugar cane knife on a table aboard the deck of the 129-foot schooner La Amistad. The items helped tell the story of an uprising nearly two centuries ago that still resonates when 53 illegally enslaved Africans rebelled against their captors. In 1839, the ship ran aground off Montauk's Culloden Point, the location where the modern-day ship sailed Thursday evening.
“What we always say is this is a story with a ship,” said Paula Mann-Agnew, executive director of the nonprofit Discovering Amistad that operates the modern-day, reconstructed ship. The schooner, considered a floating museum, docked at the East Hampton Town Dock on Star Island to begin a six-day series of free tours and educational seminars as part of its 2024 “Voyage for Freedom.” The ship and its crew share the story of the men who stood trial for mutiny and eventually won their freedom in a case the U.
S. Supreme Court decided in 1841. The 1997 Oscar-nominated movie “Amistad," directed by Steven Spielberg, captured that story.
The Eastville Community Historical Society partnered with the Southampton African American Museum and Montauk Historical Society to bring the schooner to Montauk for the first time. The Amistad last docked on the East End in Sag Harbor in 2002, two years after the ship launched from New Haven, Connecticut. “This has been a mission of ours to tell the story of the Amistad,” said Georgette Grier-Key, executive director of the Ea.