The movie Amistad Essay
The movie “Amistad” is based on a true story. This tells us the story about some African slaves who were sold by their own countrymen to acquire weapons and money. During the time of translation to Spain, the crews rebels and kill almost all their Spanish captors. African slaves took charge of the crew to return to their homes, but they were discovered by American troops, who taken them as prisoners leading them to United States to determine what they would do with them.
Upon arrival the slaves to America, it was decided that these should go to court for murder and piracy and keep them in prison. In the first court appear different characters claiming the right to these slaves, treating them as property and not as human beings. But an opponent of slavery Mr. Joadson, a ex U. S. President named John Adams, an attorney at law Mr. Baldwin, and a wealthy man and owner of several businesses and banks named Mr. Tappan, joined forces to free these slaves.
Although it was difficult to get evidence to free the African slaves because of the language difference, they gathered enough evidence to make clear that these slaves had been bought illegally and they were not Cubans but Africans. With this evidence they won the case. The current president of that time named Van Buren changed the judge to treat the United States v African Slaves case to recover it and see a different response, but the result was the same; freedom to the slaves.
Once again the President of the United States took the case but to the superior court where the ex-President John Adams and Mr. Baldwin’s attorney at law, had a resounding success with the decision that these Africans were not property, they were human beings that had certain rights and could decide where they wanted to go. Cinque, the leader of the African tribe, thanked strongly the support these characters give it to him and to his tribe. Finally, Cinque followed in crew to free other slaves who resided in Spain to then return to home.
Within the history of the film “Amistad” we can see different attitudes because during the plot appears different groups with different ambitions. On the one hand we have the group of the oppressed, referring to African slaves. Their attitude was of sadness, anger, and courage. They were sad because they were discriminated, separated from their families, suffered humiliation, starvation, beatings, and abuse and all these because of their color. At the same time they felt anger and courage to those people who abused them without mercy.
But the biggest attitude that oppressed had been the desire to fight for their freedom and not give up. African Slaves always believing in the powers of their ancestors. On the other hand, there are the oppressors. In this group we can put together the Spaniards along with the Queen Isabel II, President of the United States, and 2 Spanish characters who survived the slaughter on the Amistad board. All of them had a selfish attitude towards slaves. They believed they could do with these people what they want because for them the slaves were not human if not a good.
They do not care what Africans suffered, because according to them, the dark color let them to be miserable. The Queen Isabel II at the age of 11 thought that slaves were an essential part for the economy of her country. President of the United States did not want to release African Slaves because he was afraid of provoking a civil war and end on bad terms with the free trade agreement with Spain. Finally, the 2 Spaniard characters simply believed that they had the right to slaves because they survived from them and helped United State troops by the discovery of these.
In the movie “Amistad” there were several conflicts. The principal was the issue of slavery which led to another conflicts. During the early 18’s, slavery was something illegal in many countries. For the U. S. , in the north was not approved while in the south could be legal. Because slaves were forced to work long hours without a salary, they were very important in elevating the economy of some countries like Spain. With the pass of the time the issue of slavery took more importance and strength in the decisions of government.
Due to the unleashing of the slaves, there were other social and political conflict as the Civil War, and the release of Lombok Slave Fortress. In the history of the movie eventually the anti-slavery group gets the desired result which was to free African slaves and return them to their homes, thanks to the wisdom of the ex-President John Adams and the persistence of the attorney at law Baldwin. Today, slavery is a thing of the past. Thanks to these accrual events that occurred many years ago today we can enjoy complete freedom in the United States of America.
Although Africans had to go through many hard times to regain his freedom, slavery ended in the year of 1865 with the addition of the thirteenth amendment in the constitution. According to Chapter 6 “Civil Rights” it tells us that since the foundation of America the primary value was equality. Discrimination is a concept that can be defined as a behavior or attitude with others according to their color, gender, clothing, age, or race. Chapter 6 teaches us that the most discriminated groups in human history are women and blacks.
The film has a social, political, historical and moral meaning because it leaves a great teaching on the issue of discrimination. It is noteworthy that “Amistad” is based on real events that left a great benefit to the United States. It has social significance because it shows that society can be composed of different types of people and we are all a fundamental part of development. Second, it has political significance because we can see that the issue of slavery was always linked to politics, as the relationship of slavery and the free trade agreement between the United States and Spain.
Furthermore, slavery has always been treated by the government, who always took the last decision thinking about the best for the people or for it convenience. “Amistad” is historic because, thanks to anti-slavery people like John Adams, Mr. Baldwin, Mr. Tappan, Mr. Joadson and the great leader and hero of the African tribe called Cinque who had the courage to face great powers as the ninth U. S. President Van Buren and confront the vague, shallow, and undefined laws that existed in the system of legislation in that time, in our times slavery is condemn.
In my opinion the greatest significance of the story of the movie to people of that time is the moral value. Mr. Joadson who was a black man, a slave at some time in his life, and a leading opponent of slavery, was a person who taught us a lot with her ??character because even though he did not born in Africa, and he was totally American, he venture to support the cause of African slaves and never turned his back on his race. Another example of morality could be the judge who replaced the elderly judge, who despite being young and very inexperienced, do not let the U. S. President told him what was he had to do.
He always went hand in hand with their values ??and takes the right decision to release these people who had already suffered enough. This movie certainly left a great lesson in me. As stated in the cover of the movie “Absolutely Unforgettable” I will never forget “Amistad”. The film taught me that everyone has the right to fighting for freedom. Besides, no one can take your freedom and discriminate against you by your appearance, color, race, gender, age or anything else. In my case, although we are often called the minority as Hipics in this country, we have rights like anyone lse and we deserve to be treated as humans and not as an object or property. I have felt discriminated against at some point in my life as many other people, but I know that people judge because we are full of prejudices. The true is that we are still slaves to our own prejudices. Although we are in the XXI century discrimination has not ended, and is the responsibility of each one of us stop judging people by their appearance and accept that if we are all equal in the eyes of God we should all be equal in the society.
