The year was 1839 and the Amistad landed on the shores of Long Island. On board were 53 black slaves who had mutinied en route from Africa to South America. The reconstruction of the actual event provided Spielberg with a powerful dramatic story with a strong ethical emphasis as the mutineers await trial. Then-president Van Buren, seeking re-election and the votes of Southern planters, wants to sacrifice the prisoners, while anti-slavery campaigner Theodore Joadson, lawyer Roger Baldwin and former president John Quincy Adams side with the Africans...
