"The story of the 1839 revolt on the Amistad slave ship gained new prominence with Steven Spielberg's 1997 film, which helped make the American public more aware of how the history of slavery has defined racism in the United States. As Iyunolu Folayan Osagie shows, the perspective for someone born in Sierra Leone is markedly different. Osagie digs deeply into the story to show the historical and contemporary relevance of the incident and its subsequent trials and how they together contributed to the construction of identity in both Africa and the United States."--BOOK JACKET.