th Cinque breaking free of his chains and orchestrating the takeover of the Amistad. Cinque spares the lives of the two leaders who promise to take them to Africa but end up navigating off U.S. shores. The boat is seized and the Africans are interred for a period of two years while we are treated to the three legal cases that ensue because of them.
The story is mainly rendered from the perspective of Cinque, two abolitionists named Joadson and Tappan, CinqueÆs lawyer Baldwin, and that of former President John Quincy Adams. The characters of Cinque and Adams are the most developed and powerful in the film. CinqueÆs life is shown being harshly destroyed in Africa and we get memories of his wife and a very poignant scene where he is consumed by homesickness upon spying some African violets in AdamsÆ greenhouse. The real focus of the film is from the legal perspective. One of CinqueÆs most powerful moments is when he cries out in the courtroom: ôGive us free. Give us free. Give us free. Give us free. Give us freeö (Spielberg 1997).
The performance by Anthony Hopkins as Adams is powerful. Adams actually spoke for four hours in front of the Supreme Court but his long speech in the film is eleven minutes but no less powerful. In his book Mutiny on the Amistad, Howard Jones (1997) argues that the strategy used by abolitionists and defenders of the Africans was one that pitted natural law against manmade law, a defense he argues would be used by Civil Rights activists a century later, ôTheir strategy rested on placing the profound differences between positive law and natural law before the American people, hoping they might see the need for changing the Constitution and American laws to comply with the moral principles contained in the Declaration of Independenceö (13). The film highlights ironies of the era and underscores the human aspect of slavery and its toll on both whites and blacks. CinqueÆs lawyer is a rea...