Why is it so significant that the prisoners in Amistad do not speak spanish?
This is significant because Queen Isabelle of Spain claimed that the slaves were Spanish property, that the slaves had not come from Africa (as the defense claimed), but from the Caribbean (as the prosecution claimed). A majority of islands in the Caribbean were under Spanish control. By the time the events of the movie took place, the trans-Atlantic slave trade had been outlawed, making slavery (both legal and illegal) a highly profitable venture. If the prosecution could prove that the slaves were Spanish slaves from the Caribbean, Spain stood to make a fair amount of money from their sale. Demonstrating that the slaves did not understand one word of Spanish, not even their supposed names, was one of many points the defense made to show that the slaves could not have lived on the islands for any amount of time, let alone been born there. The fact that the slaves did not understand Spanish was a major blow to the case presented by the prosecution on the behalf of the Spanish monarch.
