Amistad is based on a true story about an 1839 slave revolution. La Amistad is the Spanish word for "friendship", ironically the ship had nothing to do with friends at all. The ship's purpose was to illegally transport slaves to Spain. The director, Spielberg does an excellent job of recreating a revolt by slaves that started in the lower courts of Connecticut and ultimately ended in the highest court of the land, the U.S. Supreme Court. The slaves were taken from a slave fortress and transported aboard the Tecora to a slave auction in Havana, Cuba. It is horrifying to see the conditions in which these slaves endured in their journey across the Atlantic Ocean. They were shackled and chained, thrown into an unsanitary, overcrowded cell and fed one hand-full of food a day. These conditions were so harsh that only a third of them actually survived to make the final destination. Once they arrived in Cuba, 44 were auctioned off to the Spanish and were to be transported by the way of La Amistad. The revolt on the Amistad resulted in deaths of the captain of the boat and a few of the crewmembers, leaving two men who were necessary to navigate the boat back to Africa. The slaves had control of the boat for a little more than six weeks before the U.S. Navy recaptured the boat and forced the slaves to appear before an American judge and jury for murder. The trial was the beginning of a judiciary battle that would have the American people in frenzy. The abolitionists led by Theodore Jones were fighting for the slaves on the grounds that it was morally wrong and they were illegally taken from their homeland. The slaves were represented by attorney at law Roger Baldwin who thought the case was an open shut case because the issue of their freedom had nothing to do with murder or mutiny, but the fact that their origin was not Cuba, but Africa, meaning they were not legal slaves. The judge was dealing with more than issues
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