Amistad Movie Essay

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Amistad released in 1997 was produced by Debbie Allen, Colin Wilson and Stephan Spielberg. Spielberg also directed the film which was nominated for 47 awards and won a total of 9. The cast included Anthony Hopkins as president John Adams, who won best supporting actor for his role in Amistad. The film also stared Djimon Hounsou as Cinque, the leader of the Mende, Morgen Freeman as an abolitionist named Theodore Joadson a free man born into slavery, and Mathew McConaughey as Roger Sherman Baldwin. The plot of the movie is based off of a revolt aboard the Spanish ship la Amistad. In 1839 A group of Africans are captured and illegally sold into slavery, after being taken aboard the Amistad Cinque and the other captives over take the ship's crewmen after 6 weeks at sea they are intercepted by Us Navy officers off the coast of Long Island. Imprisoned for the crime of murder, Roger Baldwin and Theodore Joadson challenge the courts in order to prove the Mende are free people not born in plantations of Cuba. After …show more content…

"In February of 1839, Portuguese slave hunters abducted a large group of Africans from Sierra Leone and shipped them to Havana, Cuba, a center for the slave trade. This abduction violated all of the treaties then in existence. Fifty-three Africans were purchased by two Spanish planters and put aboard the Cuban schooner Amistad for shipment to a Caribbean plantation." (Arcives.gov). The film depicts the Portuguese did capture free African people off the coast of Serra Leone and transport them to Cuba where the Mende were then sold to Spanish slave traders. And then to Spanish planters. The film depicts forged documents provided cover for this henna acts. Documents from Havana, June 26th, 1839. confirm the information to be true documents from the SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 40 U.S. 518; 10 L. Ed. 82 JANUARY, 1841 Term the following is

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