1. What is the movie about? Summarize the plot of the film mentioning the main characters.
The movie talks about a group of black people that arrives at United States in a boat with terrible conditions were there has been a slaughter in the middle of the sea. The black people were captured in Africa illegaly and were made slaves. In United States were jailed and if they wanted to be free they needed to prove were they came from. For this option they were helped by lots of people like Mr Baldwin, John Quincy Adams, Theodore Joadson, a traductor and some more. The main character is Joseph Cinque, a black man who was separated from his family. When he is in jail and in court he was who spoke in representation of the rest of the slaves and who talked with all the defenders. Mr Baldwin was a young defender of the rights of the blacks and is the one who fighted for them in the court. John Quincy Adams was an expresident from America that in the last judgement made a speech that gave the slaves to be free by decision of the judges.
2. What was the Triangular Trade? What nations benefited from it?
Triangular trade was a type of comerce that took place between the 16th and the 19th century and is characterized by its triangular shape. This menas that the routes followed by the merchants was triangualar and it crossed the Atlantic Ocean. The route stablished a comerce between Africa, The Americas and Europe. The Americas selled to Europe raw materials, Europe selled to Africa Iron and things like tha, and Africa selled to The Americas what prompted this trade, the slaves that were so important for the developed or developing countries.
3. Do some research and explain the conditions in which slaves were captured and transported from Africa to the Americas.
During the trip from Africa to the Americas that lasted usually for 2 months or even longer a lot of heartless punishments were made to the slaves. They stayed below deck in rooms with hundreds of slaves all packed and without freedom of movement, they even had to be lying in the floor and they were tied with iron chains. They were fed 2 times a day and if they didn´t want to it they were force-fed. Usually 1 of 5 slaves died in the ship and when they died they were throwed overboard. Diseases were very usual things in this boats and for the safety of the crew some gobernments stablished laws for the treat of slaves.
4. What enlightened ideas appear in the movie?
In the final speech of John Quincy Adams he gives some arguments against enslaving people. He followed some ideas of the ilustrated ideology like the one that says that humans deserve being in his state of nature, but this is not bad. The state of nature was considered by Thomas Hobbes like something negative and he says that people should renounce to some rights giving them to a gobernor to obtain others. John Locke says that people are totally free so they can decide on their possesions and actions, always inside the nature law, and this is what is representated in La Amistad movie.
5. Who was Joseph Cinqué? Did he really exist?
Joseph Cinqué was a black man that directed the uprising in the Amistad ship and who talked with his defenders in court, the one that talked for the others. He existed in the real world and was born and captured illegaly in Sierra Leona.
6. What is the role of John Quincy Adams, former US President, in the movie?
He is the one who defends the blacks in the judgement of the Supreme Court. His speech finally gives the freedom to the negroes and he uses philosophical arguments like the state
of nature and legislative arguments by saying that they are reflected like "people with a dutie" in the UUEE constitution, not as a property. He was called to participate in the other judgements but he refused to do nothing, but later when he receives the notice that the court appealed the case to the Supreme Court he decided to take part.
