Matthew McConaughey in Amistad, filmed in the courtroom in the Colony House. (Copyright 1997 Dreamworks)
In 1997 Stephen Spielberg transformed Newport into an 1840 Connecticut seaport for the motion picture Amistad. A dirt road surface was laid on Washington Square and a prison was built in front of Trinity Church. While Newport had no role in the famous slave uprising and subsequent trials, the original schooner Amistad subsequently ended up under the ownership of a Newport sea captain.
In 1841, the Spanish schooner Amistad of New London, nationalized by Congress and renamed Ion, was sold by the U.S. Court to Capt. George Howland of Newport. Later that year, Howland sold the schooner to the Guadelope Consul at Port Petre in the West Indies. Capt. George Howland (1797-1878) and his wife Sarah Almy lived in the Barney House on the corner of Touro and Spring Streets, now part of the Touro Synagogue campus.