Amistad Movie Analysis

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The movie Amistad directed by Steven Spielberg is about a mutiny in 1839 on-board a slave ship, La Amistad, which eventually comes to port in New England. Crazy to say, the word in Spanish means “friendship”. I believe Spielberg did an amazing job in connecting to major themes in study of slavery and abolition with two important exceptions. It was amazing to see someone recreate the Amistad rebellion that began with just a season of Trials beginning in the lower courts of Connecticut and which eventually reached the Supreme Court. Not only did this case show the Abolitionist fight against slavery and to stop it, it also showed our questionable laws that come from the Constitution. When comparing and contrasting how Spielberg accurately portrayed this time in American history he did it well. In class we talked about how slaves were captured by others of their kind and sold, treated very horribly while on the slave ships and some left to die. The movie illustrates the horrors of the slaves, all the things they undergone, and how they were captured and taken from their homes and brought to a new world. It was very hard to look at and see all the cruelty and things that went on with the slaves after they had been captured, due to the fact they had been minding their own business a significant amount of years and then someone comes along, suggest that Africans are not to be treated inhuman and turned into a slave. Finally once had reached to their destination, slaves would be auctioned off. I learned from this movie that slaves fought back. They realized what was going on with their lives and took control of that. I was not aware that they actually went to court and was faced with murder, didn’t know that this happened. It was great to see the interaction that Cinique had with the President Adams while going through this rough time and fighting through equality for
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