Filmclips of Amistad

Synopsis of the actual incident: In 1839, 53 young men and women from the Mendi tribe in Sierra Leone, West Africa, were sold to Spanish slave traders aboard a ship called the Amistad, bound for Cuba. Under the leadership of one of their fellow captives, Joseph Cinque, the Mendis attacked the ship's crew and tried to steer themselves back to Africa. They landed in Long Island Sound, were arrested, and eventually tried and won their case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Abolitionist groups in New Haven and around the country rallied on their behalf, raising money for their defense, and gathering funds to help them return to Africa. Most of them were able to sail back home, but a few stayed behind to live in the States. One of the young women went on to attend Oberlin College in Ohio, then returned to Sierra Leone to set up a missionary school.

1. A website with some useful historical background about the incident and the film. -->

2. Personnel:

   Amistad
   
   1997.
   Directed by Steven Spielberg.
   With 
   Anthony Hopkins as John Quincy Adams,
   Matthew McConaughey as Baldwin,
   Nigel Hawthorne as Martin Van Buren,
   Morgan Freeman as Joadson,
   Pete Postlethwaite as Prosecutor,
   Djimon Hounsou as Joseph Cinque,
   Stellan Skarsgrd as Tappan,
   Harry Blackmun as Joseph Story,
   Anna Paquin as Queen Isabella,
   David Paymer as John Forsyth. 
   Screenplay by David H. Franzoni and Steven Zaillian.
   From the novel by William Owens.
   

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3. In the Havana slave market, prisoners are being prepared for sale. A cacaphony of shouting in Spanish and African languages and then the prisoners are loaded on the Amistad for transportation to Vicente, in the east of the Island.

4. Beginning of the mutiny on board the Amistad as it travels east from Havana.

5. After the mutiny, the leader (Cinque) tells the pilot to travel East to Africa which the pilot agrees to do, (but does not intend to do). Much argumentation (untranslated, unsubtitled) in various languages of the mutineers.

6. An argument between the pilot of the Amistad and the passengers about where the ship is heading; passengers don't think he's heading east back to Africa; captain is in fact faking it, heading north, hoping to be intercepted.

7. The Amistad is in fact now off the coast of Long Island and has been spotted by the US Coast Guard. The pilot prepares to shout and reveal themselves to the Coast Guard, since the mutineers are hiding below decks so as not to be seen.

8. The Amistad is brought to New Haven in Connecticut and the prisoners are met by a team of abolitionists, singing hymns. Prisoners discuss who these miserable-looking people could possibly be. In the jail, they break up into tribal groups and dispute who has the right to what part of the territory, which they refer to as "Temneland," "Mendeland", "Sherbroland", etc. The legal defense team attempts to communicate with them (in Spanish!), without much success. They don't see these people as very competent to help them.

9. African prisoners are being taken to the courtroom for the first time; they are confused.

10. In the courtroom prisoners discuss who is who, wondering what is going on, and who is on their side and who is not.

11. A very dark clip in the courtroom during the trial with practically no sound and no subtitles.

12. Argument in the courtroom about whether the prisoners are slaves or workers; whether they received wages, whether they are the property of the Queen of Spain still, whether they were legally or illegally enslaved, etc.

13. Prisoners are being brought to the court and abolitionists ask one of them to place his hand on a bible so that they can pray for them. The prisoner doesn't understand, grabs the bible, and takes it with him into the courtroom.

14. Discussion between two Africans about the meaning of the pictures in the bible they have been given by the abolitionists.

15. There is a death among one of the African groups and they conduct their funeral service in their traditional manner, which scares the guards. Later scene on way to courtroom, with Abolitionists singing and praying; prisoners are unable to figure out who these mournful people are.

16. Cinque, the de facto leader and spokesman for the group of prisoners (because of his reputation as a man who has fought lions) cries out 'Give us [a] Free' in the courtroom, while the prosecution tries to silence him.

17. The Infanta Isabella (Queen of Spain) is told of the situation and how her representatives are trying to get 'her property' back.

18. A professor from Harvard (or Yale?) teaches the legal defense how to count to 10 in various West African languages. They then go to the docks and walk around, calling out the numbers they have learned, hoping to attract the attention of some African-Americans, who they hope might know one or another language. A translator is found.

19. The translator they have located, who is now a member of the British Navy, says that his name is Kai Nyagua and James Covey, that he speaks Mende and English, and that they will 'talk to each other through him.'