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"The Amistad Case"
O'DONNELL & SHAEFFER, LLP
Attorneys for Plaintiff BARBARA CHASE-RIBOUD, an Individual, Plaintiff, v. DREAMWORKS, Inc. (dba DREAMWORKS SKG) a Delaware Corporation; DREAMWORKS FILMS LLC, a California limited liability company; DREAMWORKS DISTRIBUTION LLC, a California limited liability company; DREAMWORKS LLC, a California limited liability company; PUNCH PRODUCTIONS, INC., a Connecticut Corporation; PENGUIN PUTNAM, INC., a Delaware Corporation; PENGUIN BOOKS, USA, INC., a New York Corporation; and DOES 4 through 50, inclusive, Defendants. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA WESTERN DIVISION CASE NO. CV-97-7619 ABC (JGx) DECLARATION OF BARBARA CHASE RIBOUD IN SUPPORT OF PLAINTIFF'S MOTION FOR A PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION Date: December 8, 1997 Time: 10:00 a.m. Courtroom: 690 I, BARBARA CHASE-RIBOUD, declare as follows: 1. I am the Plaintiff in this case and the author of the novel Echo of Lions. I am a graduate of Yale University's Design and Architectural School and have honorary degrees from Temple University, Mulenburg University and the University of Connecticut. I have personal knowledge of the facts set forth in this Declaration and, if called as a witness in this matter, I could and would competently testify to them. BACKGROUND 2. In addition to being a novelist, I am also a sculptor and a poet. My sculpture has been exhibited worldwide and is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Currently, I am working on a sculpture for the federal government of the United States won through a competition and commissioned for the African Burial Ground in Foley Square in Manhattan. I have published two collections of poetry. In 1988, I won the Carl Sandburg Prize as "best American poet" for my second collection, Portrait of a Nude Woman as Cleopatra. I have won numerous awards and prizes, including a National Fellowship of the Arts. I was recently knighted by the French government in arts and letters. I am a member of several learned societies both in the United States and abroad. 3. My trademark as an author is novelizing what I call excised history - history that has been consciously removed from the historical record. My first novel, Sally Hemings (published in 1979) is the story of the excised relationship between Thomas Jefferson and his slave Hemings. This book sold three million copies and won the 1979 Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize as the best novel written by an American woman. The protagonist of my second historical novel, Valide (published in 1986), is an unknown, unnamed victim of the white slave trade who, as a captive harem concubine in Topkapi, became the mother of the Turkish Sultan Muhammad II, Emperor of the Ottoman Empire in the early nineteenth century. After publishing Echo of Lions in 1989, which brought to life the excised story of the slave rebellion aboard the Amistad and the first civil rights trial in America I published The President's Daughter in 1994. This historical novel is about Harriet Hemings, the daughter of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson, and tells the tragedy of the institutionalized `'crime" of miscegenation. WRITING THE NONFICTION NOVEL 4. A nonfiction novel requires exactly the same research as a history or biography. Before writing, I research both primary and secondary historical sources to come as close to the reality of the time, place and events as possible. After selecting the portions of the historical record that I want to use or emphasize, I fuse history with my own mode of expression. I may invent characters out of whole cloth who are solidly grounded in the reality of the time and place, but do not exist in the historical record. Or, I may use an historic figure in the fiction, but fill in gaps in the record or alter that character to fit the plot or setting of my work. This is particularly true of characters who have been excised from history. As I stated in an interview with the Associated Press, printed in part on April 3, 1989: "To dramatize a historical person who has not entered into the mainstream, you have to find his personality, imagine one for him." (Attached hereto as Exhibit "A" is a true and accurate copy of an article, dated April 3, 1989, from the Associated Press by Geneva Collins entitled "Books and Authors: The Resurrection of History's 'Invisible Men."'). As part of my creative expression, I create aspects of character and scenes with that character as a narrative device. For example, there were many gaps in the historical record with respect to James Hemings, Sally Hemings' brother. I imagined him as an angry young man, and expressed that anger in scenes in Sally Hemings which are not part of the historical record. Another example from Sally Hemings is the census-taker, Nathan Langdon, who was a real person who changed Hemings race from black to white in the 1836 census. I use him in the novel as a narrative device, as a conduit to Sally's story, by having him fall in love with her while listening to her story. 5. Another way I weave fact with fiction is by taking actual historical documents, such as letters, and changing them in some way through creative expression. I used this technique in Sally Hemings. where I used real love letters Thomas Jefferson had written to a woman named Maria Cosway, and changed the recipient from Cosway to Hemings. I sometimes take a real fact and alter only the context, or date or subject, transforming the fact into an historically-based fiction. I also relate history through the prism of artistic devices, such as image and metaphor, which do not exist in the historical record and are my own creative means of expressing history. WHY I WROTE ECHO OF LIONS 6. I wrote Echo of Lions for two basic reasons. First, I wanted to return to the public consciousness an important series of events that had been excised from history: the rebellion aboard the ship named the "Amistad" by Africans illegally brought to Cuba as slaves, their subsequent odyssey through the American court system, and the decision by the United States Supreme Court which set them free. Second, I wanted to tell the story from a modem perspective by concentrating on the Africans' point of view and allowing them to participate in their fate. After conducting three years of research into the historical background of the "Amistad" affair, I realized that I would be telling a story that nobody had ever told before -- the story of the first American civil rights trial. RESEARCHING THE AMISTAD CASE 7. Prior to writing Echo of Lions. I conducted three years of research. During this time, I read all the books and documents connected with the Amistad case. In addition, I read books and documents related to nineteenth century American history, the slave trade, slavery in America, African culture, Mende culture (the local culture in Cinque's home region of Africa), ship navigation, the abolitionist movement, the underground railroad, the construction of nineteenth century slave ships and slave barracoons, and biographies of the principal characters such as Queen Victoria I also consulted an expert in nineteenth century navigation. 8. I reviewed most of the primary sources and documents at the archives or libraries where they are stored. These included the Federal Archives and Records Center in Waltham, Massachusetts, the Beinecke Rare Books Library and Sterling Memorial Library at Yale University, the libraries of the New Haven Colony and the Massachusetts Historical Societies, the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress and the National Archives, as well as the Oriental Library, Marine Museum, Biblioteque Nationale and French national archives, all in Paris, France. 9. The primary sources and documents I examined included all of the relevant court transcripts, the published argument before the Supreme Court, newspaper articles about the rebellion, and the papers, letters, diaries, memoirs and biographies of historical figures, such as John Quincy Adams, Louisa Adams, R. R. Madden, the Tappans, Roger Baldwin, Frederick Douglass and the Grirnke sisters. I also read eighteenth and nineteenth century "confessions" of slave traders, narratives of American slaves, journals of adventurers in Africa, such as Mungo Park, and papers written by members of the African Patrol, such as the manuscript log book and diaries of the American Admiral Andrew Foote. 10. At the time I was researching Echo of Lions. only six other books had been written about the Amistad affair: Black Mutiny by William Owens; The Long Black Schooner by Emrna Gelders Sterner A History of the Amistad Captives by John Warner Barber; Black Odyssey by Mary Cable; The Amistad Affair by Christopher Martin; and The Amistad Revolt by Helen Kromer. None of these books could be considered serious or scholarly works. Two of the books, The Long Black Schooner and The Amistad Revolt. could be considered children's or young people's books. In addition to reading all of these books, I also read Mutiny on the Amistad. a textbook by Howard Jones, which was published at the same time as Echo of Lions. although it was copyrighted one year earlier. In almost a unique case, this textbook had no bibliography because no secondary sources existed, only primary. (Attached hereto as Exhibit C is a true and accurate copy of a printout showing all books listed under the subject "Amistad-Schooner" under the Library of Congress subject "Amistad" as of November 23, 1996.) 11. I reviewed other secondary sources that were not specifically about the Amistad affair. These included John Quincy Adams and the Union by Samuel Flagg; Slaven and the Politics of Liberation 1787-1861: A Study of British Anti-Slavery Policy by Johnson U.J. Asiegbu; The Mende of Sierra Leone by Kenneth Little; Slavery and Social Death by Orlando Patterson; Slavery and Human Progress by David Brion David; The Problem of Slaven in the Age of Revolution by David Brion David; A View of Sierra Leone by F.W.H. Miegod; the dictionary of Mende language, thought and grammar published in 1909 by F.W.H. Miegod; and a history of the underground railroad by Charles Blockson. I also reviewed military history books for details on arms, marine warfare, and marine weapons. 12. I also consulted with Professor Howard A. Parnham of the New York City Planetarium in order to understand fully the basic astronomy and knowledge of the constellations required to sail in the nineteenth century. 13. By virtue of the research outlined above, I am an expert in the history of the Amistad case and can readily distinguish facts that are part of the historical record from the creative expression of those facts. 14. The story communicated to me by the many primary and few secondary sources provided me with the following historical framework for the novel. In August 1839, an American survey brig spotted a suspicious-looking schooner off of Long Island, and went to investigate. It found thirty-nine Africans and two Spaniards on board. This was the "Amistad," a Spanish slaver whose cargo of slaves led by Joseph Cinque had mutinied, killed the captain and some of the crew, and was trying to sail back home to Africa. The judicial proceedings which followed their capture focused primarily on the issues of whether or not the slaves were property and the applicability to this case of a treaty with Spain which would require their return to their owners, if the court deemed them to be property. The Administration of President Martin van Buren interceded on behalf of the Spanish government. The District Court decided that the purported owners of the Africans did not have sufficient proof of title. The United States appealed to the Circuit Court, which affirmed the District Court decision, and then to the Supreme Court. John Quincy Adams argued on behalf of the Africans. The Supreme Court affirmed, and Cinque and his men were allowed to return to Africa 15. I did not use the entire historical record in the novel. Instead, I selected some parts of it, and consciously left out others depending on the narrative purpose, how I wanted to use that part of the record. I then decided upon the emphasis to give the parts I had chosen. For example, John Quincy Adams' oral argument before the Supreme Court was quite lengthy. The printed version is more than 125 pages. I selected seventeen paragraphs from the argument to appear verbatim in the novel as representative of the entire argument. (Echo of Lions. Exhibit B at 330-334, 336-337. Attached hereto as Exhibit B are true and accurate copies of all pages from Echo of Lions referenced in this declaration. All references to Exhibit "B" will follow the format "Echo of Lions. Exhibit B at [page numbers from Echo of Lions].") In these paragraphs, Adams sounds primarily the themes of justice and the interference of the President in the judicial proceedings. I included a letter Adams read to the Court from the Secretary of State to the federal marshal of New Haven about the order of the President to deport the Africans aboard the Grampus. Quincy Adams interprets the order as emanating from the President. I chose to de-emphasize the lengthy sections of ' the argument on the property aspects of the case because I wanted the argument to resonate with modern readers and reinforce the perspective of the Amistad case as the first civil rights trial, rather than as a case about property. 16. Similarly, I de-emphasized the parts of the historical record which narrate the Christianization of the Africans, and expressed those attempts in a negative light. (Echo of Lions, Exhibit B at 200-202.) That part of the record is voluminous. After all, a missionary society was founded in connection with the Amistad case. THE CREATION OF THE CHARACTER OF HENRY BRAITHWAITE 17. This story communicated to me by history had many gaps and was narrated to me from a perspective that predated the civil rights movement. I filled the gaps and changed the perspective with fictional scenes and characters. The historical record made no mention of African-Americans at the time of the Amistad case -- neither their involvement in it nor their point of view. I created the character of Henry Braithwaite to fill this gap. Braithwaite is an affluent, erudite AfricanAmerican who works in the anti-slavery movement by secretly publishing abolitionist material. (Echo of Lions. Exhibit B at 102, 150, 151.) He is a strong Black man who acts "uppity." (Echo of Lions. Exhibit B at 254.) 18. Braithwaite functions in many ways. I use him to express the links between the black and white communities and Black America and Africa. (See. e.g., Echo of Lions, Exhibit B at 197, 199-201.) He also serves to express the African-American point-of-view on the Amistad case and race in America, giving a voice to black Americans ignored by the historical record. (See. e.g., Echo of Lions. Exhibit B at 105, 148-151, 197, 254, 334-335, 341.) Through his words and interactions with white America, he expresses the problems and ambiguities faced by AfricanAmericans in the United States in the nineteenth century and today. (See' e g., Echo of Lions, Exhibit B at 105, 150, 254, 341. Much of Braithwaite seems extremely modern.) THE CREATION OF THE CHARACTER OF CINQUE 19. I found a similar gap with respect to Cinque. The historical record, in particular the trial testimony, gave me some raw data about his life and capture in Africa and the uprising on the Amistad. Even though he speaks (through an interpreter) at the trial, the point-of-view is that of white America: they are asking the questions. Almost everything else in the historical record about Cinque is filtered through a white perspective. We never hear Cinque's voice. For example, segments of the press at the time espoused the view that the Africans seemed intelligent, but were primitive and certainly not capable of understanding the judicial process in the United States. (See, e.g., Declaration of John Shaeffer, Exhibit 45.) 20. I imagined Cinque differently, and expressed my imagination in the figure of a man who understood what was happening in the American courts and contributed to his defense. My expression was grounded in my research on Mende culture. I was surprised to discover that nineteenth century Mende society had a judicial system amazingly similar to the American one. They had a Supreme Court, a district court, a circuit court. They had appeal, cross-examination and bail. As I mentioned in the aforementioned interview with the Associated Press shortly after the publication of Echo of Lions. this discovery "allowed me to present Cinque not as a kind of dumb savage in a situation he does not understand, but as a man, a very perplexed man, stuck in a situation that he does understand." (Exhibit A.) The Cinque expressed by my imagination remains true to his African roots. He understands the court proceedings, and as I imagined he would do in Africa, calls upon his ancestors to help him. (Echo of Lions. Exhibit B at 249.) THE INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CINOUE AND JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 21. I imagined Cinque as the equal of his defender, John Quincy Adams, and expressed my imagination in scenes in which the two great men meet and form an intimate relationship. .(Echo of Lions, Exhibit B at 287-302.) The historical record does not treat them as peers, and makes no mention of a meeting between them. The only "meeting" between the two appears in Black Mutiny, where the meeting is permeated by the racism of the of the pre-civil rights era in which it was written. The meeting is described as "a meeting of primitive man and the finest product of civilization." Cinque and Adams do not speak with each other. Adams surveys the Africans and asks if "the two light ones," "the two that are almost mulatto bright" learn "better than the others." The jailer responds in the negative. Then Adams pats the "fleece" of one of the Africans, and departs. (Attached hereto as Exhibit D are true and accurate copies of pages 253 and 254 of Black Mutiny.) 22. I expressed the meeting as "a conversation between America and Africa, not between the Republic and a slave" (Echo of Lions. Exhibit B at 296) in which Adams shows great respect for Cinque. (Echo of Lions, Exhibit B at 287-302.) They have a lengthy conversation about the case (Echo of Lions. Exhibit B at 287-302). Cinque also supplies Adams with a theme that surfaces in his oral argument before the Supreme Court: the continuity of the voyage. (Echo of Lions Exhibit B at 290-291, 331-334, 336-337.) 23. Echo of Lions was published in January 1989. I registered it with the United States Copyright Office on February 10, 1989. (Attached hereto as Exhibit E is a true and accurate copy of Form TX showing registration of Echo of Lions with the United States Copyright Office on February 10, 1989.) Currently, I hold the exclusive rights to the copyright in Echo of Lions and to its exploitation in the United States. ECHO OF LIONS AND THE CRITICS 24. The novel met with critical acclaim. I was particularly gratified that the critics recognized my technique of weaving fact with fiction, and the modern post-civil rights perspective. The San Diego Union-Tribune praised the approach I took in the novel: "The book could have been written many ways. It could have been a tearjerking saga of the bravery and trial of Cinque - and there is some of that. Or it could have been the noble story of John Quincy Adams, the rogue ex-president .... Adams gets his due, but there's a more important theme.... racial prejudice." (Attached hereto as Exhibit F is a true and accurate copy of a review from the San Diego Union Tribune by Jack Reber, dated February 17, 1989.) 25. Alex Haley wrote on the inside jacket of the cover of the novel: "Echo of Lions gives us Barbara Chase-Riboud's characteristic awesome research and brilliant dramatization of, I think, the most gripping, significant and epic saga that a century of slave ships ever produced." (Attached hereto as Exhibit G is a true and accurate copy of the inside jacket of Echo of Lions.) 26. A review in the Los Angeles Times stated that I "tell[] the story of Cinque and his fellow mutineers with a particular talent for re-creating the story from the African point of view.... Historians have written shelves of books on the slave trade . . . but they have never adequately captured, as this skilled novelist has done, the terror and trauma of the enslavement experience." (Attached hereto as Exhibit H is a true and accurate copy of a review from the Los Angeles Times by Gary B. Nash of the UCLA History Department, dated June 18, 1989.) 27. The Christian Science Monitor noted the impact of adding creative expression to history: "Chase-Riboud complements the facts of Cinque's story with precise and evocative prose. The actual trial speeches are explosively dramatic. The author heightens their impact with finely drawn details about the crowds, the lawyers, and the Africans engaged in this struggle." (Attached hereto as Exhibit I is a true and accurate copy of a review from the Christian Science Monitor by S.J. Tirrell, dated March 22, 1989.) But most of all, I was gratified that I had succeeded in communicating to the world that this was "one of [the Supreme Court's] earliest civil rights opinions." (Exhibit A.) Nobody had ever portrayed the case in that light. 28. Echo of Lions has been translated into five major languages and has soft over 500,000 copies around the world. It is quite easy to find in any library in the United States because it is catalogued under the Library of Congress subject heading "Amistad - Schooner." (Exhibit C.) I am surprised that DreamWorks claims that while it has consulted with renowned experts, none of them have ever read Echo of Lions -- the most recent, most popular book prior to the writing of the screenplay. (Attached hereto as Exhibit T is a true and accurate copy of an article from the Los Angeles Times. dated October 24, 1997, by Claudia Eller.) CONTACTS WITH SPIELBERG IN 1988 AND 1989 29. Shortly before Echo of Lions was published, my friend, Jacqueline Kenndey Onassis, who was an editor at Doubleday, submitted a manuscript of the novel to Steven Spielberg. (Attached hereto as Exhibit J is a true and accurate copy of a letter, dated April 11, 1988, from Kathleen Kennedy to Jacqueline Onassis.) At the request of Mr. Spielberg's production company, Amblin Entertainment, Inc., I flew to Los Angeles in April 1988 to meet Amblin executives who were enthusiastic about the story. 04.) Shortly after this meeting, however, Amblin executives informed me that they saw "too may obstacles in adapting [the book] to a feature film." Instead, they seemed to feel that "the material [was] better suited to a mini-series than the large screen." They did indicate that if "the story ever reach[ed] the screenplay stage in the future, [they] would be thrilled to read and re-consider it." (Attached hereto as Exhibit K is a true and accurate copy of a letter, dated April 25, 1988, from Deborah Newmyer and Alex Siskin to Barbara Chase-Riboud.) Despite their misgivings, Amblin never returned my submission. I also sent a copy of the novel to Mr. Spielberg shortly after it was published. That copy was never returned. THE OPTION WITH PUNCH PRODUCTIONS 30. In February 1993, I granted Dustin Hoffman's production company, Punch Productions, Inc. ("Punch") a 12 month option for the right to license the theatrical motion picture rights to Echo of Lions. It was my understanding that Mr. Hoffman was to play a role in any motion picture version of Echo of Lions produced by Punch. (Attached hereto as Exhibit L is a true and accurate copy of an option agreement, dated February 4, 1993, between Barbara Chase-Riboud and Punch.) This option was later renewed for two six-month and one additional month periods. Ultimately, Punch let its option lapse on or around March 1, 1995. My agent was Herb Chayette at International Creative Management. (Attached hereto as Exhibits M, N, O, and P are, respectively, a letter, dated February 25, 1994, from Jill Smith to Barbara Chase-Riboud; a facsimile, dated August 31, 1994, from Herb Cheyette to Barbara Chase-Riboud; a letter, dated February 28, 1995, from Jill Smith to Hab Cheyette; and a letter, dated March 8, 1995, from Jill Smith to Herb Cheyette.) Later, I learned that Mr. Hoffman had been offered a role in Mr. Spielberg's Amistad. (Attached hereto as Exhibit U is a true and accurate copy of an article from Daily Variety, dated November 15, 1996.) SPIELBERG AND THE MOTION PICTURE AMISTAD 31. On or about November 22, 1996, I was surprised to read that on November 7, 1996, DreamWorks announced that the first film Steven Spielberg would direct for DreamWorks would be Amistad. a period piece based on a true story of an 1839 mutiny on a slave ship. I was shocked to learn that Mr. Spielberg "was taken with the possibilities of telling an intimate story between two extraordinary men -- an African slave and an ex-President of the United States set against an epic historical backdrop." (Attached hereto as Exhibit Q is a true and accurate copy an article from Daily Variety, dated November 7, 1996.) As I have already stated above, there is no historical source for an "intimate story between two extraordinary men," no historical reference to a meeting between the two and no basis in any secondary work for such a rendering -- other than Echo of Lions which I gave to Mr. Spielberg in 1988 and 1989. 32. On or about November 22, 1997, I contacted DreamWorks through my agent at ICM to remind them about my prior submission of Echo of Lions to Mr. Spielberg through Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, to offer to consult on the movie, and to ask if my book had been used as a reference in the Amistad project. DreamWorks told my agent that the "the ship has already sailed on the project," and that the company had no interest in acquiring my rights to Echo of Lions or retaining me as a consultant. 33. I continued to communicate with DreamWorks through my lawyers. DreamWorks offered various and conflicting explanations as to the source for Amistad -- and in particular the source for the "intimate relationship" between John Quincy Adams and Cinque. Finally, DreamWorks told me through my lawyers that the source for the relationship between Cinque and John Quincy Adams was Black Mutiny by William A. Owens, to which DreamWorks had a license. Black Mutiny, which was first published in 1953 and republished in 1968, could not have been the basis for the motion picture Amistad. because it lacks all of the imagined characters, dialogue, relationships and scenes shared by Amistad and Echo of Lions, and reflects the racism of the pre civil rights era. As already shown in paragraph 21, the meeting between Cinque and Adams in Black Mutiny is infected with the racism of that era. 34. After a series of requests, DreamWorks provided my lawyers and me in the spring with a copy of the shooting script for Amistad, dated January 24, 1997. The cover indicates that two screenplays, one by Steve Zaillian and the other by David Franzoni, underlie the shooting script. It has recently come to my attention that Mr. Franzoni was commissioned to write his screenplay as early as June 1, 1995. (Attached hereto as Exhibit V is a true and accurate cow of an article from Daily Variety. dated June 1, 1995 entitled DreamWorks Preps Princes ....") I read this shooting script and was shocked to discover that there are numerous striking similarities between this shooting script and Echo of Lions that have no basis in the historical record and are solely my creative expression of history or my creative inventions to evoke and enhance the power of the narration or the interpretation of the facts. As early as March 21, 1997, DreamWorks has been fully apprised of these similarities by my lawyers through meetings and correspondence. (See e.g., Exhibit 102 to the Declaration of John Shaeffer.) 35. On November 12, 1997, I viewed the motion picture Amistad at a screening in New York for the foreign press. I have the appropriate credentials for admission to such a screening. Some of the similarities between the shooting script and the novel pointed out by my lawyers have been edited out. But the heart and soul of Echo of Lions -- the intimate relationship between Cinque and John Quincy Adams and the character Braithwaite -- still breathes life into Amistad as the heart and soul of the motion picture. I feel that I have been violated by the theft of my creative work by DreamWorks, and am at a loss to understand why Mr. Spielberg would not have sought to purchase Echo of Lions and give me a screen credit. It would have been not only the right thing to do, but a modest gesture to the writer who resurrected the Amistad and Cinque from excised history. Now my years of hard work and my unique literary inventions and acts of creativity have been totally ignored and falsely portrayed as the creativity of David Franzoni and DreamWorks. I come to this Court for justice. THE SIMILARITY BETWEEN BRAITHWAITE AND JOADSON 36. The character of Theodore Joadson appears throughout Amistad. Joadson has the same characteristics as Henry Braithwaite and functions in the motion picture in the same way as Braithwaite in Echo of Lions. (See Paragraphs 17 and 18 for my artistic intent in creating Braithwaite and the expression of that intent.) Like Braithwaite, Joadson is an erudite, prosperous African-American who works in the anti-slavery movement by secretly publishing abolitionist material. (Shooting Script, Exhibit R at 17-19. Attached hereto as Exhibit R are true and accurate copies of all pages from the shooting script, dated January 24, 1997, of Amistad referenced in this declaration. All references to Exhibit R will follow the format "Shooting Script, Exhibit R at [page numbers from shooting script].") Like Braithwaite, Joadson is a strong Black man who acts "uppity." (Shooting Script, Exhibit R at 31-32.) 37. Like Braithwaite, Joadson functions as a link between the black and white communities and Black America and Africa. (See e.g. Shooting Script, Exhibit R at 18-19, 31-32, 34-37, 66-68, 71.) He expresses the African-American point-of-view on the Amistad case and race in America. (See, ea.. Shooting Script, Exhibit R at 18-19, 31-32, 34, 52-53, 102-103, 107-108.) Through his words and interactions with white America, Joadson expresses the problems and ambiguities faced by African-Americans in the United States in the nineteenth century and today. (See. e.g.. Shooting Script, Exhibit R at 31-32, 102-103, 107-108.) Braithwaite and Joadson are an expression of the same creative intent. CINOUE IN ECHO OF LIONS AND AMISTAD 38. In Amistad. Cinque steps out of the historical record and assumes the fictive role he played in Echo of Lions. (See Paragraphs 19 and 20 for my artistic intent in augmenting the historical figure of Cinque with fiction and the expression of that intent.) Again, we hear Cinque's voice. Again, we see a man who truly understands what is happening in the American courts and contributes to his defense. (Shooting Script, Exhibit R at 116-119.) Again, he remains true to his African roots, and calls upon his ancestors to help him in his legal battle. (Shooting Script, Exhibit R at 122, 126-127.) THE INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CINQUE AND JOHN QUINCY ADAMS IN ECHO OF LIONS AND AMISTAD 39. I want to emphasize again that the historical record and Black Mutiny do not treat Cinque and John Quincy Adams as peers, and do not describe an intimate relationship between the two men. The meeting in Black Mutiny between Cinque and Adams is permeated with racism and leads to no relationship, much less an intimate one. As in Echo of Lions, the meeting between the two men in Amistad is a meeting between America and Africa, in which Adams shows great respect for Cinque. (Shooting Script, Exhibit R at 119-122.) Again, they have a lengthy conversation about the case. (Id.) Again, Cinque supplies Adams with a theme for his oral argument before the Supreme Court. (Shooting Script, Exhibit R at 122, 126-127.) THE USE OF THE HISTORICAL RECORD IN AMISTAD 40. Clearly, the entire historical record does not appear in the Amistad.. Certain parts appear with more or less emphasis. I described this process in creating Echo of Lions in paragraphs 15 and 16. Curiously, the makers of Amistad and I selected the same portions of the record and gave them the same weight. For example, as in Echo of Lions the Christianization of the Africans is de-emphasized (mentioned only once) and is seen in a very negative light. (Shooting Script, Exhibit Rat 119-122.) 41. John Quincy's oral argument before the Supreme Court is another example of this phenomenon. As I stated in Paragraph 15, the printed version of the argument is more than 125 pages, seventeen paragraphs of which I selected for Echo of Lions. The version of the argument in the Shooting Script is eight pages. Although (regrettably) the words used in Amistad are not those of Quincy Adams, the argument sounds the same themes of justice and the interference of the President in the judicial proceedings. Adams also reads a letter from the President to the Commander of the vessel Grampus ordering the deportation of the Africans. (Shooting Script, Exhibit R at 123-130.) The purpose of this selection and emphasis is the same as in Echo of Lions - to give the perspective that the Amistad case was the first civil rights trial, and not a case about property. OTHER SIMILARITIES BETWEEN ECHO OF LIONS AND AMISTAD 42. Echo of Lions and Amistad share a heart and soul. They also breathe the same air within the fictive world. There are other similarities between the motion picture and the novel as to image, metaphor, narrative detail, and the creative expression of the historical record that emanate solely from the expression of my creative imagination. The similarities are summarized in this chart:
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