Sarah Margru Kinson
Sarah Margru Kinson was a West African educator. As Margru or Mar'gru, she was one of the four children on La Amistad. The ship's passengers were the subject of a case in the American Supreme Court and a 1997 film. As Sarah Kinson, she was educated at Oberlin College and returned to West Africa to be a missionary teacher. She is considered the first woman born in Africa to be educated in an American college.
Early life and the ''Amistad''
Margru was born in the Mende country of West Africa, in what is now called Sierra Leone. She was sold to traders as a young girl, forced to walk to the coast, and shipped to Cuba aboard a Portuguese slave ship, the Tecora. In 1839, she was one of the four children aboard La ''Amistad, commandeered by Joseph Cinqué, a fellow Mendian, hoping to escape back to Africa. Instead, the Amistad was brought to shore by the United States Coast Guard at New London, Connecticut. Margru and the others aboard were held in a jail in New Haven, exhibited and studied, while their legal status was determined in the courts. Abolitionist Lewis Tappan arranged for Margru and the other children to be moved to the residence of the white jailer and his wife, where she was a domestic servant.In 1841, when the Amistad'' passengers won their case and freedom, she went to stay with the rest in Farmington, Connecticut, where she was given the English name "Sarah Kinson". The group were still a matter of public curiosity, and gave presentations in various American cities about their experiences. In their public appearances, Kinson was known for reciting from Psalms, especially on themes of escape and redemption. They returned to West Africa together, arriving near Freetown in January 1842, along with several American missionaries.
Education
Kinson was still a child when the Amistad contingent arrived in West Africa in 1842. She lived at the Kaw Mendi mission, learned to read and write, converted to Christianity, and worked for the American missionaries. Under Lewis Tappan's ongoing interest in her care, she returned to the United States in 1846, and attend Oberlin's Little Red Schoolhouse, and then the Oberlin Collegiate Institute, both in Ohio. At Oberlin, she roomed with an African-American girl, Lucy Stanton, and learned to play accordion along with her academic studies.During this period of her time in the United States, Kinson was examined by Orson Squire Fowler, a phrenologist in New York City, who declared her to have a "vigorous constitution" in his published paper about her.