Benjamin N. Lawrance's "Amistad’s Orphans," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Amistad's Orphans: An Atlantic Story of Children, Slavery, and Smuggling by Benjamin N. Lawrance.

The entry begins:

In Amistad’s Orphans there are six main characters, and all are children of various ages. There are several prominent adult supporting roles, but the key casting issue is finding dynamic and charismatic child actors.

The three girl roles are strikingly different, and require unique actresses. I would love to see Quvenzhané Wallis play the role of Te’me, because of her exceptional skills as demonstrated in Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012). Te’me is captured and enslaved as a young child, and during a custody battle in a court in Connecticut she makes a break for freedom, running across the New Haven green, before being tackled by a white male abolitionist. This would be a pivotal scene in the film.

For the roles of Marg’ru (the eldest of the three girls), and Kag’ne, I’d cast Josephine...[read on]

Learn more about Amistad's Orphans at the Yale University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Amistad's Orphans.

My Book, The Movie: Amistad's Orphans.

--Marshal Zeringue