James Covey

James Covey (né Covie or Kaweliis; c. 1819 – ?) was the interpreter used in the Amistad slave ship case (40 U.S. (15 Pet.) 518 (1841)) who spoke Mende and possibly other African languages.

Covey was born in Africa about 1819. At twelve years of age, he was kidnapped from his Sierra Leone village by an unknown black man. He was sold at a slave holding camp called Lomboko. Covey was placed upon a ship headed for Cuba, even though the Trans-Atlantic slave trade had already been outlawed. However, the ship was intercepted by a British warship and Covey, with the other captives, was freed. Covey then joined the British fleet. He arrived in New York aboard the HMS Buzzard in June 1839.

Yale professor Josiah Gibbs, seeking anyone who spoke the Mende language to assist him by interpreting for the Amistad captives, went to New York Harbor and loudly counted to ten in Mende until someone who could understand him approached. Gibbs had learned to count in Mende from some of the Africans found aboard the Amistad. Covey approached Gibbs and was eventually taken to New Haven, where he came into contact with the African captives of the Amistad. However, while Covey was able to speak both English and Mende, it was found that only three of the captives spoke Mende.

Covey stayed in New Haven for four months, until he had translated the testimonies of the three Mende-speaking captives in the Amistad civil trial in Hartford, Connecticut in 1841. Because of his own experience, Covey was instrumental in interpreting the details of the kidnapping, terror, and eventual mutiny. The case, and the fate of the captives, was eventually appealed to the United States Supreme Court. The Court ultimately ruled that the captives were not slaves, but free men. Two years after the trials, in November 1841, Covey, along with the surviving Africans of the Amistad, boarded the ship Gentleman and sailed back to Africa.

References

• The Museum of America and the Sea