Early Life
DeFreeze was born in Cleveland, Ohio to Louis and Mary DeFreeze. He began his criminal career at age 14, after he ran away from home and became a street gang member in Buffalo, New York before moving to California. From December 1969 to January 1972, he was serving a sentence in Vacaville Prison for armed robbery. Those who remember him in prison considered him an unimpressive criminal. He was first arrested for stealing $10 from a prostitute and framed his friend as having committed the crime.
While incarcerated at Vacaville Prison, DeFreeze met with some far-left radicals who were working as volunteers in the prison and was converted to their political ideas. He was transferred to Soledad Prison in Soledad, California in January 1972, from which he escaped on March 5, 1973. DeFreeze adopted the name "Field Marshal Cinque" (pronounced "SINK-you"), having taken this name from Joseph Cinqué, the reported leader of the slave rebellion which took over the Spanish slave ship Amistad in 1839. He adopted the surname "Mtume" from the Swahili word for "prophet".
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