The move Amistad and the story “ Interesting Narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano” have many similarities. The three similarities between the story and Amistad are the ways that the slaves were treated, the conditions of the ships, and the reactions of the slaves. In both the movie and the book slaves had to overcome horrific conditions to be freed, In the movie the main character Cinque was captured sold and thrown onto the Amistad and into the life of slavery but yet he was fought for and he finally made it home, In the story Olaudah finally was also on a slave ship and was sold into slavery.
One way the stories were similar was how they portrayed the slaves being treaten. The slaves were in awful conditions, being treated inhumanly and tortured. Many of the slaves were tortured by being whipped. They were gushing blood and had scars all over their backs as well as their whole bodies. In the Amistad the slaves were thrown off the ship into the dangerous most likely shark infested waters while being chained together. In both the movie and story, the slaves were virtually clueless into what was going to happen to them. Fear, blood, sweat and tears surrounded the hopeless Africans, as even mentioned in the book (81).
The conditions of the ships in both the Amistad and Olaudah were awful. In Olaudah he says “ When I looked around the ship too, and saw a large furnace of copper boiling, and a multitude of black people chained together, everyone of their counterances expressing dejection and sorrow, I no longer doubted of my fate, and quite overpowered with horror and anguish, I fell motionless on the dock and fainted.”(82)
This shows how scared the slaves were to be on that ship and the doubt they had in surviving. People were frightened; there was no room and barely enough supplies/food. In the Amistad slaves were thrown off the ship because supplies lacked, and there was no other way for the ships to keep other slaves alive. Water was scarce and people could barely find a way to stay alive.
Another similarity between both the movie and the story were the reactions that the Africans had. The Africans were in horror, scared, and afraid, because they just had no idea what was going on to them. They were new to the idea of the people that were taking them, speaking different languages. “ Their complexions, too, differing so much from ours, their long hair, and the language they spoke(which was very different from any I had ever heard) united to confirm me in this belief”(80). The Africans in the movie Amistad were also very unfamiliar with the languages and with what was going on with them. Those are the ways the Africans had reacted in both the movie and the story.
Many similarities exist between the movie Amistad and the story “ Interesting Narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano”, The Africans’ reactions were similar, the ship conditions were similar, and so were the reactions/emotions of the Africans.
