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Amistad (1997 film)
Encyclopedia
Amistad is a 1997 historical drama film directed by Steven Spielberg
based on the true story of a mutiny in 1839 by newly captured African slaves that took place aboard the ship La Amistad
off the coast of Cuba, the subsequent voyage to the Northeastern United States and the legal battle
that followed their capture by a United States revenue cutter. It shows how, even though the case was won at the federal district court level, it was appealed by President Martin Van Buren
to the Supreme Court
, and how former President John Quincy Adams
took part in the proceedings.
This was the second film for which Anthony Hopkins
received an Academy Award nomination for playing a United States President, having previously been nominated in 1995 for playing Richard Nixon
in Nixon
. Retired U.S. Supreme Court
Justice Harry Blackmun
appears in the film as Justice Joseph Story
.
La Amistad, a slave-ship carrying captured West Africans into slavery. The film's protagonist, Sengbe Pieh
(Djimon Hounsou
), most known by his Catalan
name, "Cinqué" (means fifth), painstakingly picks a nail out of the ship's structure and uses it to pick the lock on his shackles. Freeing a number of his companions, Cinquè initiates a rebellion on board the storm-tossed vessel. In the ensuing fighting, several Africans and most of the ship's Spanish crew are killed, but Cinquè saves two of the ship's officers, Ruiz and Montez, who he believes can sail them back to Africa (the officers try to explain their point in Spanish, as they do not speak Cinquè's language).
After six weeks have passed, the ship is running out of food and fresh water, and Cinquè is growing angry with Yamba who believes keeping the Spaniards alive is the only way to get back to Africa. The next day, they sight land. Unsure of their location, a group of African men takes one of the ship's boats to shore to fetch fresh water. While there, La Amistad is found by a military vessel bearing an American flag - the Spaniards have tricked the Africans by sailing directly for the United States. Captured by the American Navy, the Amistad Africans are taken to a municipal jail in New Haven, Connecticut
, where the ship's occupants, and a tearful Cinquè, are thrown into a grim dungeon, awaiting trial
.
The film's focus now shifts to Washington, D.C., where a session in the House of Representatives introduces John Quincy Adams
(Anthony Hopkins
), the elderly former President and sitting member of the U.S. House of Representatives. While strolling in the gardens, Adams is introduced to two of the country's leading abolitionists; the elderly freed slave Theodore Joadson (Morgan Freeman
) and Christian activist Lewis Tappan
(Stellan Skarsgård
), both of whom are leading shipping magnates in New England and co-proprietors of the pro-abolitionist newssheet "The Emancipator". The two have heard of the plight of the Amistad Africans and attempt to enlist Adams to help their cause. Adams, apparently verging on senility, refuses to help, claiming that he neither condemns nor condones slavery. News of the Amistad incident also reaches current President of the United States
, Martin Van Buren
(Nigel Hawthorne
), who is bombarded with demands for compensation from the juvenile Spanish Head of State, Queen Isabella II of Spain
(Anna Paquin
). At a preliminary hearing in a district court, the Africans are charged with "insurrection on the high seas", and the case rapidly dissolves into conflicting claims of property ownership from the Kingdom of Spain, the United States, the surviving officers of La Amistad, and the officers of the naval vessel responsible for re-capturing the slave-ship. Aware that they cannot fight the case on moral grounds, the two abolitionists enlist the help of a young attorney specialising in property law; Roger Sherman Baldwin
(Matthew McConaughey
).
At the jail, Baldwin and the abolitionists, along with Josiah Willard Gibbs, Sr., a nervous professor of linguistics, attempt to talk to the Amistad Africans, but neither side is able to understand anything the other party says. In the prison, events among the Africans are accelerating. Yamba, Cinquè's apparent rival for authority amongst the Africans, has converted to Christianity and is now resigned to his death, believing that execution will send them to a pleasant afterlife. The death of a young man provokes the Africans into a furious demonstration against the American authorities, screaming and chanting in their native languages as a prison riot threatens. As the hearings drag on, Baldwin and Joadson approach Adams for advice. At this point, they still can't communicate with the Africans. Adams advises them that, in court, the side with the best story usually wins. He then asks them pointedly what their story is. Unable to answer, they decide that their priority must be to find a way to communicate with the Africans. They begin to walk round the city docks, counting numbers in the Mende language
, in an attempt to find and recruit an interpreter. They eventually find a black sailor in the Royal Navy
, James Covey
(Chiwetel Ejiofor
).
Using Covey's linguistic abilities, Baldwin and his companions are able to talk to Cinquè. In his first speaking role in the courtroom, Cinquè, through a series of flashbacks, tells the haunting story of how he became a slave. Cinquè, a peasant farmer and young husband and father in West Africa, was kidnapped by African slave-hunters and taken to the slave fortress of Lomboko
, an illegal facility in the British protectorate of Sierra Leone
. There, he and hundreds of other captured Africans were loaded onto transatlantic slave-ship (Tecora
). Cinquè tells of the various horrors of the Middle Passage
, including frequent rape, horrific torture, and random executions carried out by the crew, including the deaths of fifty people deliberately drowned in order to save food. Upon their arrival in Cuba, Cinquè was sold at a slave market and purchased, along with many other Tecora survivors, by the owners of La Amistad. Once aboard La Amistad, Cinquè was able to free himself of his shackles, and began the slaves' rebellion for freedom.
The courtroom drama continues as District Attorney William S. Holabird
(Pete Postlethwaite
) and Secretary of State
John Forsyth
(David Paymer
) press their case for property rights and dismiss Cinquè's story as a mere piece of fiction. While exploring the impounded vessel La Amistad for much-needed evidence to support the Africans' claims, Baldwin happens upon a notebook, stuffed into a crevice by Ruiz and Montez to conceal the evidence of illegal slave-trading. Using the book as hard evidence of illegal trading, Baldwin calls expert witnesses including Captain Fitzgerald (Peter Firth
), a British naval commander assigned to patrol the West Africa coastline to enforce the British Empire's anti-slavery policies. As Fitzgerald is cross-examined by the haughty Holabird, tension in the courtroom rises, ultimately prompting Cinquè to leap from his seat and cry "Give us us free [Give us our freedom]." over and over, a heartfelt plea using the English he has learned. Cinquè's plea touches many, apparently including the judge — in a court ruling, Judge Coglin (Jeremy Northam
) dismisses all claims of ownership, rules that the Africans were captured illegally and not born on plantations, orders the arrest of the Amistads remaining crew on charges of slave-trading, and authorizes the United States to convey the Amistad Africans back to Africa at the expense of the nation.
While Cinquè, Joadson, Baldwin, and the jubilant Africans celebrate their victory, a state dinner at the White House
threatens to overturn the ruling. While conversing with the Spanish Ambassador to Washington, Senator John C. Calhoun
(Arliss Howard
) launches into a damning diatribe aimed at President Van Buren, emphasising the economic importance of slaves in the South, and ends his tirade with a concealed but clear threat that should the government set a precedent for abolition by releasing the Amistad Africans, the South will have little choice but to go to war with the North. With his advisors warning that the Amistad incident could bring the United States one big step closer to civil war, President Van Buren orders that the case be submitted to the Supreme Court, dominated by its Southern slave-owning judges. Furious, Mr. Tappan splits with Joadson and Baldwin, who break the news to an enraged and disgusted Cinquè. In need of an ally with legal background in the intricacies of Supreme Court workings, Baldwin and Joadson meet again with John Quincy Adams, who has been following the case carefully. Adams, aware that Cinquè is now refusing to talk to Baldwin, invites the African leader to his home. While Adams gives him a rambling tour of his greenhouse, Cinquè's emotional reaction to seeing a West African violet, native to his homeland, convinces Adams to assist the case. During preparations for the Supreme Court hearing, Cinquè tells Adams that he is invoking the spirits of his ancestors. This makes a strong impression upon Adams, presumably because he thinks of his own father, one of America's founding fathers.
At the Supreme Court, John Quincy Adams gives a long and passionate speech in defense of the Africans. He argues that if Cinquè were white and had rebelled against the British, the United States would have exalted him as a hero; and that the Africans' rebellion to gain their freedom was no different to the Americans' rebellion against their oppressors some seventy years earlier. Arguing that condemning the Amistad Africans would render the principles and ideals of the Constitution worthless, he exhorts the judges to free the Africans. He tells the court how, before the hearing, his client invoked the spirit of his ancestors. Adams then invokes the spirits of America's founding fathers, including his own father. In a poignant shot, the camera frames Adams with the marble bust of his father behind him. Adams invokes the Declaration of Independence. He concludes by arguing that, if a verdict in his favor should hasten a civil war, that war will simply be the final battle of the American Revolution. His case made, the United States awaits the Supreme Court's ruling.
On the day of judgment, Justice Joseph Story
(Associate Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun
) announces the Supreme Court's decision on the case. Because the Amistad Africans were illegally kidnapped from their homes in Africa, United States laws on slave ownership do not apply. Furthermore, since that was the case, the Amistad Africans were within their rights to use force to escape their confinement. The Supreme Court authorizes the release of the Africans and their conveyance back to Africa. Legally freed for the second and final time, Cinquè bids emotional farewells to his companions; shaking Adams's hand, giving Joadson his most treasured possession, a lion tooth which is his only memento of Africa, and thanking Baldwin in English. As Cinquè is about to leave, Baldwin clasps him and bids a farewell.
The end of the film depicts various scenes. Royal Marines
assault the Lomboko Slave Fortress, killing the slavers and freeing the kidnapped Africans held within the dungeons. With the fortress evacuated, Captain Fitzgerald, orders his warship of the Royal Navy's West Africa Anti-Slavery Squadron to open fire on the facility, destroying it. Interspersed with this are scenes of Martin Van Buren losing his election campaign, Isabella II learning of the Africans' release, and the Battle of Atlanta
from the American Civil War
. The final scenes depict Cinquè and the freed Africans returning to Africa, dressed in white, the West African color of victory and accompanied by James Covey. A postscript informs that Cinquè returned to find his own wife and child missing, probably sold into slavery.
Many academics, like Eric Foner
, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University
, have criticized the film Amistad for historical inaccuracy and the misleading characterizations of the Amistad case as a "turning point" in American perspective on slavery. Foner wrote that "In fact, the Amistad case revolved around the Atlantic slave trade — by 1840 outlawed by international treaty — and had nothing whatsoever to do with slavery as a domestic institution. Incongruous as it may seem, it was perfectly possible in the nineteenth century to condemn the importation of slaves from Africa while simultaneously defending slavery and the flourishing slave trade within the United States." Furthermore Professor Foner states, "Amistad's problems go far deeper than such anachronisms as President Martin Van Buren campaigning for re-election on a whistle-stop train tour (in 1840, candidates did not campaign), or people constantly talking about the coming Civil War, which lay twenty years in the future."
Another anachronism occurs in the film during the trial section concerning the Bible, whose illustrations provide some insights into Christianity to at least one of the imprisoned Africans. The pictures shown were created by Gustave Doré
, who was about 9 years old at the time of the Amistad events. His Bible was not published for almost three more decades.
Several inaccuracies occur during the final scenes. During the scene depicting the destruction of the Lomboko
Fortress by a Royal Navy
schooner, the captain of the vessel refers to another officer as "ensign
". This rank has never been used by the Royal Navy. The ordnance
employed in the destruction of the fortress would likely not be sufficient for the purpose. After the scene in which the fortress is destroyed, the ship's captain dictates a letter to "Secretary of State Calhoun"; Calhoun
served a one-year term as Secretary of State in 1845. Additionally, the "Amistad" Africans returned to their homeland in 1842; the Lomboko
Fortress was not destroyed until December 1849.
. Although the film was considered a critical and box-office success, a great deal of African American
s (men in particular) felt the film went out of the way to portray black men in a negative light. Spielberg references this in an interview about the film Amistad.
"The idea of filming the Amistad affair came from actress and director Debbie Allen, who had run across some books on the subject. After running into fund-raising problems, she brought the project to Spielberg, who wanted to stretch his artistic wings after making The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), and was looking for a prestige production to direct for DreamWorks SKG, the studio he'd recently co-founded. Spielberg was an unlikely person to tackle the Amistad story, since his previous picture about black characters, The Color Purple, had been badly received by the black community, its eleven Oscar nominations (no wins) notwithstanding. "I got such a bollocking for The Color Purple," he told a New York Times interviewer, "I thought, I'll never do that again." But he saw great potential in the Amistad story and decided to take it on, even though his crowded schedule meant doing preproduction while DreamWorks was still being launched and postproduction while Saving Private Ryan (1998) was before the camera."
Notably in the film, Spielberg includes several references to the African slave experience that resonate deep within the African American community today. Among these were the introduction of Christianity through a neo-colonialism method, and the idea that Americans who sided with slaves often forgot that the slaves had a history before they arrived in America. Amistad is notably from the distinct perspective of African men who in the film are seen as heroic, protective, courageous, resolute and intelligent. Many film classes show clips from both films to highlight not only the middle passage scenes and its lingering effects on American society, but also the vision of how black men are portrayed in media and what stereotypes are created as a result.
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
based on the true story of a mutiny in 1839 by newly captured African slaves that took place aboard the ship La Amistad
La Amistad
La Amistad was a ship notable as the scene of a revolt by African captives being transported from Havana to Puerto Principe, Cuba. It was a 19th-century two-masted schooner built in Spain and owned by a Spaniard living in Cuba...
off the coast of Cuba, the subsequent voyage to the Northeastern United States and the legal battle
Amistad (1841)
The Amistad, also known as United States v. Libellants and Claimants of the Schooner Amistad, 40 U.S. 518 , was a United States Supreme Court case resulting from the rebellion of slaves on board the Spanish schooner Amistad in 1839...
that followed their capture by a United States revenue cutter. It shows how, even though the case was won at the federal district court level, it was appealed by President Martin Van Buren
Martin Van Buren
Martin Van Buren was the eighth President of the United States . Before his presidency, he was the eighth Vice President and the tenth Secretary of State, under Andrew Jackson ....
to the Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
, and how former President John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams was the sixth President of the United States . He served as an American diplomat, Senator, and Congressional representative. He was a member of the Federalist, Democratic-Republican, National Republican, and later Anti-Masonic and Whig parties. Adams was the son of former...
took part in the proceedings.
This was the second film for which Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, KBE , best known as Anthony Hopkins, is a Welsh actor of film, stage and television...
received an Academy Award nomination for playing a United States President, having previously been nominated in 1995 for playing Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
in Nixon
Nixon (film)
Nixon is a 1995 American biographical film directed by Oliver Stone for Cinergi Pictures that tells the story of the political and personal life of former US President Richard Nixon, played by Anthony Hopkins....
. Retired U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
Justice Harry Blackmun
Harry Blackmun
Harold Andrew Blackmun was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1970 until 1994. He is best known as the author of Roe v. Wade.- Early years and professional career :...
appears in the film as Justice Joseph Story
Joseph Story
Joseph Story was an American lawyer and jurist who served on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1811 to 1845. He is most remembered today for his opinions in Martin v. Hunter's Lessee and The Amistad, along with his magisterial Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, first...
.
Plot
The film begins in the depths of the schoonerSchooner
A schooner is a type of sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts with the forward mast being no taller than the rear masts....
La Amistad, a slave-ship carrying captured West Africans into slavery. The film's protagonist, Sengbe Pieh
Joseph Cinqué
Sengbe Pieh , later known as Joseph Cinqué, was a West African man of the Mende people and was the most prominent defendant in the Amistad case, in which it was found that he and 51 others had been victims of the illegal Atlantic slave trade.-Biography:Cinqué was born c...
(Djimon Hounsou
Djimon Hounsou
Djimon Diaw Hounsou is a Beninese actor and model. As an actor, Hounsou has been nominated for two Academy Awards.-Early life:Djimon Hounsou was born in Cotonou, Benin, in 1964, to lbertine and Pierre Hounsou, a cook. He emigrated to Lyon in France at the age of thirteen with his brother, Edmond....
), most known by his Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
name, "Cinqué" (means fifth), painstakingly picks a nail out of the ship's structure and uses it to pick the lock on his shackles. Freeing a number of his companions, Cinquè initiates a rebellion on board the storm-tossed vessel. In the ensuing fighting, several Africans and most of the ship's Spanish crew are killed, but Cinquè saves two of the ship's officers, Ruiz and Montez, who he believes can sail them back to Africa (the officers try to explain their point in Spanish, as they do not speak Cinquè's language).
After six weeks have passed, the ship is running out of food and fresh water, and Cinquè is growing angry with Yamba who believes keeping the Spaniards alive is the only way to get back to Africa. The next day, they sight land. Unsure of their location, a group of African men takes one of the ship's boats to shore to fetch fresh water. While there, La Amistad is found by a military vessel bearing an American flag - the Spaniards have tricked the Africans by sailing directly for the United States. Captured by the American Navy, the Amistad Africans are taken to a municipal jail in New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is the second-largest city in Connecticut and the sixth-largest in New England. According to the 2010 Census, New Haven's population increased by 5.0% between 2000 and 2010, a rate higher than that of the State of Connecticut, and higher than that of the state's five largest cities, and...
, where the ship's occupants, and a tearful Cinquè, are thrown into a grim dungeon, awaiting trial
Amistad (1841)
The Amistad, also known as United States v. Libellants and Claimants of the Schooner Amistad, 40 U.S. 518 , was a United States Supreme Court case resulting from the rebellion of slaves on board the Spanish schooner Amistad in 1839...
.
The film's focus now shifts to Washington, D.C., where a session in the House of Representatives introduces John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams was the sixth President of the United States . He served as an American diplomat, Senator, and Congressional representative. He was a member of the Federalist, Democratic-Republican, National Republican, and later Anti-Masonic and Whig parties. Adams was the son of former...
(Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, KBE , best known as Anthony Hopkins, is a Welsh actor of film, stage and television...
), the elderly former President and sitting member of the U.S. House of Representatives. While strolling in the gardens, Adams is introduced to two of the country's leading abolitionists; the elderly freed slave Theodore Joadson (Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman is an American actor, film director, aviator and narrator. He is noted for his reserved demeanor and authoritative speaking voice. Freeman has received Academy Award nominations for his performances in Street Smart, Driving Miss Daisy, The Shawshank Redemption and Invictus and won...
) and Christian activist Lewis Tappan
Lewis Tappan
Lewis Tappan was a New York abolitionist who worked to achieve the freedom of the illegally enslaved Africans of the Amistad. Contacted by Connecticut abolitionists soon after the Amistad arrived in port, Tappan focused extensively on the captive Africans...
(Stellan Skarsgård
Stellan Skarsgård
Stellan John Skarsgård is a Swedish actor, known internationally for his film roles in Angels & Demons, Breaking the Waves, The Hunt for Red October, Ronin, Good Will Hunting, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist,...
), both of whom are leading shipping magnates in New England and co-proprietors of the pro-abolitionist newssheet "The Emancipator". The two have heard of the plight of the Amistad Africans and attempt to enlist Adams to help their cause. Adams, apparently verging on senility, refuses to help, claiming that he neither condemns nor condones slavery. News of the Amistad incident also reaches current President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
, Martin Van Buren
Martin Van Buren
Martin Van Buren was the eighth President of the United States . Before his presidency, he was the eighth Vice President and the tenth Secretary of State, under Andrew Jackson ....
(Nigel Hawthorne
Nigel Hawthorne
Sir Nigel Barnard Hawthorne, CBE was an English actor, perhaps best remembered for his role as Sir Humphrey Appleby, the Permanent Secretary in the 1980s sitcom Yes Minister and the Cabinet Secretary in its sequel, Yes, Prime Minister. For this role he won four BAFTA Awards during the 1980s in the...
), who is bombarded with demands for compensation from the juvenile Spanish Head of State, Queen Isabella II of Spain
Isabella II of Spain
Isabella II was the only female monarch of Spain in modern times. She came to the throne as an infant, but her succession was disputed by the Carlists, who refused to recognise a female sovereign, leading to the Carlist Wars. After a troubled reign, she was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of...
(Anna Paquin
Anna Paquin
Anna Helene Paquin is a Canadian-born New Zealand actress. Paquin's first critically successful film was The Piano, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1994 at the age of 11 – the second youngest winner in history...
). At a preliminary hearing in a district court, the Africans are charged with "insurrection on the high seas", and the case rapidly dissolves into conflicting claims of property ownership from the Kingdom of Spain, the United States, the surviving officers of La Amistad, and the officers of the naval vessel responsible for re-capturing the slave-ship. Aware that they cannot fight the case on moral grounds, the two abolitionists enlist the help of a young attorney specialising in property law; Roger Sherman Baldwin
Roger Sherman Baldwin
Roger Sherman Baldwin was an American lawyer involved in the Amistad case, who later became the 17th Governor of Connecticut and a United States Senator.-Early life:...
(Matthew McConaughey
Matthew McConaughey
Matthew David McConaughey is an American actor.After a series of minor roles in the early 1990s, McConaughey gained notice for his breakout role in Dazed and Confused . He then appeared in films such as A Time to Kill, Contact, U-571, Tiptoes, Sahara, and We Are Marshall...
).
At the jail, Baldwin and the abolitionists, along with Josiah Willard Gibbs, Sr., a nervous professor of linguistics, attempt to talk to the Amistad Africans, but neither side is able to understand anything the other party says. In the prison, events among the Africans are accelerating. Yamba, Cinquè's apparent rival for authority amongst the Africans, has converted to Christianity and is now resigned to his death, believing that execution will send them to a pleasant afterlife. The death of a young man provokes the Africans into a furious demonstration against the American authorities, screaming and chanting in their native languages as a prison riot threatens. As the hearings drag on, Baldwin and Joadson approach Adams for advice. At this point, they still can't communicate with the Africans. Adams advises them that, in court, the side with the best story usually wins. He then asks them pointedly what their story is. Unable to answer, they decide that their priority must be to find a way to communicate with the Africans. They begin to walk round the city docks, counting numbers in the Mende language
Mende language
Mende is a major language of Sierra Leone, with some speakers in neighboring Liberia. It is spoken by the Mende people and by other ethnic groups as a regional lingua franca in southern Sierra Leone....
, in an attempt to find and recruit an interpreter. They eventually find a black sailor in the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
, James Covey
James Covey
James Covey was the interpreter used in the Amistad slave ship case who spoke Mende and possibly other African languages....
(Chiwetel Ejiofor
Chiwetel Ejiofor
Chiwetelu Umeadi "Chiwetel" Ejiofor, OBE is an English actor of stage and screen. He has received numerous acting awards and award nominations, including the 2006 BAFTA Awards Rising Star, three Golden Globe Awards' nominations, and the 2008 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for his...
).
Using Covey's linguistic abilities, Baldwin and his companions are able to talk to Cinquè. In his first speaking role in the courtroom, Cinquè, through a series of flashbacks, tells the haunting story of how he became a slave. Cinquè, a peasant farmer and young husband and father in West Africa, was kidnapped by African slave-hunters and taken to the slave fortress of Lomboko
Lomboko
Lomboko refers to a slave factory; a fortress stockade created by the infamous Spanish slave trader Pedro Blanco. It consisted of several large holding depots or barracoons for slaves brought from the interior, as well as several palatial buildings for Blanco's use, to hold his wives and...
, an illegal facility in the British protectorate of Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone , officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the north and east, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and southwest. Sierra Leone covers a total area of and has an estimated population between 5.4 and 6.4...
. There, he and hundreds of other captured Africans were loaded onto transatlantic slave-ship (Tecora
Tecora
The Tecora was a Portuguese slave ship of the early 19th century. The brig was built especially for the slave trade after the transport across the Atlantic of human beings as slaves had already been outlawed in the first decade of the 19th century...
). Cinquè tells of the various horrors of the Middle Passage
Middle Passage
The Middle Passage was the stage of the triangular trade in which millions of people from Africa were shipped to the New World, as part of the Atlantic slave trade...
, including frequent rape, horrific torture, and random executions carried out by the crew, including the deaths of fifty people deliberately drowned in order to save food. Upon their arrival in Cuba, Cinquè was sold at a slave market and purchased, along with many other Tecora survivors, by the owners of La Amistad. Once aboard La Amistad, Cinquè was able to free himself of his shackles, and began the slaves' rebellion for freedom.
The courtroom drama continues as District Attorney William S. Holabird
William S. Holabird
William S. Holabird was an American lawyer, politician and Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut.-Early life:William S. Holabird was born circa 1794 reportedly at Canaan, Connecticut, the son of William D. Holabird and his wife, the former Dorcas Bird...
(Pete Postlethwaite
Pete Postlethwaite
Peter William "Pete" Postlethwaite, OBE, was an English stage, film and television actor.After minor television appearances including in The Professionals, Postlethwaite's first success came with the film Distant Voices, Still Lives in 1988. He played a mysterious lawyer, Mr...
) and Secretary of State
United States Secretary of State
The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...
John Forsyth
John Forsyth (politician)
John Forsyth, Sr. was a 19th-century American politician from Georgia.Forsyth was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia. His father Robert Forsyth was the first U.S. Marshal to be killed in the line of duty in 1794. He was an attorney who graduated from the College of New Jersey in 1799...
(David Paymer
David Paymer
David Paymer is an American actor and television director, seen in such films as Quiz Show, Searching for Bobby Fischer, City Slickers, Crazy People, State and Main, Payback, Get Shorty, Carpool, The American President, Ocean's Thirteen, and Drag Me to Hell...
) press their case for property rights and dismiss Cinquè's story as a mere piece of fiction. While exploring the impounded vessel La Amistad for much-needed evidence to support the Africans' claims, Baldwin happens upon a notebook, stuffed into a crevice by Ruiz and Montez to conceal the evidence of illegal slave-trading. Using the book as hard evidence of illegal trading, Baldwin calls expert witnesses including Captain Fitzgerald (Peter Firth
Peter Firth
Peter Firth is an English actor. He is best known for his role as Sir Harry Pearce in the BBC show Spooks, of which he is the only actor to have starred in every episode of the show's 10 series lifespan...
), a British naval commander assigned to patrol the West Africa coastline to enforce the British Empire's anti-slavery policies. As Fitzgerald is cross-examined by the haughty Holabird, tension in the courtroom rises, ultimately prompting Cinquè to leap from his seat and cry "Give us us free [Give us our freedom]." over and over, a heartfelt plea using the English he has learned. Cinquè's plea touches many, apparently including the judge — in a court ruling, Judge Coglin (Jeremy Northam
Jeremy Northam
Jeremy Philip Northam is an English actor. He is best known for his roles as Ivor Novello in the 2001 film Gosford Park, as Dean Martin in the 2002 television movie Martin and Lewis, and as Thomas More on the Showtime series The Tudors...
) dismisses all claims of ownership, rules that the Africans were captured illegally and not born on plantations, orders the arrest of the Amistads remaining crew on charges of slave-trading, and authorizes the United States to convey the Amistad Africans back to Africa at the expense of the nation.
While Cinquè, Joadson, Baldwin, and the jubilant Africans celebrate their victory, a state dinner at the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
threatens to overturn the ruling. While conversing with the Spanish Ambassador to Washington, Senator John C. Calhoun
John C. Calhoun
John Caldwell Calhoun was a leading politician and political theorist from South Carolina during the first half of the 19th century. Calhoun eloquently spoke out on every issue of his day, but often changed positions. Calhoun began his political career as a nationalist, modernizer, and proponent...
(Arliss Howard
Arliss Howard
Arliss Howard is an American actor, writer and film director.-Life and career:Howard was born in Independence, Missouri in 1954, and graduated from Truman High School and Columbia College at Columbia, Missouri. Howard established his career with stand-out roles in Full Metal Jacket and Ruby...
) launches into a damning diatribe aimed at President Van Buren, emphasising the economic importance of slaves in the South, and ends his tirade with a concealed but clear threat that should the government set a precedent for abolition by releasing the Amistad Africans, the South will have little choice but to go to war with the North. With his advisors warning that the Amistad incident could bring the United States one big step closer to civil war, President Van Buren orders that the case be submitted to the Supreme Court, dominated by its Southern slave-owning judges. Furious, Mr. Tappan splits with Joadson and Baldwin, who break the news to an enraged and disgusted Cinquè. In need of an ally with legal background in the intricacies of Supreme Court workings, Baldwin and Joadson meet again with John Quincy Adams, who has been following the case carefully. Adams, aware that Cinquè is now refusing to talk to Baldwin, invites the African leader to his home. While Adams gives him a rambling tour of his greenhouse, Cinquè's emotional reaction to seeing a West African violet, native to his homeland, convinces Adams to assist the case. During preparations for the Supreme Court hearing, Cinquè tells Adams that he is invoking the spirits of his ancestors. This makes a strong impression upon Adams, presumably because he thinks of his own father, one of America's founding fathers.
At the Supreme Court, John Quincy Adams gives a long and passionate speech in defense of the Africans. He argues that if Cinquè were white and had rebelled against the British, the United States would have exalted him as a hero; and that the Africans' rebellion to gain their freedom was no different to the Americans' rebellion against their oppressors some seventy years earlier. Arguing that condemning the Amistad Africans would render the principles and ideals of the Constitution worthless, he exhorts the judges to free the Africans. He tells the court how, before the hearing, his client invoked the spirit of his ancestors. Adams then invokes the spirits of America's founding fathers, including his own father. In a poignant shot, the camera frames Adams with the marble bust of his father behind him. Adams invokes the Declaration of Independence. He concludes by arguing that, if a verdict in his favor should hasten a civil war, that war will simply be the final battle of the American Revolution. His case made, the United States awaits the Supreme Court's ruling.
On the day of judgment, Justice Joseph Story
Joseph Story
Joseph Story was an American lawyer and jurist who served on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1811 to 1845. He is most remembered today for his opinions in Martin v. Hunter's Lessee and The Amistad, along with his magisterial Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, first...
(Associate Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun
Harry Blackmun
Harold Andrew Blackmun was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1970 until 1994. He is best known as the author of Roe v. Wade.- Early years and professional career :...
) announces the Supreme Court's decision on the case. Because the Amistad Africans were illegally kidnapped from their homes in Africa, United States laws on slave ownership do not apply. Furthermore, since that was the case, the Amistad Africans were within their rights to use force to escape their confinement. The Supreme Court authorizes the release of the Africans and their conveyance back to Africa. Legally freed for the second and final time, Cinquè bids emotional farewells to his companions; shaking Adams's hand, giving Joadson his most treasured possession, a lion tooth which is his only memento of Africa, and thanking Baldwin in English. As Cinquè is about to leave, Baldwin clasps him and bids a farewell.
The end of the film depicts various scenes. Royal Marines
Royal Marines
The Corps of Her Majesty's Royal Marines, commonly just referred to as the Royal Marines , are the marine corps and amphibious infantry of the United Kingdom and, along with the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary, form the Naval Service...
assault the Lomboko Slave Fortress, killing the slavers and freeing the kidnapped Africans held within the dungeons. With the fortress evacuated, Captain Fitzgerald, orders his warship of the Royal Navy's West Africa Anti-Slavery Squadron to open fire on the facility, destroying it. Interspersed with this are scenes of Martin Van Buren losing his election campaign, Isabella II learning of the Africans' release, and the Battle of Atlanta
Battle of Atlanta
The Battle of Atlanta was a battle of the Atlanta Campaign fought during the American Civil War on July 22, 1864, just southeast of Atlanta, Georgia. Continuing their summer campaign to seize the important rail and supply center of Atlanta, Union forces commanded by William T. Sherman overwhelmed...
from the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. The final scenes depict Cinquè and the freed Africans returning to Africa, dressed in white, the West African color of victory and accompanied by James Covey. A postscript informs that Cinquè returned to find his own wife and child missing, probably sold into slavery.
Cast
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Austin Pendleton Austin Pendleton is an American film, television, and stage actor, a playwright, and a theatre director and instructor.-Life and career:... as Professor Gibbs Daniel von Bargen Daniel von Bargen is an American film, stage, and television actor.Best-known for his roles as Mr. Kruger on Seinfeld and Commandant Edwin Spangler on the TV comedy Malcolm in the Middle, Von Bargen's film credits include RoboCop 3, Basic Instinct, Broken Arrow, Universal Soldier: The Return,... as Warden Pendleton Rusty Schwimmer Rusty Schwimmer is an American film and television actress and singer. Her most prominent role so far is that of Barbara Ludzinski on The Guardian.Among her movie appearances are those as Joey B in Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, Mrs... as Mrs. Pendleton Pedro Armendáriz Jr. Pedro Armendáriz, Jr. is a Mexican actor.- Life and career :Armendáriz Jr. was born in Mexico City, the son of actors Carmelita and Pedro Armendáriz. He has been married to actress Ofelia Medina.... as General Espartero Harry Blackmun Harold Andrew Blackmun was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1970 until 1994. He is best known as the author of Roe v. Wade.- Early years and professional career :... as Justice Joseph Story Joseph Story Joseph Story was an American lawyer and jurist who served on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1811 to 1845. He is most remembered today for his opinions in Martin v. Hunter's Lessee and The Amistad, along with his magisterial Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, first... Michael Massee Michael Massee is an American actor perhaps best known for his roles as villains in film and television, as well as his unintentional and accidental involvement in the death of Brandon Lee.-Career:... as Prison Guard Roy Cooper Roy Asberry Cooper, III is the current North Carolina Attorney General. He is a member of the North Carolina Democratic Party.-Personal life and education:... as Pickney Jake Weber Jake Weber is an English actor, known in film for his role as Michael in Dawn of the Dead and for his role as Drew in Meet Joe Black... as Mr. Wright Gerald R. Molen Gerald Robert Molen is a high profile American film producer. He works very closely with Steven Spielberg, having produced five of his films, and won an Academy Award for co-producing Schindler's List... as Magistrate Harry Groener Harry Groener is a German-born American actor and dancer, perhaps best known for playing Mayor Wilkins in Buffy the Vampire Slayer .-Early life:... as Tecora Captain Hawthorne James Hawthorne James is an American actor and director, best known for his role as Big Red Davis in the 1991 film The Five Heartbeats. He is also known for his role as Sam, the injured bus driver, in Speed .... as Creole Cook |
Historical accuracy
The Supreme Court decision reversed District and Circuit decrees regarding African's conveyance back to Africa. They were to be deemed free, but U.S. government could not take them back to Africa, as they had arrived on American soil as free persons.Many academics, like Eric Foner
Eric Foner
Eric Foner is an American historian. On the faculty of the Department of History at Columbia University since 1982, he writes extensively on political history, the history of freedom, the early history of the Republican Party, African American biography, Reconstruction, and historiography...
, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, have criticized the film Amistad for historical inaccuracy and the misleading characterizations of the Amistad case as a "turning point" in American perspective on slavery. Foner wrote that "In fact, the Amistad case revolved around the Atlantic slave trade — by 1840 outlawed by international treaty — and had nothing whatsoever to do with slavery as a domestic institution. Incongruous as it may seem, it was perfectly possible in the nineteenth century to condemn the importation of slaves from Africa while simultaneously defending slavery and the flourishing slave trade within the United States." Furthermore Professor Foner states, "Amistad's problems go far deeper than such anachronisms as President Martin Van Buren campaigning for re-election on a whistle-stop train tour (in 1840, candidates did not campaign), or people constantly talking about the coming Civil War, which lay twenty years in the future."
Another anachronism occurs in the film during the trial section concerning the Bible, whose illustrations provide some insights into Christianity to at least one of the imprisoned Africans. The pictures shown were created by Gustave Doré
Gustave Doré
Paul Gustave Doré was a French artist, engraver, illustrator and sculptor. Doré worked primarily with wood engraving and steel engraving.-Biography:...
, who was about 9 years old at the time of the Amistad events. His Bible was not published for almost three more decades.
Several inaccuracies occur during the final scenes. During the scene depicting the destruction of the Lomboko
Lomboko
Lomboko refers to a slave factory; a fortress stockade created by the infamous Spanish slave trader Pedro Blanco. It consisted of several large holding depots or barracoons for slaves brought from the interior, as well as several palatial buildings for Blanco's use, to hold his wives and...
Fortress by a Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
schooner, the captain of the vessel refers to another officer as "ensign
Ensign
An ensign is a national flag when used at sea, in vexillology, or a distinguishing token, emblem, or badge, such as a symbol of office in heraldry...
". This rank has never been used by the Royal Navy. The ordnance
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
employed in the destruction of the fortress would likely not be sufficient for the purpose. After the scene in which the fortress is destroyed, the ship's captain dictates a letter to "Secretary of State Calhoun"; Calhoun
John C. Calhoun
John Caldwell Calhoun was a leading politician and political theorist from South Carolina during the first half of the 19th century. Calhoun eloquently spoke out on every issue of his day, but often changed positions. Calhoun began his political career as a nationalist, modernizer, and proponent...
served a one-year term as Secretary of State in 1845. Additionally, the "Amistad" Africans returned to their homeland in 1842; the Lomboko
Lomboko
Lomboko refers to a slave factory; a fortress stockade created by the infamous Spanish slave trader Pedro Blanco. It consisted of several large holding depots or barracoons for slaves brought from the interior, as well as several palatial buildings for Blanco's use, to hold his wives and...
Fortress was not destroyed until December 1849.
The Color Purple controversy
Amistad is often referred to as Spielberg's attempt to balance the images created in his award winning film The Color PurpleThe Color Purple (film)
The Color Purple is a 1985 American period drama film directed by Steven Spielberg, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name by Alice Walker. It was Spielberg's eighth film as a director , and was a change from the summer blockbusters for which he had become famous...
. Although the film was considered a critical and box-office success, a great deal of African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
s (men in particular) felt the film went out of the way to portray black men in a negative light. Spielberg references this in an interview about the film Amistad.
"The idea of filming the Amistad affair came from actress and director Debbie Allen, who had run across some books on the subject. After running into fund-raising problems, she brought the project to Spielberg, who wanted to stretch his artistic wings after making The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), and was looking for a prestige production to direct for DreamWorks SKG, the studio he'd recently co-founded. Spielberg was an unlikely person to tackle the Amistad story, since his previous picture about black characters, The Color Purple, had been badly received by the black community, its eleven Oscar nominations (no wins) notwithstanding. "I got such a bollocking for The Color Purple," he told a New York Times interviewer, "I thought, I'll never do that again." But he saw great potential in the Amistad story and decided to take it on, even though his crowded schedule meant doing preproduction while DreamWorks was still being launched and postproduction while Saving Private Ryan (1998) was before the camera."
Notably in the film, Spielberg includes several references to the African slave experience that resonate deep within the African American community today. Among these were the introduction of Christianity through a neo-colonialism method, and the idea that Americans who sided with slaves often forgot that the slaves had a history before they arrived in America. Amistad is notably from the distinct perspective of African men who in the film are seen as heroic, protective, courageous, resolute and intelligent. Many film classes show clips from both films to highlight not only the middle passage scenes and its lingering effects on American society, but also the vision of how black men are portrayed in media and what stereotypes are created as a result.
See also
- The AmistadAmistad (1841)The Amistad, also known as United States v. Libellants and Claimants of the Schooner Amistad, 40 U.S. 518 , was a United States Supreme Court case resulting from the rebellion of slaves on board the Spanish schooner Amistad in 1839...
, an 1841 United States Supreme Court case concerning a slave rebellion on that ship. - TecoraTecoraThe Tecora was a Portuguese slave ship of the early 19th century. The brig was built especially for the slave trade after the transport across the Atlantic of human beings as slaves had already been outlawed in the first decade of the 19th century...
- Supreme Court of the United States in fictionSupreme Court of the United States in fictionLike many institutions that draw public interest, the Supreme Court of the United States has frequently been depicted in fiction, often in the form of legal drama. In some instances, real decisions rendered by real Courts are dramatized, as in Gideon's Trumpet and the seminal trial in The People...
- Trial moviesTrial moviesTrial movies is a film genre, also commonly referred to as courtroom drama.-The American Bar Association's list:In 1989, the American Bar Association rated the twelve best trial films of all time, and provided a detailed and reasoned legal evaluation for its choices. Ten of them are in English; M...
External links
- 2 speeches from the movie in text, audio, video from American Rhetoric
- Roger Ebert Film Review
- Review Sally Haden (Educational POV)