| Edition |
First edition. |
| Description |
xiv, 360 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm |
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text txt rdacontent |
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unmediated n rdamedia |
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volume nc rdacarrier |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 293-342) and index. |
| Contents |
Fast fish. Hawks abroad ; More liberty ; A lion without a crown ; Body and soul ; A conspiracy of lifting and throwing ; Interlude : I never could look at death without a shudder -- A loose fish. A suitable guide to bliss ; The levelling system ; South Sea dreams ; Interlude : black will always have something melancholy in it -- The new extreme. The skin trade ; Falling man ; The crossing ; Diamonds on the soles of their feet ; Interlude : heaven's sense -- Further. Killing seals ; Isolatos ; A terrific sovereignty ; Slavery has grades ; Interlude : a merry repast -- If God wills. Night of power ; The story of the San Juan ; Mohammed's cursed sect ; Interlude : abominable, contemptible Hayti -- Who ain't a slave? Desperation ; Deception ; Retribution ; Conviction ; Interlude : the machinery of civilization -- General average. Lima, or the law of general average ; The lucky one ; Undistributed ; Epilogue : Herman Melville's America. |
| Summary |
Documents an early nineteenth-century event that inspired Herman Melville's "Benito Cereno," tracing the cultural, economic, and religious clash that occurred aboard a distressed Spanish ship of West African pirates. |
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One morning in 1805, off a remote island in the South Pacific, Captain Amasa Delano, a New England seal hunter, climbed aboard a distressed Spanish ship carrying scores of West Africans who appeared to be slaves. They weren't. Having earlier seized control of the vessel and slaughtered most of the crew, they were staging an elaborate ruse. When Delano, an idealistic, anti-slavery republican, finally realized the deception--that the men and women he thought were slaves were actually running the ship--he responded with explosive violence. Drawing on research on four continents, historian Greg Grandin explores the multiple forces that culminated in this extraordinary event--an event that inspired Herman Melville's masterpiece "Benito Cereno". Here, Grandin uses the dramatic happenings of that day to map a new transnational history of slavery in the Americas, capturing the clash of peoples, economies, and faiths that was the New World in the early 1800s.--From publisher description. |
| Subject |
Slavery -- South America -- History -- 19th century.
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Slave trade -- South America -- History -- 19th century.
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Slave insurrections -- South America -- History -- 19th century.
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Delano, Amasa, 1763-1823.
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| ISBN |
9780805094534 (hardcover) |
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0805094539 (hardcover) |
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9781429943178 (electronic book) |
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