The Amistad

I watched the movie Amistad this last week in my Honors 240 class. The movie is based off of a true story. The Amistad was a ship that had a bunch of slaves from Africa on it. The slaves all worked together and then they seized their freedom by escaping and attacking the whites. They become in charge of the ship. Two white men were held captive and they were used by the black slaves to get them back to where they came from. The ship was supposed to be headed back to Africa but it ran into an American vessel. The Amistad was taken by the Americans. A trial was held in front of many courts and then eventually the supreme court in order to decide what to do. John Quincy Adams helped to win the case and the blacks were freed and sent back to Africa.
Slavery is taught in every history class and all of the time growing up and going through school but it is a hard concept to grasp because no one can really understand and know what it was and all of the horrible things that happened. A person can’t fully get it until they have been a slave and until they have experienced all of the horrible experiences. As I was watching this movie, I felt like I kind of got a little taste about how awful slavery was. I am not saying in any way that I know what it would be like but by seeing what was going on it made my heart break. The movie was very sad and emotional to watch. I don’t understand how people could hurt others and demand the things that they did. It was just because they were different. There is one scene in the movie where you see all of the black prisoners reaching for food and the men give them this nasty oatmeal stuff. They just fling it into their hands. One other part that really hurt me was the part where they showed the white men attaching a bag of rocks to a black man and then throwing the bag into the sea so that the black man sunk to the bottom of the sea with the rocks. By watching Amistad it brought a shred of reality into my mind. I wasn’t the one going through everything though. I didn’t see my family, my friends, my parents, my kids, my husband going through it. I didn’t get taken away from my home and I wasn’t separated from what I loved. I can’t even imagine that. My view of slavery have been altered from before I learned more about slavery and seen this movie depict some of the things that occurred.

Honest Men and Women

Raped

Tortured

Beaten

Worked

Starved

Murdered

for one reason and that’s it just because they were different