The Empire of Necessity: Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the New World

Grandin (history, New York Univ.; Fordlandia) tells the larger story of slavery in Spanish colonial America through focusing on a slave revolt on a ship off the coast of Chile in 1805. It's an episode most known to readers through Herman Melville's treatment of it in his novella "Benito Cereno" (1855), and Grandin does not lose track of Melville here. Amasa Delano, captain of the seal hunting ship the Perseverance came upon the slave ship Tryal and was fooled into thinking that its Spanish captain, Benito Cerenno, was still in control. He was not. The ship had been taken over by its slaves. Grandin presents a deeply examined historical study of the encounter and what followed, also telling us the much larger horror story of slavery in Spanish colonial America, as well as about the rugged, often brutal life of early 19th-century sailors.