Amistad Schooner At National Harbor

The Freedom Schooner Amistad is docked through Monday at National Harbor.

The ship is a re-creation of La Amistad (meaning friendship), a vessel that became a central part of the first human rights case in U.S. courts argued on behalf of enslaved Africans.

In the Amistad incident of 1839, Africans who had been kidnapped and sold into slavery took over the ship as it sailed from one Cuban port to another. After weeks at sea, the ship was seized off Long Island, N.Y., and towed to Connecticut, where the Africans were jailed on charges related to the takeover.