Talk:La Amistad

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This talk page concerns the ship.

The description of the ship comes from the wikisource description in the court case. RPellessier | Talk 16:56, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I removed the description of La Amistad as a "slave ship" from the beginning text and added a description of what the term "slave ship" means in common useage (and the related article) as well as some material about the vessel's normal use as a coastal trading ship. I also added information about the (American) origin of the ship, a couple links, and a sentence about the play that was inspired by the ship and the incident that it was involved in.

geeman 28 June 2006

[edit] Of Slavery and Slave Ships

First, at the time of the La Amistad incident slavery itself was legal in the Americas, but the transport of slaves accross the Atlantic was illegal in Spain, the Americas and Britain. This fact is not particularly esoteric, but is also not commonly known, and so has been called into question a couple of times on this page. Perhaps the article should make this distinction outright, but I think going into the issue is better handled by articles dedicated more directly to that issue such as the Slavery, History of Slavery, Abolitionism, Asiento de Negros articles not to mention that of the legal case itself. The categories at the bottom link directly or indirectly to those articles, but perhaps an extension to the "See Also" links is in order. I'm thinking, though, that maybe an article that fully describes the legality of slave transport is in order? Anyone have thoughts on this?

Second, I think its important that the article draw the distinction between La Amistad and slave ships. The term slave ship in common usage (and as used on WP) refers to ships as described in the Slave Ship article: vessels that were built for speed to avoid/outrun the authorities across the Atlantic with a maximum of human cargo kept securely in a specially designed hold. While La Amistad is infamous for carrying slaves, not every vessel that did so should be defined as a slave ship. Not every rowboat, barge or ferry used to transport slaves across a body of water was, by default, a slave ship. Similarly, La Amistad was occasionally employed transporting slaves along the coast of Cuba. Changing the prose of this article from "Strictly speaking La Amistad was not a slave ship" or words to that effect to something that is arguably more direct and grammatical like "was not designed as a slave ship" unfortunately misses the distinction, and even implies that La Amistad actually was employed as a slave ship when that's not the case. Geeman 07:28, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] legal stuff

The article needs to discuss the legal stuff.--207.233.88.250 16:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

That's covered in the article Amistad (1841), mentioned in the "See Also" section. I can move the link up to the text covering the incident, if you think that would work better. scot 16:53, 9 March 2007 (UTC)