• Director: Steven Spielberg
  • Release Year: 1997
  • Production Country: United States
  • Language: English, Mende, Spanish

Amistad

Description

Thinking they are free when they escape their chains and overthrow their Spanish captors, a group of kidnapped Africans who were to be sold as slaves instead find themselves trapped in a Virginia courtroom where they are caught between the laws of three nations and must fight to prove their status as free human beings.

Themes

United States v. Libellants and Claimants of the Schooner Amistad 40 U.S. (15 Pet.) 518 (1841), Atlantic slave trade, Slavery, Sengbe Pieh "Joseph Cinqué" (c. 1814 – 1879), Martin Van Buren (1782 – 1862), John Quincy Adams (1767 – 1848), Middle Passage, Tyranny, Law and legalities, Refugees, Public memory, Race relations, Political intrigue, Social Darwinism, Colonialism, Capitalism, Agriculture