Cinqué Song by Adolphus Hailstork Chamber Music - Sheet Music

SKU: PR.114424840

ISBN 9781491138786. UPC: 680160694686.

A bold and powerful two-minute soliloquy for cello opens this dramatic work, portraying the courageous Joseph Cinqué who escaped his captors’ shackles to lead the historic Amistad mutiny. This uprising at sea led to the US Supreme Court’s 1841 ruling that enslaved Africans had the legal right to defend their freedom. Hailstork’s musical portrayal is profoundly inspired by this heroic rebellion, and the composer has written that the opening section was inspired by chants on board the ship (and knocking on wood), while the remainder of the work is a celebration after the 1841 trial.
Joseph Cinqué (originally named Sengbe Pieh) was born c. 1814 in a West African territory that is now Sierra Leone. He was kidnapped in 1839 by Spanish slave traders, and taken to Havana, Cuba. From Havana, Cinqué was among 53 enslaved Africans placed on board the schooner La Amistad, headed for auction elsewhere in Cuba. On this trip, Cinqué managed to slip out of his shackles and lead a mutiny, forcing the Spanish traders to take them back home to Africa. Feigning cooperation, the Amistad’s navigators instead sailed northward near the American east coast, eventually being apprehended at the tip of Long Island, NY by the USS Washington, a forerunner of the US Coast Guard. The Africans were arrested for mutiny and murder of their captors, and taken for trial in Connecticut which had not yet fully outlawed slavery. The now-historic case progressed through the legal system until reaching the US Supreme Court, along with petitions from the governments of England and Spain which fostered the slave trade. The Supreme Court ruled in 1841 that the African men had been illegally kidnapped and enslaved, and therefore had the right to defend their freedom.Following this acquittal, the United Missionary Society raised money for the return of 35 of the survivors back to Sierra Leone in 1842, where. Cinqué lived the rest of his life peacefully, including work as a missionary.The opening cello solo of CINQUÉ SONG is inspired by communication on the ship by chant and knockng on wood, and the following lyrical section is celebratory after the trial.