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    The Black Schooner

    Rebellion on the Amistad, A Graphic Novel

    Author David Lester, Marcus Rediker
    Edited by Paul Buhle
    Illustrated by David Lester
    Contributions by Paul Buhle
    Ebook (EPUB)
    $12.99 US
    Beacon Press
    On sale Jun 09, 2026 | 9780807016923
    Sales rights: World
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    A stunning graphic history of how enslaved Africans on board the Amistad rebelled and captured the slave ship in 1839, challenging a whitewashed version of history and putting the Africans back at the center of their own freedom story

    From the trio of Rediker, Lester, and Buhle comes another graphic "history from below" about the Amistad rebellion of 1839 when 53 enslaved Africans on the slave ship Amistad slipped out of their restraints and overpowered their enslavers and ship’s crew. Sold into slavery in their homeland of Sierra Leone and later bound for Puerto Príncipe, Cuba, from Havana, these Africans, led by the charismatic warrior Cinqué, forced the ship’s remaining crew to sail homeward.

    Divided into 3 parts, The Black Schooner begins with the intense night of the uprising and takes readers on a reconstructed journey: from sailing on the open ocean to a New Haven, Connecticut, jail, where the captured Africans awaited trial for mutiny and murder; to the Supreme courtroom that found that the rebels had been illegally enslaved and would now be free to return to their native land. Through it all, artist David Lester chronicles their story using striking imagery, showing how they achieved an unexpected and powerful international victory for the abolitionist movement and forced some of the most powerful people in the world to confront the issue of human bondage.

    Based on Rediker’s book The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom, The Black Schooner challenges a whitewashed history and instead, puts the Africans back at the center of their own freedom story—where they belong.
    Foreword:
    Why We Need Stories of Successful Resistance
    by Marcus Rediker

    Historical Characters

    Part One: War

    Part Two: Trials

    Part Three: Freedom

    Epilogue

    Afterword:
    Revolutionary Struggles Against the Slave Trade:
    The role of popular art and comics
    by Paul Buhle
    “A necessary and unique, expectation-shattering chronicle.”
    —Library Journal, Starred Review

    “Lester’s well-suited illustrations are sketchy, heavily shadowed and roughly crosshatched, and add a heightened sense of emotional tension and inescapable immediacy that resonates across the centuries of racial reckoning to come. An evocative, incisive, and powerful piece of graphic history.”
    —Kirkus Reviews

    “The Black Schooner is a vivid and graphic depiction of the 1839 Amistad rebellion. . . . Lester’s powerful black-and-white art depicts their story, from the uprising on the ship to their subsequent imprisonment in the US and concluding with their return to Africa.”
    —Gord Hill, author-artist of The 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance Comic Book

    “The graphic novel, deliberately choosing history over cinema, tells much of the story through contemporary interviews as well as journal entries of the rebels. The choice of a graphic novel is deliberate, since most of the published interviews were accompanied by portraits . . . The Black Schooner tells [an] important story, in a way that’s both accessible and engaging.”
    —Freedom Press (UK)

    Discussion Guide for The Black Schooner

    Provides questions, discussion topics, suggested reading lists, introductions and/or author Q&As, which are intended to enhance reading groups’ experiences.

    (Please note: the guide displayed here is the most recently uploaded version; while unlikely, any page citation discrepancies between the guide and book is likely due to pagination differences between a book’s different formats.)

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    About

    A stunning graphic history of how enslaved Africans on board the Amistad rebelled and captured the slave ship in 1839, challenging a whitewashed version of history and putting the Africans back at the center of their own freedom story

    From the trio of Rediker, Lester, and Buhle comes another graphic "history from below" about the Amistad rebellion of 1839 when 53 enslaved Africans on the slave ship Amistad slipped out of their restraints and overpowered their enslavers and ship’s crew. Sold into slavery in their homeland of Sierra Leone and later bound for Puerto Príncipe, Cuba, from Havana, these Africans, led by the charismatic warrior Cinqué, forced the ship’s remaining crew to sail homeward.

    Divided into 3 parts, The Black Schooner begins with the intense night of the uprising and takes readers on a reconstructed journey: from sailing on the open ocean to a New Haven, Connecticut, jail, where the captured Africans awaited trial for mutiny and murder; to the Supreme courtroom that found that the rebels had been illegally enslaved and would now be free to return to their native land. Through it all, artist David Lester chronicles their story using striking imagery, showing how they achieved an unexpected and powerful international victory for the abolitionist movement and forced some of the most powerful people in the world to confront the issue of human bondage.

    Based on Rediker’s book The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom, The Black Schooner challenges a whitewashed history and instead, puts the Africans back at the center of their own freedom story—where they belong.

    Table of Contents

    Foreword:
    Why We Need Stories of Successful Resistance
    by Marcus Rediker

    Historical Characters

    Part One: War

    Part Two: Trials

    Part Three: Freedom

    Epilogue

    Afterword:
    Revolutionary Struggles Against the Slave Trade:
    The role of popular art and comics
    by Paul Buhle

    Praise

    “A necessary and unique, expectation-shattering chronicle.”
    —Library Journal, Starred Review

    “Lester’s well-suited illustrations are sketchy, heavily shadowed and roughly crosshatched, and add a heightened sense of emotional tension and inescapable immediacy that resonates across the centuries of racial reckoning to come. An evocative, incisive, and powerful piece of graphic history.”
    —Kirkus Reviews

    “The Black Schooner is a vivid and graphic depiction of the 1839 Amistad rebellion. . . . Lester’s powerful black-and-white art depicts their story, from the uprising on the ship to their subsequent imprisonment in the US and concluding with their return to Africa.”
    —Gord Hill, author-artist of The 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance Comic Book

    “The graphic novel, deliberately choosing history over cinema, tells much of the story through contemporary interviews as well as journal entries of the rebels. The choice of a graphic novel is deliberate, since most of the published interviews were accompanied by portraits . . . The Black Schooner tells [an] important story, in a way that’s both accessible and engaging.”
    —Freedom Press (UK)

    Guides

    Discussion Guide for The Black Schooner

    Provides questions, discussion topics, suggested reading lists, introductions and/or author Q&As, which are intended to enhance reading groups’ experiences.

    (Please note: the guide displayed here is the most recently uploaded version; while unlikely, any page citation discrepancies between the guide and book is likely due to pagination differences between a book’s different formats.)

    Read More

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