Amistad was a ship that carried slaves to the US. According to the owners of the ship, they came from Cuba. They had actually come from Africa where it was illegal to get slaves from. There was a trial to decide where the slaves on that ship came from, and there were different people who thought different things about the situation back then. Some people liked slavery, some hated it, and some avoided the situation altogether. Each one of these had good points to defend their case, but only one was a good one.
The first group of people were the ones who wanted to keep slavery. Most of these men were from the south, such as John Calhoun. He said that he needed slaves to survive. Without them he wouldn't be able to maintain his plantation and his business would go belly up. He even went as far as to threaten to have South Carolina secede from the Union. People such as this are what kept slav
ery going on for a long time, and made it very difficult on some people to make decisions, such as President Martin Van Buren.
The abolitionists had a big opinion though. They hated slavery, absolutely hated it. They made it part of their everyday life to try to abolish slavery, hence the name abolitionists. They printed newspapers such as "The Liberator" about how bad slavery was. Also a book called "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was written about the horrors of slavery. These people turned many heads in the slavery controversy. In the movie Amistad, the slaves noticed that these people always looked very sad. They were sad because they saw and knew how much pain and suffering these slaves went through. The lawyer for the slaves also was highly against slavery, as he proved time and time again that the slaves were from Africa, only so he could get them free. John Q. Adams was also another big name t
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