But they know nothing of open-sea navigation. The helmsman fools them into thinking west is east, and the Africans are captured when they make landfall in New England. They are sent before a Connecticut court, charged with mutiny and murder. Much of the film is structured around legal proceedings. This is winnable as a simple case of property law.
Slaves are property.
What sticks in the judicial craw is the issue of whether the black men were born free in Africa or born as slaves in the West Indies. The South still needs slavery for economic parity with the North. Until a translator of the Mande language is found, Baldwin and Cinque have little conversation, but establish trust and mutual admiration. Spielberg is deliberately stingy with the subtitles, to indicate the width of the chasm between the Euro-American sense of how the world works, and the Africans' speculation of what all this going on around them might mean. The U.S. government appeals the case to the Supreme Court.