Memorable quotes for
Amistad (1997) More at IMDbPro »

John Quincy Adams: Now, you understand you're going to the Supreme Court. Do you know why?
Ens. Covey: [translating for Cinque] It is the place where they finally kill us.
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John Quincy Adams: [to the Court] This man is black. We can all see that. But, can we also see as easily, that which is equally true? That he is the only true hero in this room. Now, if he were white, he wouldn't be standing before this court fighting for his life. If he were white and his enslavers were British, he wouldn't be standing, so heavy the weight of the medals and honors we would bestow upon him. Songs would be written about him. The great authors of our times would fill books about him. His story would be told and retold, in our classrooms. Our children, because we would make sure of it, would know his name as well as they know Patrick Henry's. Yet, if the South is right, what are we to do with that embarrassing, annoying document, The Declaration of Independence? What of its conceits? "All men created equal," "inalienable rights," "life, liberty," and so on and so forth? What on Earth are we to do with this? I have a modest suggestion.
[tears papers in half]
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Joseph Cinque: [in Mende] What kind of a place is this where you almost mean what you say? Where laws almost work? How can you live like that?
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Joseph Cinque: Give us, us free. Give us, us free. Give us, us free. Give us, us free. Give us, us free.
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John Quincy Adams: [to the court] James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington... John Adams. We've long resisted asking you for guidance. Perhaps we have feared in doing so, we might acknowledge that our individuality, which we so, so revere, is not entirely our own. Perhaps we've feared an... an appeal to you might be taken for weakness. But, we've come to understand, finally, that this is not so. We understand now, we've been made to understand, and to embrace the understanding... that who we are *is* who we were. We desperately need your strength and wisdom to triumph over our fears, our prejudices, ourselves. Give us the courage to do what is right. And if it means civil war? Then let it come. And when it does, may it be, finally, the last battle of the American Revolution.
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John Quincy Adams: Well when I was an attorney, a long time ago, young man, I err... I realized after much trial and error, that in the courtroom, whoever tells the best story wins. In unlawyer-like fashion, I give you that scrap of wisdom free of charge.
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Tappan: [to Theodore] They may be of more value to our struggle in death than in life.
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John Quincy Adams: [to the court] Well, gentlemen, I must say I differ with the keen minds of the South and with our President, who apparently shares their views, offering that the natural state of mankind is instead - and I know this is a controversial idea - is freedom. Is freedom. And the proof is the length to which a man, woman or child will go to regain it once taken. He will break loose his chains. He will decimate his enemies. He will try and try and try, against all odds, against all prejudices, to get home.
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US Secretary of State Forsyth: The only thing John Quincy Adams will be remembered for is his middle name.
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[a band of abolitionists approach the outer gate of the prison where the Amistad refugees are being held for trial]
Fala: [in Mende] Who are they, do you think?
[the abolitionists kneel to pray]
Joseph Cinque: [in Mende] Looks like they are going to be sick.
Abolitionists: [singing] Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound...
Fala: [in Mende] They're entertainers!
Abolitionists: [singing] ... that saved a wretch like me...
Joseph Cinque: [in Mende] But why do they look so miserable?
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[the slave fortress in Sierra Leone is being bombarded from sea]
Captain Fitzgerald: Fire. Fire. Fire. Take a letter, Ensign. To His Honor, the United States Secretary of State, Mr. John Forsyth. My dear Mr. Forsyth, it is my great pleasure to inform you that you are, in fact, correct. The slave fortress in Sierra Leone does not exist.
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[last lines]
Queen Isabella: ¡Qué bonita!
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Baldwin: Captain Fitzerald, please explain to us your primary duties in Her Majesty's Navy.
Captain Fitzgerald: To patrol the Ivory Coast for slave ships.
Baldwin: Because?
Captain Fitzgerald: Because slavery is banned in British law, sir.
Baldwin: Yet the abduction of freemen from the British Protectorate of Sierra Leone and their illegal transportation to the New World, as described by Cinque, is not unheard of, is it?
Captain Fitzgerald: Not even unusual, regrettably.
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Baldwin: Cinque describes the cold-blooded murder of a significant portion of the people on board the Tecora. Mr Holabird sees this as a paradox. Do you, sir?
Captain Fitzgerald: Often when slavers are intercepted, or believe they may be, they simply throw all their prisoners over board and thereby rid themselves of the evidence of their crime.
Baldwin: Drown hundreds of people?
Captain Fitzgerald: Yes.
Holabird: It hardly seems a lucrative business to me, this slave trading. Going to all that trouble, rounding everybody up, only to throw them all overboard.
Captain Fitzgerald: No, its very lucrative.
Baldwin: If only we could corroborate Cinque's story somehow with evidence of some kind.
Captain Fitzgerald: The inventory. If you look, there's a notation made on May tenth, correcting the number of slaves on board, reducing their number by fifty.
Baldwin: What does that mean?
Captain Fitzgerald: Well, if you look at it in conjunction with Cinque's testimony, I would say that it means this: The Tecora crew have greatly underestimated the amount of provisions required for their journey, and solved the problem by throwing fifty people overboard.
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Holabird: I am looking at the same inventory, Captain, and I am sorry, I don't see where it says, 'Today we threw fifty slaves overboard', on May tenth or any other day.
Captain Fitzgerald: As, of course, you would not.
Holabird: I do see that the cargo weight changed. They reduced the poundage, I see. But that is all.
Captain Fitzgerald: It's simple, ghastly arithmetic.
Holabird: Well, for you, perhaps. I may need a quill and parchment, and a better imagination.
Captain Fitzgerald: And what poundage do you imagine the entry may refer to, Sir? A mast and sails perhaps?
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Joseph Cinque: [to Baldwin] Thank you. Baldwin
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Calderon: What's most bewildering to Her Majesty... is this arrogant independence of the American courts. After all, if you cannot rule the courts, you cannot rule.
Martin Van Buren: Señor Calderon, as any true American will tell you, it's the independence of our courts that keeps us free.
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[first lines]
Ruiz: [to Pedro Montes] That one wants us to sail them back. That one thinks he can sail all the way back without us.
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Theodore Joadson: They were first detained by officers of a brig off Long Island. They were conveyed to New Haven - under what authority, I don't know - and given over to the local constabulary. About forty of them, including four or five children. The arraignment is day after tomorrow. I can only assume that the charge is murder.
Tappan: I'll see what I can do about that.
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US Secretary of State Forsyth: [to Judge Juttson] These slaves your honor are by rights the property of Spain.
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Lt. Gedney: [to Judge Juttson] We, Thomas R. Gedney and Richard W. Meade, whilst commissioned U.S. Naval officers, stand before this court as private citizens, and do hereby claim salvage on the high seas of the Spanish ship La Amistad and all her cargo.
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Attorney: Your Honor, here are the true owners of the slaves.
Judge Juttson: Order!
Attorney: On their behalf, I am in possession of a receipt for purchase executed in Havana, Cuba, June twenty six, 1839, I do hereby call on this court to immediately surrender these goods!
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Theodore Joadson: There remains one task undone. One vital task the Founding Father's left to their sons...
John Quincy Adams: Yeah?
Theodore Joadson: ...before their thirteen colonies could precisely be called United States. And that task, Sir, as you well know, is crushing slavery.
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Baldwin: On the other hand, let's say they aren't slaves. If they aren't slaves, in which case they were illegally acquired, weren't they? Forget mutiny, forget piracy, forget murder and all the rest. Those are subsequent irrelevant occurrences. Ignore everything but the pre-eminent issue at hand. The wrongful transfer of stolen goods. Either way, we win.
Tappan: Sir, this war must be waged on the battlefield of righteousness.
Baldwin: The what?
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Theodore Joadson: [a slave speaks to Theodore in Mende] I'm sorry, I don't understand.
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Baldwin: [holds up a knife] Have you seen this before?
Joseph Cinque: [in Mende] I could kill you with my bare hands before you raise that sword.
Baldwin: This belongs to you? Does this? No, no. Umm, I need to know where you're from.
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Amistad Slave #1: [in Mende] He reminds me of that Fula of Baoma, you know the one who hires himself to scrape elephant dung from the crop rows.
Amistad Slave #2: [in Mende] A dung-scraper might be just the kind of man we need right now.
Baldwin: [point to a map] Here, Africa? Is this where you're from? A-fri-ca?
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Baldwin: [to the court] My clients journey did not begin in Havana, as they claim and keep claiming more and more emphatically. No, my clients' journey began much, much further away.
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US Secretary of State Forsyth: This could take us all one long step closer to civil war.
Martin Van Buren: Over this?
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John Quincy Adams: [to Theodore] You and this young so-called lawyer have proven you know what they are. They're Africans. Congratulations. What you don't know, and as far as I can tell haven't bothered in the least to discover, is who they are. Right?
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Baldwin: [to Cinque] Cinque, I need you to tell me how you got here.
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Baldwin: Our president, our big, big man has appealed the decision to our Supreme Court.
Ens. Covey: [translating for Cinque to John Quincy Adams] What does that mean?
Baldwin: We have to try the case again.
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Baldwin: [to Cinque] I said this before the judge, this is almost how it works here, almost.
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Ens. Covey: [translating for Cinque to John Quincy Adams] I will call to the past, far back to the beginning of time, and beg them to come and help me at the judgment. I will reach back and draw them into me, and they must come, for at this moment, I am the whole reason they have existed at all.
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John Quincy Adams: [to the court] Your Honor, I derive much consolation from the fact that my colleague, Mr. Baldwin here, has argued the case in so able, and so complete a manner, as to leave me scarcely anything to say. However... why are we here? How is it that a simple, plain property issue has should now find itself so ennobled as to be argued before the Supreme Court of the United States of America.
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John Quincy Adams: [to the court] This is the most important case ever to come before this court. Because what it in fact concerns is the very nature of man.
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Joseph Cinque: [in Mende] Baukei... hold your head up.
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Baldwin: [writing a letter to John Quincy Adams] To His Excellency, John Quincy Adams, Massachusetts member, House of Representatives. I have understood from Mr. Joadson that you are acquainted with the plight of the Amistad Africans. If that is true, then you are aware that we have been, at every step successful in our presentation of their case. Yet despite this and despite the unlikelihood of President Van Buren's re-election, he has appealed our most recent favorable decision to the highest court in the land. As I'm sure you are well aware, seven of nine of these Supreme Court justices are themselves Southern salve owners. Sir, we need you. If ever there was a time for a man to cast aside his daily trappings and array himself for battle, that time has come. Cicero once said, appealing to Claudius in defense of the Republic, that the whole result of this entire war depends on the life of one most brave and excellent man. In our time, in this instance, I believe it depends on two. A courageous man at present in irons in New Haven, named Cinque... and you sir. Sincerely Robert S. Baldwin, attorney-at law.
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John Quincy Adams: What is their story, by the way?
Theodore Joadson: Sir?
John Quincy Adams: What is their story?
Theodore Joadson: Why, they're um... they're from west Africa.
John Quincy Adams: No. What is their story?
Theodore Joadson: [exhales and looks confused]
John Quincy Adams: Mr. Joadson, you're from where originally?
Theodore Joadson: Why, Georgia, sir.
John Quincy Adams: Georgia.
Theodore Joadson: Yes, sir.
John Quincy Adams: Does that pretty much sum up what you are? A Georgian? Is that your story? No you're an ex-slave whose devoted his life to the abolition of slavery, and overcoming the obstacles and hardships along the way, I should imagine. That's your story, isn't it?
Theodore Joadson: [smiles and nods]
John Quincy Adams: [laughs] You and this young so-called lawyer have proven you know what they are. They're Africans. Congratulations. What you don't know, and as far as I can tell haven't bothered in the least to discover, is who they are. Right?
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Ens. Covey: [Translating for Cinque after he has been set free] What did you say to them?
John Quincy Adams: Huh?
Ens. Covey: [translates again] What words did you use to persuade them?
John Quincy Adams: [looks at Cinque] Yours.
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