In Amistad why is it ironic that it is a British ship that destroys the slave fortress at Lomboko?

Answer 1

It is not ironic it is historical fact. The Slave fortress was destroyed by a Royal Navy expedition in 1849. The British had outlawed the transportation of slaves across the Atlantic in 1807 and used their Naval superiority to enforce their law on other nations much to the chagrin of Spain, Portugal & the southern states of the USA and the Caribbean colonies.

British abolitionists created Freetown, which was to become the Sierra Leone capital, in 1792 as a British colony which it used it as a place to resettle liberated slaves with some of the first new citizens being African Americans that the British liberated during the American War of Independence as well as Afro-Caribbeans who had escaped from the British Colonies where slavery was legal to Britain where slavery had long been illegal. However after 1807 the majority of liberated slaves were from intercepted slave ships.

The slave fortress was set up by Spanish slavers in a region claimed by Britain but outside the effective British Sphere of influence and when the British eventually found it they released the slaves and levelled the fortress.

Answer 2

It is ironic that a British ship destroys the slave fortress at Lomboko in the film "Amistad" because historically, Britain had been a major player in the transatlantic slave trade. The British had heavily participated in and profited from the very system of slavery that the scene portrays being destroyed, highlighting the contradictory nature of their actions.