Amistad

film by Spielberg [1997]

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July 18, 2026

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The film Amistad (1997) by Steven Spielberg dramatizes the Amistad mutiny of 1839. On July 2, 1839, enslaved Africans, led by Joseph Cinqué, revolted on the Spanish ship Amistad near Cuba. They killed the captain and cook but spared a navigator, intending to sail home to Sierra Leone. Instead, the ship was captured by the U.S. Navy off Long Island, New York. The Africans were tried in the United States, where abolitionists argued they were kidnap victims, not property. In 1841, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in their favor, freeing the survivors who eventually returned to Africa. The film features Matthew McConaughey as a defense lawyer and Anthony Hopkins as former U.S. President John Quincy Adams.12

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Steven Spielberg
The 1990s
Amistad (1997) found Spielberg in social historian mode. The film centers on the slave revolt that took place aboard the Spanish slave ship Amistad in 1839 and the subsequent trial in the United States for which the slaves were tried for insurrection on the high…
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Amistad (1997) found Spielberg in social historian mode. The film centers on the slave revolt that took place aboard the Spanish slave ship Amistad in 1839 and the subsequent trial in the United States for which the slaves were tried for insurrection on the high…
Read More

Anthony Hopkins
Hannibal Lecter, Richard M. Nixon, and John Quincy Adams
… (1995), and as Adams in Amistad (1997). Other notable roles in the 1990s included 20th-century patriarchs in Howards End (1992), Legends of the Fall (1994), and Meet Joe Black (1998) as well as storied adventurers in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) and The Mask of Zorro (1998).
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… (1995), and as Adams in Amistad (1997). Other notable roles in the 1990s included 20th-century patriarchs in Howards End (1992), Legends of the Fall (1994), and Meet Joe Black (1998) as well as storied adventurers in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) and The Mask of Zorro (1998).
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Anna Paquin
…of Spain in Steven Spielberg’s Amistad (1997). She played teenagers in Hurlyburly (1998), She’s All That (1999), and A Walk on the Moon (1999) and portrayed the groupie Polexia Aphrodisa in Almost Famous (2000).
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…of Spain in Steven Spielberg’s Amistad (1997). She played teenagers in Hurlyburly (1998), She’s All That (1999), and A Walk on the Moon (1999) and portrayed the groupie Polexia Aphrodisa in Almost Famous (2000).
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