The Interpreting and Translation Stories of The Amistad Case

FAIN: FT-286484-22

Jeanette Zaragoza-De Leon
University of Puerto Rico (San Juan, PR 00926-1108)

Research and writing for a book examining the translation and interpretation challenges that accompanied the 1839 court case against the mutinous Africans being transported on the Amistad.  

 

The Interpreting and Translation Stories of The Amistad Case (1839) traces the signal importance of interpreters and translators in the famous nineteenth-century Amistad case, and how race, slavery, and colonialism shaped this story. From the interpreters’ recruitment process to the 13 interpreters that participated in the case inside and outside the courtroom, from evidentiary documents to fraudulent translations, this book demonstrates the centrality of translation and interpreting issues to the Amistad plot and outcome, a perspective hitherto absent from Amistad historical research. A case upholding the US constitutional principles of freedom and equality, and perhaps one of the most comprehensive recorded events in the history of interpreting and translation in the Americas, this book seeks to pique the interest of those who for pleasure or research read about history, coloniality, enslavement, and race studies.