Set to Cast Off in Film Retelling of Slave Ship Revolt

The tall ship Pilgrim, which has provided a dramatic backdrop to California’s nautical history for thousands of school-age children, will sail before movie cameras in Steven Spielberg’s upcoming film “Amistad.”

The movie, which stars Anthony Hopkins and Morgan Freeman, focuses on a historic revolt involving African slaves who took over the schooner Amistad in 1839.

“It’s really a fascinating story behind the movie,” said Stanley Cummings, executive director of the Orange County Marine Institute, which owns the 130-foot Pilgrim. “And the Institute, in addition to DreamWorks [Spielberg’s studio], has teamed up with a Connecticut group that is seeking funding to build a replica of the Amistad and use it as a mobile museum.”

A spokeswoman for the studio said production has begun on the movie, which is scheduled for release in the fall. Spielberg is using a number of Southern California ships for the film and has already shot film on the East Coast.

The cost for using the Pilgrim in the film was not disclosed.

The ship made its film debut late last year when it was hired to be in the latest Mighty Morphin Power Rangers movie, “Turbo.” For the Power Rangers movie, the Pilgrim was transformed into a ghost galleon during two weeks of shooting.

In preparation for Spielberg’s film, the brig has gotten a fresh coat of paint, been slightly altered and sports a new name: the Tecora. According to Cummings, the Tecora was the slave ship that brought its human cargo from Africa to Cuba.

Few people may have heard of the saga of the Spanish schooner. It set sail from Havana to another Cuban port on June 28, 1839, with 53 African slaves as cargo. What occurred next is not only a fascinating saga involving a bloody revolt against the crew, but a page in early U.S. legal history where the Africans who participated in the violence to defend themselves were vindicated by the American legal system.

“This was a major event in Afro-American history,” said Clifton Johnson, the retired founder of the Amistad Research Center at Tulane University in New Orleans. “The Africans were caught, tried and it was significant because it was the first time the [U.S.] Supreme Court held that Africans had certain unalienable rights.”

Johnson said he would like to see the film help launch the incident to become as familiar as the Boston Tea Party and Paul Revere’s ride. Up until then, Africans were considered slaves and therefore property, Johnson said.

Scholars such as Johnson and others believe the incident has remained obscure because the African slave trade has historically been viewed in what is essentially a white context and ignored by American textbooks, said Wacira Gethaiga, chairman of the Afro-ethnic studies department at Cal State Fullerton.

“The teaching of history has always been teaching mainstream white history,” Gethaiga said. “And with history of Africans, it wasn’t important to teach and talk about black people trying to liberate themselves.”

Added Ronald D. Rietveld, professor of history at Cal State Fullerton: “What’s also interesting is the role of [former President] John Quincy Adams, which in a way has been lost in the Amistad incident,” Rietveld said. “Adams argued the Africans’ cause in the Supreme Court.”

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According to Johnson, the incident occurred after the slave ship Tecora sailed from Africa to Havana. There, the two Cuban owners hired a new skipper of La Amistad, which means friendship.

But three days out, a bloody revolt led by a man named Cinque, took place, during which the captain and cook were killed and the owners were forced to steer the ship.

Johnson said the Africans knew little of navigation and told the owners to steer toward the rising sun. But at night, the Cubans sailed northward. After zigzagging for 63 days, the ship anchored off Long Island, where Cinque and other Africans went ashore for provisions.

When the Africans were later captured, it stirred a delicate legal case between Spain and the United States, which claimed the ship and the slaves.

Spain, on behalf of the Cuban owners, demanded the return of the vessel and other property, including the slaves. In addition, Cinque and the adult slaves were charged with murder and piracy.

“Eventually, the Africans were vindicated and released,” Johnson said, adding that the case helped galvanize the antislavery movement.