The New York Herald
The New York Herald was launched in 1835 by James Gordon Bennett, a Scottish immigrant. Bennett originally charged readers 2 cents for the paper, but within a year or so dropped the price to 1 cent -- making the Herald one of the notorious "penny -papers" that became popular in American cities in the mid-1800s. As such, the Herald hungrily reported Gotham's more lurid news: violent or sexual crime stories were a speciality, and more refined readers denounced the paper as salacious and sensationalist. These criticisms bounced off Bennett, who declared defiantly at one point just a few years before the Amistad incident broke: "I have seen human depravity to the core -- I proclaim each morning on 15,000 sheets of thought and intellect the deep guilt that is encrusting our society." This outlook proved popular: by 1860, the Herald's circulation had reached 77,000 -- making it the most widely read daily paper in the nation.
Politically, the Herald resisted affiliation with any particular party. In 1840, the paper leaned toward the Whigs; in later years, during the Civil War, it took on a tone that was distinctly Democratic and sympathetic to the South. Still, by the standards of the day, the Herald was not particularly partisan.
The Herald was fiercely critical, though, of reform movements, especially abolitionism. It waged an ongoing war against the overtly abolitionist papers, calling them "nigger papers." And throughout the Amistad incident the paper launched repeated attacks against Lewis Tappan and the Africans' other sympathizers. The Herald's coverage of the Amistad dwelt on the Africans' "savagery" and the shocking violence of their revolt. In short, the Herald's take on the Amistad story was virulently racist -- and often even more outspoken than that of the Southern press.
For this reason, the Herald makes for some ugly reading, and we are a little uncomfortable putting it on-line, since some material here amounts to hate speech. But it is important to recognize that this kind of thing was circulating in the United States in response to the Amistad story. The Herald 's perspective represented an important slice of American popular culture: sensationalist, hungry for spectacle, racist, fascinated by images of crime and depravity.
Some of the key Herald articles in the "Exploring Amistad" library include:
To see the entire collection of articles from the Herald:September 2, 1839: An early view of the case, days after the schooner was taken into U.S. custody.
September 9, 1839: The Herald attacks the editorial perspective and coverage of the Journal of Commerce.
September 18, 1839: A racist description of Cinque.
October 4, 1839: A lengthy and scathing account of the Africans in jail and their abolitionist audiences.
October 23, 1839: The Herald rages against the abolitionists and their protection of the Africans.
To track coverage along
the twists and turns of the case, open the Amistad
Timeline.
SOURCES:
Joseph P. McKerns, ed., Biographical Dictionary of American Journalism (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989);
Frank Luther Mott, American Journalism, A History: 1690-1960 (3d. ed., New York: MacMillan, 1962);
David S. Reynolds, Beneath the American Renaissance: The Subversive Imagination in the Age of Emerson and Melville (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989).
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