The Empire of Necessity
Discover the story of a real-life Captain Ahab of the slave trade, in a landmark book by one of today's most original and highly acclaimed historians One morning in 1805, off a remote island in the South Pacific, seal hunter and abolitionist Captain Amasa Delano climbed aboard the Tryal, a distressed Spanish slaver. He spent all day on the ship, sharing food and water, yet failed to see that the slaves, having slaughtered most of the crew, were now their own masters. Later, when Delano realized the deception, he chased the ship down, responding with barbaric violence. Drawing on never-before-consulted records on four continents, Greg Grandin follows this group of courageous slaves and their persecutor from the horrors of the Middle Passage to their explosive confrontation. The Empire of Necessity is a gripping account of obsessive mania, imperial exploitation, and lost ideals, capturing the epic clash of peoples, economies, and faiths that was shaping the so-called New World and the Age of Revolution
eBook, English, 2014
Oneworld Publications, New York, 2014
History
1 online resource (550 pages)
9781780744117, 1780744110
1039731143
Cover; Title; Copyright; Contents; 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. Isolatos15. 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; A Note on Sources and Other Matters; Archives Consulted; Notes; Acknowledgments. Image SectionIllustrations Credits; Index