The curriculum will focus on one step of the problem solving process and one scene of the Amistad story each week. Theater games and activities will be selected to augment each particular aspect of the story, and the development of the play.
It is important in teaching this unit that the steps of problem solving be used as the class process. The teacher is encouraged to think aloud as the various problems of the day occur, to model the problem solving process when there is a fire drill or scheduling problem, absence of a pivotal character, or debate within the class about the development of the play. A parallel process will be applied by the class to the voyage of Cinqué. The story is a series of problems with which Cinqué and others are confronted, and the choices they made. A key element in understanding the story is the consideration of consequences as each choice point arises.
The course will be designed to be completed in one marking period with the option of using a second marking period to perfect a performance. The first week will be used as an introduction to the course. Weeks 2-8 will be the study of the story and creation of a script. In these weeks each class will consist of a theater game or activity which will prepare the students to work on the days portion of the story. Suggestions for many scenes are included in the following text. For other scenes, refer to Spolin. The class will then discuss the scene or part of the scene with which they are working. The teacher will assign actors, and preliminary rehearsal will begin. The class will keep a record of the script and its revisions as it develops in class. The final week of the project will be used to pull together all of the preceding seven weeks into a single drama.
Week 1
In the first week students will be reminded of the problem solving process which they studied in the sixth grade. In this curriculum we are studying problems as points at which a decision could be made. The teacher may wish to supply, or to have students supply, examples from literature, movies, history or current events of people making a choice to act. The class can then apply the steps of problem solving to those situations. The second activity for this week will be to begin theater games and activities. Throughout the curriculum the activities will be designed or selected to enhance the particular aspect of the story of Cinqué. For the first week games should be designed to build cohesion in the group, a sense of belonging to the whole. As with all theater games, the purpose of the activity is to be elicited from the students after it is played, rather than explained by the teacher. For suggestions for games please see the Spolin books in the bibliography. The third piece to be braided into this week is the story of Cinqué. It may be read by the students, told by the teacher, or told by the students based on their memory and research.
Week 2
Beginning with the second week the story will be studied as a series of discrete choices which allowed the ensuing action. The story itself could be broken down in any number of ways for staging: geographical scenes; scenes determined by which person was confronted by choice, so that there is a different central character in each scene; or scenes determined by the change in dramatic directions so that there is a different problem in each scene.
For my purposes I have broken the story into eight scenes, each one coordinated with a specific step of the problem solving process. The first scene will be devoted to the capture of Cinqué from the High Road near his village. This is the beginning of the problem, in problem solving lingo. The class will explore this from several perspectives. One game to be played is What If: What if Cinqué had not left his village that day? The class will begin to understand that Cinqué made a choice without the possibility of knowing the possible consequences.
Scene One: The Problem. Cinqué is walking down the High Road and is taken captive by African slave dealers. He may suspect that the price of his sale will repay a previous debt. What is the problem for Cinqué? How does he feel? Students may identify the problem in several ways. If the problem is, for example, the unpaid debt, students will look at that problem through the steps. What was his positive goal? What solutions did he explore? Did he think ahead to the consequences? What was his plan? His goal may have been to repay his debt when he could by working extra hours in the fields. His plan was not successful: he was taken captive and now has a new problem. Students may identify the problem as his capture; his goal would be to stay alive; his plan, not to provoke his captors. Focus on this first lesson is to identify the problem.
Theater games which would be helpful at this point would cause the players to focus on feelings of an individual who is not in control of the group. Dog and Bone is such a game. A player is seated with eyes closed in the center of a circle. S/he must guess which other player is trying to steal the bone, but use only hand signals to indicate the culprit. The instructions direct student attention to the senses and also to an air of suspense in which “danger” may come from any side.
By the end of the week, students should have explored this segment of the story and developed a tentative script. As in each week, the script will grow as students discuss and role play the action. See the lesson plans of this unit for more ideas on script development.
Week 3
Scene Two: Feelings. Cinqué is taken from the factory in Lomboko, loaded on the slave ship in chains, and arrives alive in Cuba. The focus of this segment will be on the feelings Cinqué must have had. A few ideas for theater games are Alter Ego, Inanimate Objects, and Cross Casting.
One component of the problem solving process is a feelings dictionary, which is a list compiled by the class of all the names of feelings they can find. This would be a useful activity in this second scene. A theater game from
The New Games Book
such as Hagoo or Pruie might stimulate student thinking about emotions as they describe their feelings of humility, powerlessness, or vulnerability.
In this scene I want students to understand that Cinqué must have had tremendous feelings but did not act. He did not act because he had chosen not to get killed, but to survive. Another activity is for students to wear a piece of paper hung by a string around their necks all day. Each time someone speaks to them in a negative way, they are to tear off a piece of their paper. At the end of the day they are to understand how reduced they are by these constant negative encounters.
In searching for an understanding of Cinqué of the TeCcoro, it would be interesting to have students acting as inanimate objects. The teacher can start by having students use their senses to “be” a non-threatening object such as a chair or a pencil. The second step might be to become a machine of many parts. One student begins by becoming a machine part connected to the whole by rhythm, proximity, or touch, until the entire class has become one functioning machine.
Finally the students can become the walls of the ship and the chains which held the captives. Once this is done the class will be ready to act the scene, to invent dialogue and action.
It may be that a good way to express this scene is to use an alter ego on stage with Cinqué. The “real” Cinqué is captured and somber, and the alter ego expresses the feelings of anger, frustration, and fright verbally as well as physically. Could the alter ego try to break through the “walls” of the ship?
For Cross Casting, students will take turns playing the captives and the captors. Perhaps all those students wearing striped shirts are the captors the first time, and then switch to become the captives.
Week 4
Scene Three: Set a positive goal.
In scene three, the action takes place in Cuba. Cinqué is sold to Ruiz along with forty-eight men. The four children are sold to Montés. This was the time when Cinqué began to accept or establish himself as leader. During the time of the selling, one woman while washing in the sea, simply walked into the sea and did not return. Cinqué felt strongly that he and they should survive and work to win their freedom. According to Barbara Chase’s novel, he told the other Africans that if they die, the slavers have won.
The other important action in the scene is the decision by Ruiz and Montés to move the fifty-three Africans to their plantations aboard the Amistad, a small ship, and to travel without armed guards. The fifty-three Africans, two slavers, two sailors, the Captain and his two slaves board the Amistad. The action I see to explore is that Cinqué sets the goal to survive and to be free, and the Cubans underestimate him. This is a very short scene and a difficult scene to script. The central actions are the decisions by the Cubans about the transportation of the Africans. It might be interesting for the class to role play a conversation between the two slavers about their requirements for this short journey, or a conversation with the captain. In retrospect it is difficult to understand their confidence about moving the Africans without guards. Perhaps playing the scene as a straight problem solving situation would be most effective. As students follow the formula they will come across errors in the thinking or knowledge of the slavers.
Week 5
Scene Four: The First Solution. Cinqué puts into action his goal of staying alive and being free by the mutiny on the Amistad. During this action, several problems arose.
The choices Cinqué had were a choice to take action, the choice to kill, and the choice to leave alive Montés, Ruiz and Antonio. The two sailors chose to dive off the ship to certain death. The characters of Antonio and the cook are very important here, because they are Black and we might expect some sympathy with the new Africans. In fact, the cook cruelly joked with the Africans that he planned to cook and eat them. This may have been the incident which was the catalyst for the mutiny. Antonio is equally interesting. Throughout the story we see a steady shift in his loyalty. At first he believes that his safety lies with the Cubans. At the end he realizes that even if the Africans win their court case, he is still a slave and must be returned to Cuba as one. He finally is helped to freedom in Canada along the underground railroad.
One approach to this scene would be to assign students to imagine the thought process of the various characters. After this assignment perhaps groups of students could act out various portions of the action, for example how did Cinqué open his chains? How did Antonio behave as he realized what was happening? Were the deaths in self-defense or plotted killings? Another interesting aspect of this scene is that the two groups cannot communicate in words: the Africans speak Mende and the Cubans speak Spanish. Students may come up with several versions of what it might have been like before they settle on one that they would like to use. One of Spolin’s Gibberish games might fit in here.
Week 6
Scene Five. The Plan. Cinqué’s plan for the goal of returning home was to sail the Amistad back to Lomboko. He did not know how to sail by the stars and was unable to steer east in the night. He allowed the Cubans to convince him they would help by sailing at night. In problem solving parlance, this is an example of a solution with inadequate planning. The Cubans sailed north by north west at night. Cinqué had underestimated the Cubans.
Students might explore this scene by discussing Cinqué’s planning. What went wrong? What led him to trust the Cubans? Is this anything like what led the Cubans to transport the Africans unguarded on the Amistad? How would you, the student, change Cinqué’s plan?
The game Streets and Alleys, in Spolin’s
Teachers’ Handbook
, is intended as a warmup for a play in which there is a great deal of conflict among the characters. In essence, a game of Tag is played within a grid. The components of the grid turn ninety degrees according to the directions of a director whose goal is to limit the movement of It. Students experience the suspense of attempting to anticipate others’ moves. At the end of the week, students will have role played this scene and established a tentative script.
Week 7
Scene Six. Consequences. Cinqué lands at Culloden Point. The Africans are taken by American authorities. When land was finally in sight, Cinqué had to decide again without knowing the consequences of his action. At least this time he knew there would be consequences. They had no food; the ship was crippled; they were not in Africa, and therefore must be lost. Going ashore might solve most of these problems, but it could result in their enslavement. This would be a good time for the class to play a game such as Red Handed. It sits in the center of the circle, eyes closed, while his/her classmates pass an object among them. When time is called, It must guess from visual clues which person holds the object.
In this scene there are two other very important decisions. They are turning points to the plot and need to be treated dramatically, not thrown away as lines at the end of the scene. Perhaps the actors can speak from the side while the rest of the stage is in blackout. Perhaps they could enter after the scene is done to state their pieces. These are: first, Cinqué’s positive decision to take responsibility for the two killings aboard the Amistad. According to the literature he felt strongly that the responsibility as leader fell on his shoulders alone. This, of course, influenced how the prosecution dealt with him in the trials to come. The second decision was made by Federal district court Judge Andrew Judson. He was the first judge to hear the evidence, at least that of the Cubans, as the Africans were still muted by the language barrier. Judson decided to refer the case to the United States Circuit Court which would decide on the property claims (salvage or compensation for the rescue of the goods of the Amistad and the ship). The court would also decide whether the Africans would stand trial for the mutiny and murders aboard the Amistad. The court battles had begun. The onus had shifted from the shoulders of Cinqué. Judson, in removing the Africans to New Haven, and in continuing the case, had opened the arena to the abolitionists in New Haven. The decision to come ashore had resulted in the consequences of depending on others to continue the action, although the Africans could not yet know that they had support.
Week 8
Scene Seven. Imprisoned: Other’s Choices. This is the scene which is going to be the most difficult to create because it is less dramatic than the preceding story. It also must be convincing in this scene that the power of the abolitionists and of the law is in fact stronger than the power of the slavers and the slave trade. Perhaps it should be played with the Africans on stage behind bars, watching the action. Certainly John Quincy Adams must be played as a fiery and thunderous character but most of the other action is done in a quiet and undramatic way.
Appropriate theater game for this scene would be the Human Knot. About ten players meet in the center. Each takes hands with two other persons who are not next to him/her. Without breaking hands the circle must untangle itself. The audience helps by directing knot members in their movements when they are unable to progress themselves. The success of the exercise depends on the knotted being willing to be peaceful and codependent. Another exercise might be to build a Human Machine, in which each dependent part is a separate action, as in week 3.
The decisions we have in this chapter are the decisions of individuals in New Haven and New York to become involved in ensuring the freedom of forty-three Africans they had never met. The Amistad Committee was formed. Lewis Tappan and Joshua Leavitt were lawyers from New York. From New Haven were Simeon Jocelyn, a minister, Amos Townsend, a banker, and Roger Baldwin, the lawyer who agreed to take the case, and Josiah Gibbs, a professor who took it upon himself to find someone who spoke Mende. James Covey was the man he found. After being kidnapped as a child and freed by the British, Covey became a crew member of a ship that spent its voyages seeking slave ships. Covey recognized the words that Gibbs spoke in the language of his childhood home, and agreed to help the captives. It seems important to illustrate the bravery of this decision. How many Mende speaking people heard Josiah Gibbs on the docks but were afraid to become involved, afraid that their freedom or their job would be jeopardized? Covey gave three years of his life to this work. This could be dramatized by having Covey step forward from a group, all of whom understand Mende, but the rest of whom turn their backs on Gibbs, muttering excuses to themselves.
Week 9
Scene Eight. The Law at Work: Legal Solutions. Scene eight is comprised of four scenes, four separate court appearances. The judges are Judson and Thompson and the seven Supreme Court members. The defense attorneys are Baldwin and Adams. The defendants and prosecution change roles depending on the state of appeal.
Perhaps the best staging would be to have the Africans stand down stage center, with the defense on one side and the prosecution on the other. The judges would be down right and left, with podiums and gavels. Brown-outs could be used to indicate a change of subscene. The argument from each side must be a clear statement in order not to lose the audience. The point most important in this scene is that the courts worked using the law to ensure the freedom of the Africans. Without access to the courts, the fate of the Africans could have been very different, but even more important, the historical impact of a legal precedent could have been greatly reduced.
Theater activities which may facilitate this scene include games which cause players to be interdependent parts of a whole, such as Machine. For variety the class might play Circus, or the teacher might have them begin as Circus and switch, suddenly, to Restaurant, or some other setting. Other suggestions are games such as Play Ball, a group game of catch with an invisible ball.
Part 1: Roger Baldwin for the defense.
Circuit Court, Judge Thompson presiding.
Issue: Baldwin says slavery is illegal because it is against the highest laws of morality even though these are only hinted at in the Declaration of Independence.
Judge’s decision: Courts must make judgments according to existing law. Therefore this court must decide whether these captives are slaves by the laws which exist. These laws are international treaties; therefore, this is the wrong court. Case referred to District Court.
Part 2: Roger Baldwin for the defense.
District Court, Judge Judson presiding.
Issue: To whom do the Africans and the ship and its contents belong? Can people be salvage? If they were taken illegally and cannot legally be slaves, what then is their legal status? And if they are not slaves, neither are they citizens. The issue was further complicated by the pressure from the White House to avoid offending or alienating the Spanish, who were seeking the return of the Africans to Cuba by presidential act. In addition, it was nearing election time and Martin van Buren wanted to let this matter be completed without inciting slavery-abolitionist issues nor offending foreign powers by offering asylum to the Africans and establishing a precedent for escaping slaves.
Judge’s decision: According to the congressional law of 1819, the captives would be placed under the protection of the president and returned to Africa. The law stated that it was illegal to bring persons of color into the U.S. for the purpose of service or slavery.
Part 3: Appeal by the prosecution (government).
Circuit Court, Judge Thompson with Judge Judson.
Issue: The judgment made by Judson stretched the law of 1819, since the Africans were not brought to the U.S., but came there themselves to escape from slavery. Furthermore, the decisions regarding the ship and its goods were not satisfactorily settled. This appeal was motivated largely by Martin van Buren, President, who wanted the case to be settled in a manner which would appease the southern states.
Judge’s decision: The previous judgment by the District Court was approved as it stood. The case was immediately appealed to the Supreme Court.
Part 4: Supreme Court
John Quincy Adams for the defense.
Issues:
The demands of Spain
: the return of the property of Spanish citizens, including slaves; and the return to Spain of the killers of Spanish subjects.
The demands of Britain
: a treaty between Britain and Spain signed in 1817 prohibited African slave trade. The Africans could only be free persons.
Laws of U.S.
:. prohibited the transportation of slaves between states. A principle of the U.S. which was national supremacy, i.e. any law of the U.S. takes precedence over any law of any other nation or nations;
Claims by abolitionists
: the Africans had the same rights to freedom and justice as any person from any other nation who came to the U.S. It was their right to choose to stay in the U.S. or to return to Africa.
Decision of Court: First, since the Africans entered the U.S. not as slaves, they were not here in violation of America’s laws prohibiting slave trade. Second, the Africans were free, never having been slaves. Third, the fraudulent use of the Amistad as a transport for illegally held persons to be enslaved caused the legality of her papers to be nulled. Therefore the salvage claims of Gedney et alia were upheld. The court upheld the right of the Africans to a fair trial in this nation. Their piracy and mutiny were the result of their natural right to self defense.
The final week
At this point the class will have scripted the entire play. The work now depends on how the teacher chooses to continue. She may feel the lesson is complete within her class. In my case I will use the theater department at my school to begin serious script revision and rehearsal toward a production.