A REPLICA of one of history's most infamous slave ships, , could visit the island next year.

A local group is in talks with Amistad America Inc. to bring the 200-foot Freedom Schooner to the island next spring. Roger Vann, the group's senior director of operations, confirmed the possibility. Hopeful dates are April 30 through May 15.

Ironically, the original vessel visited Bermuda in 1841, bearing cargo out of New England.

As a slave ship, the vessel gained notoriety two years earlier for its role in the Amistad Incident of 1839 ? one of the first court cases in the United States successfully argued on behalf of Africans.

The events which led to the Supreme Court case were documented in Steven Spielberg's 1997 film and are described on Amistad America's web site, www.amistadamerica.org: "In 1839, 53 Africans were illegally kidnapped from West Africa and sold into the transatlantic slave trade. Shackled aboard the Portuguese slave vessel, , the 49 men and four children (three girls and a boy) were brought to Havana, Cuba, where they were fraudulently classified as native, Cuban-born slaves."

The Africans were illegally purchased and transferred to for transport to another part of the island. Three days into the journey, however, a revolt occurred, led by a 25-year-old rice farmer, Sengbe Pieh, who was known to his captors as 'Cinque'.

"After 63 days, and her African 'cargo' were seized as salvage by the United States Naval Revenue Cutter , near Montauk Point in Long Island, New York, and towed to Connecticut's New London harbour.

"The Africans were held in a jail in New Haven on charges of mutiny and murder. The case took on historic proportions when former President John Quincy Adams successfully argued before the United States Supreme Court on behalf of the captives. In 1841, the 35 surviving Africans were returned to Africa.

", after sitting at the wharf behind the Custom House in New London for a year and a half, was auctioned off by the US Marshal in October 1840. Captain George Howland of Newport, Rhode Island purchased the vessel and then had to get an Act of Congress passed so that he could register her.

"He renamed her , and, in late 1841, sailed to Bermuda and St. Thomas with a typical New England cargo of onions, apples, live poultry, and cheese. After sailing her for a couple of years, he sold the boat in Guadeloupe in 1844. There appears to be no record of what became of the under her French owners in the Caribbean."

Amistad America Inc. was formed in 1996 as a non-profit organisation. In 2000, the charity built Freedom Schooner at a New Haven, Connecticut museum, Mystic Seaport. It has since visited ports in the United States and abroad, encouraging people of different backgrounds "to acknowledge common experiences and engage in dialogue based on respect."

According to the group's web site, the wooden vessel has operated continuously over the past four years, visiting more than 60 ports. As reported in , a newspaper out of Mystic, Connecticut, the schooner is to spend the winter undergoing repairs before travelling to Bermuda in the spring. The boat will then pass most of the year visiting ports in its hometown of Connecticut.