They were listening with rapt attention as Sierra Leonean crew member John Kamara proudly told the story of the brave endurance of his ancestors as they resisted the cruelty and indignity of enslavement.
Listening, one not only heard his African voice. In the back of the mind, the haunting screams of thousands of John's ancestors who perished in captivity on the trip across the Atlantic somehow seemed to be re-echoing from the surrounding thick partitions built with African woods such as ikoro, kola nut and white oak.
Modern model
A tour of the recreated, modern model of the 1839 Spanish schooner Amistad, is an experience that evokes disturbing thoughts of the horrors of slavery, though the story of the original ship is one of defiance and determination, demonstrating the indomitable human spirit in its quest for freedom.
As related on the tour of the ship by Canadian student Nina Cox, 53 West Africans were captured in Mende (now Sierra Leone) and later bought by two Spaniards who headed for Cuba with their human goods. On arrival in Cuba, the 49 men and four children were placed on the Amistad, an inter-coastal cargo ship sailing up and down the coast of Cuba with cargoes of sugar, cotton and beeswax.
Three days into a five-day sail to Puerto Principe to be sold to a plantation, hero of the Amistad, Seng-be Pieh, sensing their fate, took the bold action to free his fellow slaves bound below in the main cargo hold. Armed with the machetes they found on board, they revolted, taking over the ship, killing the captain and the cook. The deckhands escaped on a small boat.
The Africans, mainly farmers at the time of their capture, spent 63 days at sea trying to navigate their way back to Africa, with the aid of two Spaniards they held captive, but were spotted by a United States naval ship somewhere off the coast of Long Island, New York, and taken to Connecticut.
Landmark battle
Theirs was a landmark court battle in the United States, in which the right of Africans to self-determination was successfully argued. They won and were eventually able to return to Africa as free people.
Captain, Dr Eliza Garfield, said the Amistad story was being used to ensure mistakes of the past were never repeated, as well as to address the questions of human rights, injustice and human trafficking in today's world.
During this Atlantic Freedom Tour on which the ship has embarked as part of celebrations to mark the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the international slave trade, Garfield observed that hundreds of Barbadians and others had visited the ship, posing thoughtful and meaningful questions.
She said Barbados had been especially chosen as the only Caribbean country for a visit, because of its deep involvement in the slave trade.
"Clearly the colonial power of Britain probably had its most devastating institutionalisation in slavery here on Barbados." Notwithstanding this, she was impressed with Barbados' ability to achieve self-rule "shortly after the banning of enslavement".
The Amistad left the United States last June 21, travelled around the English ports of London, Bristol and Liverpool, on to Portugal, through the Canary Islands to Cape Verde, eventually retracing the Atlantic slave route across the Middle Passage
to Barbados, from where it will sail on Sunday to Charleston, South Carolina, eventually returning to Connecticut in June.
Significant role
On board, the five Americans, two Canadians, one Briton, one Bermudian, one Cape Verdean and five Sierra Leoneans, consisting
of students and crew, are convinced they are playing a significant role in the Amistad's mission to keep the message of hope and freedom alive for the future.
As Kamara said: "This is no fun thing. This is a call."