Cinque and many others were then sold to the Tecora, where they were held in the brig of the ship. Cinque tells his story at trial: Cinque was kidnapped by slave traders outside his village, and held in the slave fortress of Lomboko, where thousands of captives were held under heavy guard. Consequently, seeking to make the case more personal, on the advice of former American president (and lawyer) John Quincy Adams, Baldwin and Joadson find James Covey, a former slave who speaks both Mende and English. In light of this evidence, the staff of President Van Buren has the judge presiding over the case replaced by Judge Coglin, who is younger and believed to be impressionable and easily influenced. Therefore, the Africans were free citizens of another country and not slaves at all. Baldwin proves through documents found hidden aboard La Amistad that the African people were initially cargo belonging to a Portuguese slave ship, the Tecora. A lawyer named Roger Sherman Baldwin, hired by the abolitionist Lewis Tappan and his black associate Theodore Joadson, decides to defend the Africans.īaldwin debates that the Africans had been captured in Africa to be sold in the Americas illegally. Meade, claim them as salvage while the two Spanish navigators, Pedro Montez and Jose Ruiz, produce proof of purchase. Secretary of State John Forsyth, on behalf of President Martin Van Buren (who is campaigning for re-election), represents the claim of the Spanish government that the Africans are slaves and are property of Spain based on a treaty. Holabird brings charges of piracy and murder. In an unfamiliar country and not speaking a single word of English, the Africans find themselves in a legal battle. Instead, the navigators misdirect the Africans and sail directly north to the east coast of the United States, where the ship is stopped by the American Navy, and the living Africans imprisoned as runaway slaves. The mutineers spare the lives of two Spanish navigators to help them sail the ship back to Africa. As the ship is crossing from Cuba to the United States, Joseph Cinqué, a leader of the Africans, leads a mutiny and takes over the ship. It is carrying African slaves as its cargo. La Amistad is a slave ship traveling from Cuba to the United States in 1839. David Franzoni's screenplay was based on the book Mutiny on the Amistad: The Saga of a Slave Revolt and Its Impact on American Abolition, Law, and Diplomacy (1987), by the historian Howard Jones. Morgan Freeman, Anthony Hopkins, Djimon Hounsou, and Matthew McConaughey had starring roles. The case was ultimately resolved by the U.S. Amistad is a 1997 American historical drama film directed by Steven Spielberg, based on the true story of the events in 1839 aboard the slave ship La Amistad, during which Mende tribesmen abducted for the slave trade managed to gain control of their captors' ship off the coast of Cuba, and the international legal battle that followed their capture by the Washington, a U.S.
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