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Amistad is the name of a slave ship traveling from Cuba to the U.S. in 1839. It is carrying a cargo of Africans who have been sold into slavery in Cuba, taken on board, and chained in the cargo hold of the ship. As the ship is crossing from Cuba to the U.S., Cinqué, a leader of the Africans, leads a mutiny and takes over the ship. The mutineers spare the lives of two Portuguese navigators to help them sail the ship back to Africa. Instead, the navigators deceive the Africans and sail north to the east coast of the United States, where the ship is stopped by the American navy and the Africans imprisoned as runaway slaves. In an unfamiliar country and not speaking a word of English, it seems like they are doomed to die for killing their captors when an abolitionist lawyer decides to take their case, arguing that the Africans had been captured in Africa to be sold in the Americas illegally, and therefore were free citizens of another country and not slaves at all. The case is eventually appealed to the Supreme Court, where former U.S. President John Quincy Adams makes an impassioned and eloquent plea for their release.