La Amistad Essay, Research Paper

It is a case that challenges the very foundation of our legal system, but for the African captives on trial, this is not a clash of politics or ideologies. This is a fight for the basic right of all mankind…freedom. It is the story of the Amistad, a slave ship that didn t quite make it. When it arrived in this country, it brought out both the best and worst in people, and the American justice system. It has been talked about to this day, and the 1998 DreamWorks film Amistad re-invoked the idea of it in the minds of many people. But the real question is, was this portrayal of this very controversial incident accurate. It is very accurate. The entire story of the movie is true up until the United States scenes. In these, there is much confusion about what happened.

The movie starts in the summer of 1839, on a stormy night off the coast of Cuba, 53 Africans held captive in the cramped cargo holds of the Spanish slave ship La Amistad break free of their shackles. Led by Cinque (played by Djimon Hounsou), they arm themselves, take control of the ship and reclaim their freedom. They have one goal: to return to Africa.

Without the navigational skills to guide them home, the Africans are forced to rely on the two surviving members of the crew. But they are tricked. After two months on a ragged course up the eastern seaboard, an American naval ship off the coast of Connecticut captures the Amistad and the Africans were charged with murder and piracy.

In the beginning, the Africans are championed by abolitionists Theodore Joadson (played by Morgan Freeman) and Lewis Tappan (played by Stellan Skarsgard), and a young real estate attorney named Roger Baldwin (played by Matthew McConaughey). However, as the case becomes the symbol of a nation divided, two great Americans lock horns in the debate. Pro-slavery President Martin Van Buren (played by Nigel Hawthorne), seeking re-election, is willing to sacrifice the Africans to appease the South, as well as Queen Isabella of Spain (played by Anna Paquin). But his will is challenged by former President John Quincy Adams (played by Anthony Hopkins), who comes out of retirement to fight the Africans’ cause in the United State Supreme Court. In the end the Supreme Court orders that the Africans be released post-haste and returned to their home. They are to find their lives in their own villages have vanished.

Morgan Freeman is an excellent actor, but unfortunately, his portrayal of Theodore Joadson was wasted. This is because Theodore Joadson never actually existed. Actually, Freeman was playing a mix of everybody in the Amistad Committee which was started by New York abolitionists Lewis Tappan, Joshua Leavitt, and Simeon Jocelyn. These are the people that funded the Africans defense.

The first round of the trial began in the US Circuit court in Hartford Connecticut with Judge Thompson presiding. Thompson denied the writ of habeus corpus, which was motioned for, keeping the Africans in custody in New Haven jail. Later, Tappan had several of the Africans bring up civil suits against Montes and Ruiz, the people who bought the Africans as slaves and were left alive on the Amistad, for wrongful imprisonment and battery. This is one of the things that the movie mis-portrays. In Amistad, Montes and Ruiz were arrested and imprisoned by the judge who replaced the first judge who was dismissed. Both of these statements are untrue. Within a week after the civil suits were filed, Judge Inglis had released Montes and lowered Ruiz s bail. Eventually, they both fled to Cuba. Also, there was never a dismissal of a judge, only appeals. The case started in the US Circuit Court, then continued to the Federal District Court, and ended in the US Supreme Court, the highest court in the land.

A very true fact is that Montes and Ruiz and the crew of the USS Washington claimed the slaves as property. In a response to this, members of the Amistad Committee wrote that they did not believe that the negroes were from Cuba. Each of them are natives of Africa and were born free, and ever since have been and still of right are and ought to be free and not slaves (4)

A slight difference between the movie and the actual story is that before the first trial opened up, a professor from Yale University found two Mende speaking citizens on the same docks and using the same technique as in the movie. Their names were James Covey and Charles Prat. In the movie there was only one translator.

During the second round of the trial in the federal district court with Judge Judson presiding, before the Amistad Committee brought forth the evidence that proved the Africans were actually from Africa, they tried to have the salvage claims thrown out because they should have been taken to New York.

It is true that the secretary of state handpicked the judge for this case in the hope that the Africans would be sent back to Cuba. This was done to help the president not be responsible for a civil war. The secretary was so sure that this would be a victory that he ordered the navy to have a ship ready in New Haven to transport the slaves to Cuba. This seems like a natural thing to do if the Africans had been convicted, but he had this done about a week and a half before the judgement had even been made.

In both the movie and history the President himself ordered the case appealed to the Supreme Court to try and send these blacks away from him for they were a burden to his re-election. And in the Supreme Court, a regular attorney is not going to make the best presentation, but with the help of an ex-president, it would be much easier. This is something that the movie does not mention. John Quincy Adams did not make the entire presentation to the Supreme Court; he gave the second part of the defense. Roger Baldwin presented the beginning. During the course of John Quincy Adams two-day defense speech, he spoke the words This is the most important case that has ever come before this court, because what it in fact concerns is the very nature of man. (1). Now although this quote was taken from the movie, it has been confirmed by a transcript of his speech. This one sentence is that which most likely made the Supreme Court choose to release the Africans.

The one misconception that has been reported most, is that in the movie, the Supreme Court says that the Africans are to be released from custody at once, and if they so choose, to be returned to their homes in Africa. (1). This conclusion is very different that the one actually given in 1841.

Upon the whole, our opinion is, that the decree of the circuit court, affirming that of the district court, ought to be affirmed, except so far as it directs the negroes to be delivered to the president, to be transported to Africa, in pursuance of the act of the 3d of March 1819; and as to this, it ought to be reversed: and that the said negroes be declared to be free, and be dismissed from the custody of the court, and go without day. (3)

The actual Supreme Court did free the Africans, but they took away the judgement that the slaves should be returned to Africa, basically leaving them stranded in the US. The Africans did not return home at once, or without day. The Africans had to remain in America for nine months until November 27 when they finally departed for Africa. They could not have returned home without the Amistad Committee raising the money for their trip. Cinque s family was missing as indicated in the movie, and he died shortly after he returned.

In these paradoxes that bound both black slavery and the eternal principles of human freedom and dignity into our national identity, we as individuals can both value the cultural diversity that has resulted and confront the issues that continue to challenge the nation. (5). It is true that these issues are still looked at today, and the new model for them to be looked at with, is acceptable. I am speaking of the movie Amistad. There are many small mistakes in the movie, but there are none that actually change the feeling of a person towards the Africans, or the country except for one. This is the fact that the Supreme Court did not send the Africans home. The accuracy of the movie is fairly high when it comes to things of importance. But when it comes down to the details, a person might have to look deeper than just the screen.

Bibliography

1. Amistad. DreamWorks Pictures, 1998.

2. Exploring Amistad. http://amistad.mysticseaport.org/

3. THE AMISTAD, 40 U.S. 518 (1841). http://caselaw.findlaw.com/amistad_case.html

4. The Amistad Case. http://www.nara.gov/education/teaching/amistad/.

5. What the Amistad Means to American Maritime History.

http://www.mysticseaport.org/public/amistad/what.amistad.means.html

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