Amistad
Story and History in Amistad
Though the basic story of Amistad is fairly straightforward, the plot is actually quite complex. The many different characters and sub-stories in the film reflect the importance of the slave trade in general and this incident in particular in the shaping and progression of the United States. This can be seen in the diversity of the film's major characters -- Cinque, the leader of the slaves; John Quincy Adams, the former President and the slaves' advocate in the Supreme Court; and the attorney Sherman Baldwin stand out as essential characters in the story and reflect the wide backgrounds of the people that, for better or worse, were involved in shaping this country.
The major lesson of this movie is not really about the human (or inhuman) aspects of slavery, as might be expected, but rather about the purposeful un-human ways in which the legal system works. The slaves end up victorious, but because of legal rather than moral arguments. The lawyers and advocates for the slaves recognize this early in the film, and it is a common theme throughout. This is also tied to the way in which the Amistad case led to the United States' Civil War. All moral objections to slavery aside, there were very real practical (both economic and political) concerns to ending slavery. This case further hurt the slave trade, promising increased economic issues for the South as their source of cheap labor disappeared.
Had the U.S. not been involved in the slave trade, the country would not have been as successful in its first century of existence. Though this is a terrible truth to admit, the economy of the South was dependent on slave labor, and it helped to drive the nation's wealth. The racial issues in this country would not exist, perhaps, had slavery never reached this continent, but the country itself might not be extant.
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