|
Steven Spielberg's film, Amistad, was released to rave
reviews, and rightly so. His dramatic telling of the Amistad incident is
by turns bold and breathtaking, and for the most part, recaptures much
of the Amistad story. But there is only so much one can put in a movie -- and it IS a movie, so certain dramatic license was taken. I did the same in parts of my novel, Amistad. The charactes Shaw and Beliwa were composites created to facilitate the telling of the story. Also, no one know exactly what happened to Singbe-Pieh during his experiences on the middle passage, or what truly happened to him when he returned to Mende. As a result, I had to research extensively and create representative scenes. Steven Spielberg did the same, and his middle passage scene are some of the most striking in the film. All that said, there were some important things that didn't make it into Spielberg's film, and some interesting modifications made in the name of "drama": Connecticut was a slave state in 1839. This is one of the pivotal points of the property case, and yet ignored in the film. The Amistad Africans were actually captured a little more than a mile off Montauk Point, Long Island. The reason the U.S.S. Washington towed the Amistad to New London harbor instead of a closer New York port was because slavery was still legal in Connecticut. The commander of the Washington, Lt. Thomas Gedney, hoped to claim salvage on ship and cargo. In New York, this came to about $40,000 (this in a day when the average working person made about $3 a week). But by taking Amistad to Connecticut, a slave state, Gedney could claim the Africans as cargo, too. This doubled his claim to about $80,000. Also, by ignoring this point, an opportunity was missed to shatter the North-anti-slavery/South-pro-slavery myth that has existed for years. In general, this is how these sentiments shook out geographically, but the division was much more blurred than the way it is often presented in the history books. Slavery didn't die in Connecticut until the mid 1840s. The other Amistad Africans were real people, not just faces in a crowd. They had names and personalities. Grabeau was Singbe's lieutenant during the rebellion and elected as a second chief. Apparently he was one of the cooler heads during all of the controversy, as well. Burnah became very fluent in English and later worked at the mission founded by the Amistad Committee. Konomah, the one with the sharp teeth did not die, but made it back to Africa. There were also three little girls, the oldest of which, Margru, came back to the U.S., took the name Sara Kinson, and went to Oberlin College. Her son went to Yale. These are but a few. There were TWO important treaties in the trials. Pickney's treaty, which is cited by Spielberg, said the Africans were cargo. However, a second treaty, which became the crux of the defense's case, written in 1809 and ultimate carried out in 1819, said that abducting slaves from Africa was illegal. Spain, Britain and the United States signed the treaty. Spain ignored it and continued to deal African slaves, setting up a hub for this trade in Havana. The thought was that the African slaves fresh from Africa made better breeding stock and better field hands. New London, Hartford, and Farmington, Ct., are ignored. All of these places were very important to the Amistad case. The ship was towed into New London in August (not in the winter as shown), 1839. President Van Buren heard about the ship and, through his secretary of state, John Forsyth, instructed the federal prosecutor, William Holabird, to by-pass the hearing and return the Amistads (as they came to be known) to the Cuban slave traders. Because mail moved at the speed of stage coaches and horseback, the order from Forsyth reached Holabird too late. Still, the Amistads were almost returned to the slave traders by a federal judge, Andrew Judson, who conducted the preliminary hearding. Judson knew all about the treaty of 1819, but he was ready to send the Africans back to Cuba with a wink and a nod to the slave traders. Luckily, an abolitionist, Dwight Janes, was at the closed hearing, realized the Amistads were in fact Africans from Africa and tipped of the press. A genuine media circus ensued, which created the need to have a trial. The Africans were transported to New Haven because it had the only jail in the state big enough to hold so many people. The first trial was in Hartford, the second in New Haven, and the third at the Supreme Court in Washington. Singbe-Pieh (a.k.a. Cinqué) was not present for the hearing in D.C. as depicted in the film. In fact, a black man would have never been allowed inside the US Supreme Court, never mind allowed to be present during an argument before its justices. After the Africans won, they stayed in the abolitionist-friendly town of Farmington, CT, for 8 months while money could be raised for passage back to Africa. There they went to school, and many learned to speak English, and to varying degrees, to read and write. President Martin Van Buren wasn't a doddering old doofus. He was in fact a very savvy politician from New York who had served in a variety of posts, including vice president under Andrew Jackson. He was keenly aware from the first hint of the Amistads setting foot in the United States. He knew of the implications both for his re-election and with regard to race relations in the country. At one point, he even conspired with Forsyth to use Marines to kidnap the Africans after the second trial and sail them back to Cuba. The Marines were at the court house door in January 1840 with a signed presidential order to "escort" the Africans to the U.S.S. Grampus once Judson ruled for the government. It was Judson, however, and not the fictitious "Coughlin" from the film, who ruled for the Africans. Which brings up another important point: Judge Andrew T. Judson was a racist of klanish proportions. In fact, the way he became a federal judge getting the "Black Law" passed in Connecticut so he could run Prudence Crandall out of the state. Prudence Crandall was the white proprietor and principle of an elite finishing school for white girls in Canterbury, CT, in 1831. Judson was her neighbor, a member of her board, and, from all accounts, a great friend and supporter of Prudence Crandall. He was also one of the richest and most politically powerful men in the state. However, when Prudence Crandall decided to teach a black girl, Sarah Harris, at the school, Judson and many people in Canterbury went nuts. When Prudence Crandall said she would not expel Sarah, people began withdrawing their daughters from the school. Prudence Crandall retaliated by expelling the white girls and starting a school exclusively for black girls. Judson responded by getting elected to the state legislature and getting the Black Law passed. The law stated that black people could not go to school in the state without the written consent of the townspeople and town council where the school was located. There was a series of court trials with a violent end and Prudence Crandall was run out of Connecticut and her school shut down. As a reward, President Andrew Jackson appointed Judson a federal judge. He is the judge the Amistads stand before in the second pivotal trail -- a judge-only trial with no jury. Amazingly, it is Judson who recognizes the merits of their case and rules for the Africans. Which brings up a point -- why invent Coughlin when he already existed in the very real form of Judson? The case spanned THREE presidencies, not one. Van Buren lost his job before the Amistad case was resolved. He was defeated by William Harrison, who died 43 days after taking office from pneumonia, ostensibly caught when Harrison gave an over-long inauguration speech in the rain. John Tyler was president when the Amistads finally set sail for Sierra Leone in November, 1841. Roger S. Baldwin wasn't an ambulance chaser. He was actually an avowed abolitionist, a well- known defense attorney, and a very honorable man. He took the case for free out of his belief in the cause of the Amistads. He later became governor of Connecticut and a U.S. Senator from the state, as well. Josiah Gibbs (the linguist) wasn't a weasel or a doofus, either. A Yale professor of linguistics, it was Gibbs who got the Africans to teach him how to count to ten in Mende. Then he went on what was called a fool's errand, going from ports in Massachusetts to New York and everywhere in between and confronting every black sailor he met with his counting in Mende. He was the one who discovered James Covey. And he found him in New York in the absolute nick of time during the second trial. The character played by Morgan Freeman would have never, ever been allowed to eat in a tavern with two white men. Connecticut in the 1830s and 40s was as segregated as any southern state. No matter if Freeman's charcter was free and monied, he would have been sent to an all blacks tavern or made to eat out back. An incredible statement was missed here. Imagine if Freeman, working so hard to free the Africans, was denied such a basic freedom himself, if only for a moment, in the film. |