berg wants to make this incident bear thernwhole weight of the American slaveryrnthat lasted two and a half centuries andrnthe Great Unpleasantness that ended it.rnThousands oi Amistad study kits havernbeen sent out to schools with this goal.rnThe trouble is, as an account of Americanrnhistory, Amistad will not bear thernweight. The Amistad had no influencernon the nearly four million Americanrnslaves in America on the eve of the CivilrnWar (most of whom had been here forrngenerations), on the 385,000 slaveholdingrnfamilies, on the 488,000 free blacksrn(90 percent of whom, contrary to thernusual assumption, were in the South),rnnor on the issues and events which led tornthe bloodiest war in American history.rnOne of Spielberg’s assistants called mernearly on, wanting advice on the characterizationrnof John C. Calhoun, whom Irnam supposed to know something about.rnFor a moment, visions of fat Hollywoodrnfees danced before my eyes. Then, Irnremembered what Grandmother said:rnStand up straight, look ’em in the eye,rnand always tell the truth. I had to sayrnCalhoun had nothing to do with thernAmistad case and nothing to say about it.rn(The assistant, by the way, identifiedrnhimself as a South Carolinian. By hisrnspeech and the fact that he had had arnscholarship to Harvard, I assumed he isrnan African-American. He was very good,rnalmost as slick as a young Strom Thurmond.rnI would advise him to comernhome and go into politics.)rnCalhoun is shown in the movie (andrnthe actor who plays him is very good) asrndeclaiming about slavery and impendingrncivil war in relation to the case. This didrnnot happen and could not have. I havernsince learned where the filmmakers gotrnthis notion. Like Ken Burns, Spielberg’srnpeople have been taken in by the greatrnBoston-o-centric stream of Americanrnmyth and “history.” They got the idea ofrnusing Calhoun, as well as the idea thatrnthe case was some kind of major eventrnand triumph for Adams, from Samuel F.rnBemis’s romanticized biography, ]ohnrnQuincy Adams and the Union. The idearnof having Adams, one of the nastiest majorrnfigures in American history, portrayedrnby Anthony Hopkins as a shrewd, cuddlyrnold teddy bear could only have comernfrom Hollywood. Get his picture sometime,rnlook at that cold hateful face, andrnyou will understand why Randolph ofrnRoanoke called him Blifel, after the puritanrnhypocrite in Tom ]ones.rnBemis claimed that Calhoun introducedrnresolutions in the Senate on thernAmistad case to thwart Adams. He evenrnquoted two of the resolutions, convenientlyrnleaving out the third, which wasrnspecific. In fact, Calhoun’s concern atrnthis time was a different question. Britishrnofficials in the Bahamas were undertakingrnto free the slaves on American coastalrnvessels that came by accident into theirrnwaters. (It was common for plantationrnfamilies to move with their slaves fromrnthe South Atlantic to the Gulf Coastrnstates by ship.) The British freed anyrnslaves who came into their hands, althoughrnthey later paid an indemnity tornthe United States for this action, an admissionrnof illegality.rnAdams was at this time a marginalizedrnfigure, a failed President who could notrneven get elected governor of Massachusetts.rnCalhoun was much more influential.rnBy falsely setting up Adams as an antagonistrnto Calhoun, Bemis, and thernmovie, lend more importance to Adamsrnthan is deserved. There is also the questionrnof motivation. It is all a love of libertyrnon Adams’ part, according to this rendering.rn(And part as well of the largerrnmyth that, to free the suffering blackrnman, the South had to be brutally conquered.)rnThe fact is that Adams had becomernPresident in a election that wasrnbrokered in the House of Representativesrnunder cries of “corrupt bargain.”rnHe had proceeded to propose grandiosernplans of centralization and mercantilism,rnrepudiating everything that hadrnbeen taught by Jefferson, Madison, andrnMonroe. He was immediately shotrndown and destroyed by Southern strictrnconstructionists. He hated what one ofrnhis descendants called “the sable geniusrnof the South” and devoted his last yearsrnto attacking it at its weakest point, slavery.rnContrary to Bemis, Spielberg, et al., hisrn”motivation” had nothing to do withrnfreedom or with the welfare of people ofrnAfrican origin.rnForeign importation of slaves was illegalrnand negligible after 1808. Participationrnin the slave trade to other countriesrnwas also illegal for Americans. But inrnfact. New Englanders, who had plenty ofrnshipping and entrepreneurial energy,rncontinued to invest and participate in therntraffic from Africa to Latin America on arnconsiderable scale. This included thernBrown family, who endowed BrownrnUniversity, and Thomas H. Perkins, thernBoston merchant prince who bankrolledrnDaniel Webster’s career, as well as manyrnlesser fry. The last known New Englandrnslave ship, sailing from Maine, was capturedrnin 1862, a year in which oceans ofrnblood were being shed for the allegedrnpurpose of freeing the slaves.rnBy the 1830’s the British, who had notrnlong before been the largest slave traffickersrnin the world, had declared emancipationrn(of a sort) in their colonies andrnhad undertaken to suppress the transatlanticrntrade by naval power. Many nations,rnincluding the United States, approvedrnthe object, but they did notrnapprove of Britain’s self-proclaimed rightrnto search and seize other countries’ shipsrnon the high seas, which led to war withrnBritain in 1812. In 1842, Americansrnagreed to participate in the suppressionrnof the trade as long as the Brits followedrnstrictly defined rules. Southern naval officers,rndiplomats, and other officeholdersrncarried out their duties in this regardrnconscientiously, and generally favoredrnthe policy. For instance, Henry A. Wisern(later governor of Virginia and a Confederaterngeneral), while he was U.S. Ministerrnto Brazil in the I840’s, made seriousrnefforts to intercept the New Englandersrntrading Africans to South America.rnExcept for a few hotheads seeking tornprovoke the Yankees, there was no interestrnin the South, even though the demandrnwas high, in slave importations afterrnthe early 19th century. No onernwanted to disrupt the settled and peacefulrnsystem that existed. The Confederaternconstitution, unlike that of the UnitedrnStates, absolutely forbade foreign slavernimportations. The determination ofrnSoutherners to prevent malicious outsidersrnto interfere in their society is, ofrncourse, an entirely different question.rnAmistad diverts attention away from thernreal issues of American history.rnBut there are other things that thernmovie also distorts. Adams makes a prettyrnspeech about liberty to the SupremernCourt. I cannot find any evidence tornprove that this speech was actually delivered.rnWhat appears in the printed courtrnrecord is legalistic, though it is possiblernthe speech could have been made in unrecordedrnoral argument. In the film, thernleader of the Amistad captives. Cinque,rnis present in the Supreme Court, whichrndid not happen. And there is a totally fictionalrncharacter, an affluent free blackrnman played by Morgan Freeman. Contrarnthe film, no black man, no matterrnhow affluent, would have been permittedrnto sit in a courtroom or ride in a carriagernwith white people in the North inrn1839. Especially in Connecticut.rn48/CHRONICLESrnrnrn