The makers of Amistad took pains to ensure what is, for Hollywood, a high degree of historical accuracy, hiring Clifton Johnson, the founder of the Amistad Research Center in New Orleans, as a researcher, and Arthur Abraham, a Mende scholar, as "African Language and Cultural Advisor." Nonetheless, the pressures of narrative did lead to some embellishment of the historical record.

1) The relationship between John Quincy Adams and Cinque. In the movie, Adams and Cinque become so close that they discuss legal strategy at Adams' house. Cinque sits behind the ex-president during the Supreme Court hearing. But there is no historical evidence to suggest that they ever met more than fleetingly. In Mutiny on the Amistad, Howard Jones, a professor of history at the University of Alabama, writes that Adams visited the Connecticut jail in which the captives were held. (The movie also leaves out one intriguing detail about the jail: Citizens paid a fee to visit the Africans, and touring the prison became a popular pastime.)

2) Joadson, the black abolitionist played by Morgan Freeman. He was invented by the screenwriters. At the Amistad Web site, Debbie Allen, one of the film's producers, explains, "Joadson is the embodiment of the African-American abolitionist movement of the day. He's a former slave who has become educated and is struggling to abolish slavery. Morgan's character allows us to see how black people were at the core of those movements. His character is a composite of such historic figures as James Forten, David Walker, James Pennington and Henry Highland Garnet."

3) President Martin Van Buren. According to Sean Wilentz, writing in the New Republic: "[A]s played by Nigel Hawthorne, he comes off more like an amiable buffoon than like the shrewd backroom politician that Van Buren was; and Van Buren's presidency seems to last a year longer than it did. (The film does accurately convey Van Buren's hopelessly equivocal stance on slavery.)"

4) Roger Baldwin, the defense lawyer played by Matthew McConaughey. The film depicts him as a legal hustler with no moral commitment to his clients. Only well into the case does he convert to the abolitionist cause. Jones writes that the real Baldwin "had already become known as a defender of justice for the unfortunate." Nor was he as scrappy, young, or disheveled as the film suggests. Wilentz notes, "The actual Baldwin, who was 46 and a distinguished public official at the time of the Amistad uprising, was the scion of a prominent Connecticut family, and would be elected the state's governor three years after the Amistad case was settled."

5) Did Cinque speak English? In the film, the abolitionists don't learn much Mende and the Mende don't learn much English. When they do speak each other's language, it's for dramatic effect. One of the more poignant moments in the film is when Cinque calls out in court, "Give us free!" According to Mutiny on the Amistad, some of the Mende learned quite a bit of English. Cinque even learned to write in English.

--Jared Hohlt