MS01.01.03.B01.F13.001

Few episodes in American history have had such a far reaching effect on matters pertaining to the socie-cultural plight of Blacks in the Western world as did the Amistad Incident. n many ways the attitude of firm
in 1839,
Wen Cinque and his ardent followers took command of the Amistad,Joshua
Johnston,honeof the earliest hadhimself left behind a record of acc-
emplishment in the formative art of panting equal to the which received had
as early as 1796.
the praises of the wealthiest patrons or the city or Baltimore.An accurate register of the gifted would
artisansof Colonail America inclunder Black crafsmen and skilled lanorers
who brought to America the artistry of their forelathers from Africa.
The religious and social customs which called for the use of art in
everyday living in Africa were destroyed by the same system of slavery
our attention scholarly
which brings to light the Amistad Incident as a subject of interest.
The slavemaster paayed an important role in the deliberate attempt to
discourage the use of African forms in language arts as well as in
visual and motive expression. We was successrux He succeeded in his
effort to prohibit the use of native art in religious rites and social ceremonies signaled the emergence of a rather unique form of
in the usual arts which sophistication in the arts visual arbs which
paid homage to both African and western styles of making. Those
persons who followed this practice of merging the arts of these two
different societies must be looked upon as masters of universal forms
as they redirected the passage of an African icenegraphy in art into
one which became serviceably ariented in colonial America.

The art that has been produced by Americans of African ancestry
can be regarded as a synthesis of several forms of expression. The sources
and roots of these expressions are numerous in origin but emphasis on
black heritage history and African heritage have dominated the content of