Amistad as a reflection of african agency

What is African Agency? Our last class we tried to come to term with a simple definition of African agency. Even though the definition I extrapolated might be concise, it’s component parts are deep and confusing. This definition explains that African agency is: a form of revolt made by the enslaved Africans. But here we have to ask another question, what is a revolt? And more important than that, what is a revolt by a slave? For my modest understanding a revolt by a slave is just a medium to go back to their human state. Slavery is a procces of dehumanization. A slave was a machine, so much was a slave a machine that slavery was abolished by law[1] around the time which the industrial revolution took place in Britain. In other words, the value of a slave was diminished, and later anhiliated by the invention of machinery. Therefore a slave could have been engaged in agency in every moment in which he acted like a human. This is not a fair definition either, because slaves were and are humans. For the purpose of this paper I would define agency as the actions done by enslaved African in order to reveal their identity. To say it in other words, the actions that were taken (either violent or not) by the enslaved Africans in order to not loose their identity.
Another important definition for this paper is the meaning of the word representation. A representation is an enactment, a secondhand action. In government, representatives are the catalhists of the people. In the movies a representation is a reenactment of the facts. A historical representation has to be as accurate as possible. But can this representation be completely accurate? In here we are dealing with the issue of objectivity. I think that today’s historiography, and especially the history done in the field of slavery is characterized by a good amount of subjectivity. However, it is impossible (in my modest opinion) not to be subjective in this field. This is because slavery entails feeling, it request our humanist side to represent the horrors experienced by the enslaved people.
Amistad is a subjective movie. I think that sometimes it’s historical perspective falls short through it’s hollywoodesque grandiosity. However, when it comes to the issue of agency, I think that the movie represents the facts in a vivid and believable manner. To my understanding there are four major representations of African Agency in the movie. The movie starts with a representation of agency, in here Cinque frees himself because he wants to go back to his family in Africa. He is claiming the life that was stolen from him and from his other shipmates. I don’t exactly know how Cinque freed himself in reality; in the movie I though it was shown in a negative manner. Even though he is enslaved, he is shown as a barbaric man who does not know how to reason. The good thing about this representation is that (especially since is at the beginning of a long movie) it engages the viewer in the mindset of the slave. This is pretty important because it looses some objectivity but (to a certain extent) it eliminates the problematic of not having the though skin to talk about what happened. To a certain extent, it does not matter how much scholarly research we do, there were some slaves that went through hell, and we would never be able to fully represent their situation. The best thing we can do is to aim to the highest and most objective point we can reach.
The second important representation of agency happens in the retention facility. In here the slaves want to honor a dead friend. The ruler of the facility wants to bury the body himself in the traditional western way. The slaves are refusing because they don’t want to angry their ancestors. It is in here were the plot thickens. How on earth is this a representation of African Agency? The reason for me that this is agency is that it conserves identity. An agent is a human being who portrays an identity[2], in here the Africans are honoring their identitry by practicing their traditional ritual. It is true that if you see this act from the perspective of the slaves, this is not a revolt; they are not following a costume that it is not theirs. And more important, they are in a country that it’s not theirs, and in which they have not chose to live. However, if we take the perspective of the slave, then the concept of agency (at least as we know it) has to be abandoned. Therefore, this is a representation of African agency, it a representation of the fight against acculturation[3].
The third portray of agency is the most hollywoodesque of them all. In here Cinque has a meltdown in court. He raises his voice, in the middle of a presentation by the plaintiff lawyer (who represents the U.S government, and a heck of a lot of different people), and he starts shouting “Set us, us free”. I don’t know if this is true or not. However, I think it is agency because it is showing that their freedom is more important than anything else (which for me it certainly is), and to explain this he does not observe any type of courtesy. Again, this represents the return to the lost identity, the search for the complete being that the slave constantly pursued. The last scene that represented agency was the celebration before the final trial. In here the slaves were Africans again and they were enjoying their regained freedom. Anyhow, they were partying in a holding facility, in another continent and under the supervision of people that did not understand their practices.
I think that the major component of agency in my book is the lack of communication. Or to say it simply, misunderstanding. The slaves could not understand themselves as a commodity, but that was the way in which they were treated by the western world. After a free man became a slave, he lost his ancestral heritage. We can read a lot about suicide in the ships because of the animist nature of the African religions. People believed that after death they returned to their motherland and joined their ancestors. The people that did not went through such extreme lengths to regain their identity had to do something in order to cope with their lost of self. Some people danced, if they were allowed; others sang, others followed some ancient rituals. The idea behind agency is to regain some of the stolen spirit of the free man. Amistad tells the story of a man[4] who did not settle just for a small demonstration of his culture and his being here and there. Cinque wanted his whole life back, and the intention of the movie is to portray that. In that respect, even though they felt to some of the Hollywood moneymaking ruts, I think they did a good job. And specifiacally to the scope of this paper, I think that the representation of agency was, even though slightly exaggerated, well done from a cultural standpoint. It shows that they study the culture and the religions of the Membe before filming and that is always important.
[1] A law does not represent the full picture. Even though slavery was abolished, it was a common illegal practice until the last 100 years( give or take a couple of decades).
[2] James Bond anyone? He is an Agent, his identity is that he has a license to kill. He likes dry Martinis and the ladies go head over heels for him.
[3] Some viewers might argue that later in the movie there are a couple of scenes that demonstrate acculturation. In the first of them one slave has become more familiar with the story of the bible and tells it to Cinque. However, it is the bible trough the eyes of an enslaved African. In another scene Cinque tells Adems that his ancestors will help him in the trial. Later on the movie Adams explain Cinque that he won the trial by using his words. This from y standpoint are examples of syncretism instead of acculturation. They are in the movie to show that we are humans and it’s great that we can use our differences in the benefit of the greatest amount of people.
[4] We can Argue that the substory of Joadson is also the story of a man who did not search just for a painkiller to slavery but a complete end of his condition as a slave.