Amistad is a 1997 American historical drama film based on the true story of the mutiny that occurred aboard La Amistad (Spanish for “friendship’) in 1839. The ship is traveling from Cuba to the United States and has a cargo of Africans captured in Sierra Leone and held at the Lomboko slave fortress. It begins with Cinque, a Mende tribe leader, freeing himself, leading to the massacre of the entire crew, save the two Spanish navigators.
Instead of sailing the Africans back to Sierra Leone, the cunning navigators bring them to the coast of America, where the fifty-three slaves are captured by the American Navy and sent to jail as runaways, doomed to die for killing the slave traders. A lawyer named Roger Sherman Baldwin, hired by the abolitionist Arthur Tappan and his black partner Theodore Joadson, decides to take their case.
Baldwin first argues how the Africans were captured and planned to be sold illegally in the United States by bringing up documents found hidden aboard La Amistad, proving that the Mende people were actually free people from another country and not slaves at all. However, Martin Van Buren, the president at the time, replaces the judge with a younger, less experienced one, who could be easily influenced, to hear the case. As a result, Tappan is forced to change plans and asks Baldwin to instead interrogate Cinque on what exactly happened.
In response to Baldwin’s argument of how Cinque and his fellow people were captured and kept in a slave fortress, District Attorney William Holabird simply states how that is a preposterous idea. However, the Royal Navy’s abolitionist, Captain Fitzgerald of the West Africa Squadron, backs up Cinque’s testimony by providing La Amistad’s cargo weight records; the weight vastly dropped at one point of the ship’s journey, proving the ship did not bring enough provisions, so the crew had to drown a number of the slaves.
As the tension in the courtroom rises, Cinque rises from his seat and cries, “Give us free! ” Joadson and Baldwin find James Covey, who speaks both English and Mende, so the lawyer can communicate with Cinque. The young judge rules in favor of the Africans, but the case is then appealed to the Supreme Court, “the highest court in the land. ” After meeting with Cinque, John Quincy Adams, former president of the United States, agrees to help Baldwin with the case.
At the Supreme Court hearing, Adams gives a passionate speech (view Adams’ actual speech here! , which eventually leads to the jury (seven of the nine were Southern slave holders) voting eight to one, agreeing that the Mende Africans were originally free and had been illegally captured. The film ends with the liberation of the Lomboko slave fortress by Captain Fitzgerald ordering the Royal Marines to fire upon the fortress. The remaining Mende Africans are brought back to their homeland, but sadly, Cinque finds that his family has disappeared. My family and I enjoyed this movie because it was very interesting and stayed pretty close to the real incident, but there were a few historical mistakes.
In the beginning, Van Buren is shown campaigning for reelection at a whistle-stop train tour, but in the 1840s, candidates did not campaign. People in the movie were constantly talking about the upcoming Civil War, which lay twenty years in the future; twenty years before the Civil War, no one would have dreamed of a war. The film also gives the impression that John Quincy Adams’ powerful speech alone persuaded the Supreme Court. Although Adams did speak for the Africans before the Supreme Court, it was Baldwin’s arguments that won the case.
Theodore Joadson is a fictional character and I felt he was an optional character; he was brought in most likely to show the growth of black abolitionism. I would also have liked the movie to focus more on the blacks rather than mostly on Caucasians. Even with a few minor historical inaccuracies here and there, Amistad was a good film. It is a bit scary in the beginning and the middle (hide behind a brave sibling, it does the trick), but I felt the movie is worth watching.
Amistad shows the numerous cruelties of the slave trade, including separation from one’s family and home, fighting for survival, slaves forced to whip one another, and all the wickedness that occurs aboard a slave ship. That is why the actual event in the 1800s had such a strong impact on America. The movie shows the evils of slavery, but also portrays some people, such as Adams and Baldwin, who were willing to help Africans. United States v. The Amistad became the America’s symbol to abolish slavery.
An event similar to Amistad’s occurred in October 1841 when American slaves being transported from Virginia to Louisiana on the Creole seized control of the ship, killing most of the crew and forcing the navigator to sail back to the Bahamas. American Secretaries of State unsuccessfully pestered British authorities for fifteen years to return the runaway slaves as both murderers and “the recognized property” of American citizens. As with Amistad, America was reluctant in declaring the Africans as free citizens. Even after the Amistad ruling, courts were still among the main defenders of slavery.
A majority of the Amistad jury members were still in the Supreme Court in 1857 when, in the Dred Scott decision, it prohibited Congress from blocking slavery from the Western territories and proclaimed that blacks in America had “no rights which a white man is bound to respect. ” Overall, Amistad was an interesting movie to watch because of its general historical accuracy, the well-developed characters, detailed settings, and fascinating plot. The film Amistad stays faithful to the original mutiny that occurred in 1839 through presenting a realistic portrayal of the horrific nature of slavery and the slave trade.
