The Empire of Necessity: Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the New World
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For Eleanor
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In the early 1920s, the British war journalist and novelist H. M. Tomlinson let Americans in on a secret. There existed an obscure book that certain people used as an “artful test” to identify like-minded souls. If they gave it to you to read, Tomlinson wrote in the Christian Science Monitor, and you “showed no surprise,” you’d be deemed “no good.” But, being that they “were half afraid of the intensity of their own conviction,” they wouldn’t tell you you were no good. They’d keep quiet. If, however, Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick possessed you, you would have proved yourself worthy, able to “dwell in safety with fiends or angels and rest poised with a quiet mind between the stars and the bottomless pit.” Ninety years later, I felt that I had my own password into a knowing world of fiends and angels. When asked what I was working on, I’d say I was researching events that inspired a Herman Melville story. “Not Moby-Dick,” I’d say, “another one.” Less than half had heard of Benito Cereno and fewer still had read it. Those who had, though, knew it was different. It was Corey Robin who first let me in on the secret and I owe the idea of this book to him.
Over the years, I’ve kept a running list of people who helped in large and small ways move this work along, and if I’ve left anyone out, I apologize. Though I cite their scholarship throughout, special credit is due to the historians Alex Borucki and Lyman Johnson. They have been extremely generous taking time to respond to my questions and read the manuscript. I also want to thank the friends and colleagues, at NYU and elsewhere, who listened, suggested, corrected, and indulged, including Barbara Weinstein, Ada Ferrer, Sinclair Thomson, Michael Ralph, Gary Wilder, Laurent Dubois, Donna Murch, Chuck Walker, Mark Healey, Karen Spalding, Gerardo Rénique, Jennifer Adair, Debbie Poole, Kristin Ross, Harry Harootunian, Eric Foner, Emilia da Costa, Ned Sublette, Constance Ash-Sublette, Walter Johnson, Fred Cooper, Ernesto Semán, Bob Wheeler, Julio Pinto, Peter Winn, Gil Joseph, Stuart Schwartz, Tom Bender, Matt Hausmann, Amy Hausmann, Robert Perkinson, Christian Parenti, Laura Brahm, Jack Wilson, Gordon Lafer, Josh Frens-String, Christy Thornton, Aldo Marchesi, Ervand Abrahamian, Carlota McAllister, Marilyn Young, Deborah Levenson, Liz Oglesby, Molly Nolan, Lauren Benton, Cristina Mazzeo de Vivó, Henry Hughes, Jorge Ortiz-Sotelo, and Chris Maxworthy. Jean Stein graciously read the manuscript and offered constant encouragement. Eleanor Roosevelt Seagraves kindly took the time to discuss Delano’s memoir. Susan Rabiner has helped guide the work along since the beginning. In the middle of the project, between the archival research and the writing, I fell into a Melville obsession, from the depths of which one thing kept me going: knowing that Richard Kim would understand.
Many, many people assisted in the research of this book, including Roberto Pizarro, Seth Palmer, Liz Fink, Kyle Francis, Matthew Hovious, Flor Maribet Pantoja Diaz, Emiliano Andrés Mussi, Yobani Gonzales Jauregui, Andrés Azpiroz, Christy Mobley, and Adam Rathge. Rachel Nolan put her many skills, including an unanticipated knowledge of Catholic saints, to proofreading and fact-checking. In Mendoza, Luis César Caballeros conducted key research and Diego Escolar was a gracious host. Boubacar Barry helped me speculate about the origins of the names of the Tryal rebels; Al Cave passed on information about the Pequot War; Clifford Ross allowed me to look at one of Melville’s family Bibles; at the NYPL, David Rosado facilitated the reproduction of a number of illustrations and Jessica Pigza put together a list of extant first editions of Delano’s memoir; BJ Gooch, the archivist at Transylvania University Library, confirmed that Horace Holley was indeed the author of Amasa Delano’s biographical sketch; Michael Dyer, at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, identified illustrations; Jennifer Lofkrantz cleared up certain points of Islamic law; in Concepción, Alejandro Mihovilovich Gratz shared his deep knowledge of the region’s history, as did Manuel Loyola and Magdelana Varas, members of a dance and theater troupe, Teatro del Oráculo, dedicated to the recuperation of popular, or “people’s” history: after happening on a reference to the 1805 execution of Mori and the other West Africans, they began to research the events of the Tryal, staging, in 2006, La Laguna de los Negros. Information on this and other productions can be found on the group’s website: http://www.teatrodeloraculo.cl/. Elizabeth Bouvier, head of the archives of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, passed on and helped interpret documents related to Amasa Delano’s various debt cases; Ron Brown, at the New York University School of Law Library, compiled a list of legal cases that cited Hall et al. v. Gardner et al. I’d also like to thank Ibrahama Thioub and Ibra Sene for sharing their knowledge of Dakar’s archives with me.
Carolyn Ravenscroft, the archivist at the Duxbury Rural and Historical Society, deserves special mention. Carolyn was with this project from nearly its beginning and though there are only so many times one can use the word generous in acknowledgments, that she was, and more so. Hershel Parker was once kind enough to respond to an unsolicited e-mail inquiry and I hope he doesn’t regret it! Ever since, he has been exceptionally charitable in answering questions and sharing his unmatched knowledge of Herman Melville’s life and work.
I was privileged to be able to finish a final draft of the manuscript while a Gilder Lehrman Fellow in American History at the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. As if time to write and access to the library’s collections weren’t benefit enough, the year also allowed the rare opportunity to discuss all sorts of things with the wonderful people who keep the Center and Library running, especially Jean Strouse, Marie d’Orginy, Paul Delaverdac, Caitlin Kean, and Maira Liriano, and a terrific cohort of fellow fellows: Mae Ngai, Betsy Blackmar, Philip Gourevitch, Said Sayrafiezadeh, Valentina Izmirlieva, Gary Panter, Jamie Ryerson, John Wray, Luc Sante, Shimon Dotan, Katie Morgan, Tony Gottlieb, Ruth Franklin, and Daniel Margocsy.
I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to all the people at Metropolitan Books, including Rick Pracher, and Kelly Too but especially Riva Hocherman and Connor Guy. They helped in more ways than can be counted here. Again, it has been a pleasure to work with Roslyn Schloss. And Sara Bershtel: whenever I’m asked to compare the differences between having a manuscript reviewed by a university publisher and having one reviewed by a trade press, my thoughts revert to Sara. There’s no comparison. She brings a formidable commitment, precision, and intelligence to thinking about the content and form of a book, beginning with the first conversation and not ending until the acknowledgments are being written. I’m lucky to have her as an editor and even more so as a friend. Thank you.
In the past, I’ve thanked Tannia Goswami, Toshi Goswami, and, of course, Manu Goswami. I get to again, but this time also Eleanor Goswami Grandin, born on, depending on what calendar one is using, either the 20th of Rabi-al-thani 1435 or the 23rd of Ventôse 220, but in any case starting the world anew.
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Epigraph
Introduction
PART I: FAST FISH
1. Hawks Abroad
2. More Liberty
3. A Lion without a Crown
4. Body and Soul
5. A Conspiracy of Lifting and Throwing
Interlude: I Never
Could Look at Death without a Shudder
PART II: A LOOSE FISH
6. A Suitable Guide to Bliss
7. The Levelling System
8. South Sea Dreams
Interlude: Black Will Always Have Something Melancholy in It
PART III: THE NEW EXTREME
9. The Skin Trade
10. Falling Man
11. The Crossing
12. Diamonds on the Soles of Their Feet
Interlude: Heaven’s Sense
PART IV: FURTHER
13. Killing Seals
14. Isolatos
15. A Terrific Sovereignty
16. Slavery Has Grades
Interlude: A Merry Repast
PART V: IF GOD WILLS
17. Night of Power
18. The Story of the San Juan
19. Mohammed’s Cursed Sect
Interlude: Abominable, Contemptible Hayti
PART VI: WHO AINT A SLAVE?
20. Desperation
21. Deception
22. Retribution
23. Conviction
Interlude: The Machinery of Civilization
PART VII: GENERAL AVERAGE
24. Lima, or The Law of General Average
25. The Lucky One
26. Undistributed
Epilogue: Herman Melville’s America
Photographs
A Note on Sources and Other Matters
Archives Consulted
Notes
Photo Credits
Index
Also by Greg Grandin
About the Author
Copyright
Seeking to conquer a larger liberty, man but extends the empire of necessity.
Author unknown. Used as epigraph to Herman Melville’s “The Bell-Tower.”
INTRODUCTION
Wednesday, February 20, 1805,
shortly after sunrise, in the South Pacific
Captain Amasa Delano was lying awake in his cot when his deck officer came to tell him that a vessel had been spotted coming round the southern head of Santa María, a small, uninhabited island off the coast of Chile. By the time Delano had dressed and come topside the “strange ship,” as he later described it, had slackened its sails and was now drifting with the wind toward an underwater ledge. To his puzzlement, it flew no flag. It looked to be in want and, if it drew closer to the shallows, in danger. Delano hastily had water, pumpkins, and fresh fish loaded in a boat. He then ordered it hoisted down and went on board.
The weather that morning was thick and breezy but the sun rose to reveal a calm bay. The other side of the island, from where the mysterious ship had appeared, was rough. Endless breakers, sharp-toothed underwater reefs, and steep rock-faced cliffs made its coastline unapproachable, providing sanctuaries for the seals that elsewhere had been hunted to near extinction. But the island’s east, where the Perseverance harbored, was peaceful, the Southern Hemisphere’s waning summer offering a harmony of lulling earth tones, brown, rich dirt, green sea, and cloudless blue skies. High bluffs blanketed by wild red thistles shielded a sandy, safe haven used by sealers and whalers to socialize, pass mailbags to ships bound home, and replenish wood and water.
As he came closer, Delano could see the ship’s name, the Tryal, painted in English in faded white letters along its bow. He could also see that its deck was full of black-skinned people, who looked to be slaves. And when he climbed on board, the alabaster-skinned New Englander discovered himself surrounded by scores of Africans and a handful of Spanish and mulatto sailors telling their “stories” and sharing their “grievances” in a babel of languages.
They spoke in Wolof, Mandinka, Fulani, and Spanish, a rush of words indecipherable in its details but soothing to Delano in its generalities. Earlier, as his men rowed toward the ship, he could see that its sails were tattered. What should have been an orderly web of rigging and tackle was a wooly mash. Its hull, calcified, moss covered, and pulling a long trail of sea grass, gave off a greenish tint. But he knew it was a common pirates’ ploy to make ships appear distressed in order to lure victims on board. Napoleon had just crowned himself emperor of the French, Madrid and Paris were at war with London, and privateers were raiding merchant ships at will, even in the distant South Pacific. Now, though, hollow cheeks and frantic eyes confirmed that the misery was real, turning Delano’s fears into “feelings of pity.”
Amasa Delano was on board the Tryal for about nine hours, from around seven in the morning to a little after four in the afternoon. Having sent his away team back to the island to fill the Tryal’s casks with water, he spent most of the day alone among its voyagers, talking with its captain, helping to distribute the food and water he had brought with him, and securing the ship so it didn’t drift. Delano, a distant cousin of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, from a respected shipbuilding and fishing family on the Massachusetts coast, was an experienced mariner in the middle of his third sail around the world. Yet he couldn’t see that it was the Tryal’s slaves, and not the man who introduced himself as its master, who were in command.
Led by an older man named Babo and his son Mori, the West Africans had seized control of the Tryal nearly two months earlier and executed most of its crew and passengers, along with the slave trader who was taking them to Lima. They then ordered Benito Cerreño, the vessel’s owner and captain, to sail them to Senegal. Cerreño stalled, afraid of rounding Cape Horn with only a handful of sailors and a ship full of mutinous slaves. He cruised first up and then down the Chilean coast, before running into Delano’s Perseverance. The slaves could have fought or fled. Instead, Babo came up with a plan. The West Africans let Delano come on board and they acted as if they were still slaves. Mori stayed at Cerreño’s side and feigned to be a humble and devoted servant. Cerreño pretended he was still in charge, making up a story about storms, doldrums, and fevers to account for the state of his ship and the absence of any officer besides himself.
Delano didn’t know what to make of Cerreño. He remained uneasy around him, even after he had convinced himself that he wasn’t a brigand. Delano mistook Cerreño’s vacant stare—the effect of hunger and thirst and of having lived for almost two months under a death threat, after having witnessed most of his crew being executed—for disdain, as if the aristocratic-looking Spaniard, dressed in a velvet jacket and loosely fitting black pants, thought himself too good to converse with a pea-coated New Englander. The West Africans, especially the women, also made Delano uncomfortable, though he couldn’t say why. There were nearly thirty females on board, among them older women, young girls, and about nine mothers with suckling infants. Once the food and water had been doled out, the women took their babies and gathered together in the stern, where they began to sing a slow dirge to a tune Delano didn’t recognize. Nor did he understand the words, though the song had the opposite effect on him than did the soothing mix of languages that had welcomed his arrival.
Then there was Cerreño’s servant, Mori, who never left his master’s side. When the two captains went below deck, Mori followed. When Delano asked Cerreño to send the slave away so they could have a word alone, the Spaniard refused. The West African was his “confidant” and “companion,” he insisted, and Delano could speak freely in front of him. Mori was, Cerreño said, “captain of the slaves.” At first, Delano was amused by the attentiveness Mori paid to his master’s needs. He started, though, to resent him, vaguely blaming the black man for the unease he had felt toward Cerreño. Delano became fixated on the slave. Mori, he later wrote, “excited my wonder.” Other West Africans, including Mori’s father, Babo, were also always around, “always listening.” They seemed to anticipate Delano’s thoughts, hovering around him like a school of pilot fish, moving him first this way, then that. “They all looked up to me as a benefactor,” Delano wrote in his memoir, A Narrative of Voyages and Travels in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, published in 1817, still, twelve years after the fact, confusing how he thought the rebels saw him that day with how they actually did
see him.
It was only in the late afternoon, around four o’clock, after his men had returned with the additional food and supplies, that the ploy staged by the West Africans unraveled. Delano was sitting in the stern of his away boat, about to return to the Perseverance, when Benito Cerreño leapt overboard to escape Mori and came crashing down at his feet. It was at that point, after hearing Cerreño’s explanation for every strange thing he saw on board the Tryal, that Delano realized the depth of the deception. He then readied his men to unleash a god-awful violence.1
* * *
Over the years, this remarkable affair—in effect a one-act, nine-hour, full-cast pantomime of the master-slave relation performed by a group of desperate, starving, and thirsty men and women, most of whom didn’t speak the language of their would-be captors—inspired a number of writers, poets, and novelists, who saw in the masquerade lessons for their time. The Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, for example, thought the boldness of the slaves reflected the dissent of the 1960s. In the last years of his life, Neruda started first a long poem and then a screenplay that he called “Babo, the Rebel.” More recently the Uruguayan Tomás de Mattos wrote a Chinese box of a novel, La Fragata de las máscaras, which used the deception as a metaphor for a world where reality wasn’t what was hidden behind the mask but the mask itself.2
But by far the most famous story inspired by the events on the Tryal, and one of the most haunting pieces of writing in American literature, is Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno. Whether he was impressed with the slaves’ wile or intrigued by Amasa Delano’s naïveté, Melville took chapter 18 of Amasa Delano’s long memoir, “Particulars of the Capture of the Spanish Ship Tryal,” and turned it into what many consider his other masterpiece.
Melville uses the ghostly ship itself to set the scene, describing it as if it came not from the other side of the island but out of the depths, mantled in vapors, “hearse-like” in its roll, trailing “dark festoons of sea-grass,” its rusted main chain resembling slave chains and its ribs showing through its hull like bones. Readers know there is evil on board, but they don’t know who or what it is or where it might lurk.3