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Foundry
Claire Harris |
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THE BLACK JOKE
Slavery, Politics, and Redemption on the High Seas
THE BLACK JOKE is a book by historian Alysha Rooks about the HMS Black Joke, a former slave ship which was later used to capture more slavers - and to free more people - than any ship in the British Navy.
What most of us learned about the slave trade in school can be essentialized to two facts: it was extremely unpleasant, and it ended before the Civil War. Beyond these limited understandings, many seem to believe that after bans were enacted slave trading came to a natural end.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Between 1808 and 1860, the British Navy's West Africa Squadron captured 1,600 illegal slave ships off the West Coast of Africa, freeing 150,000 Africans and attempting to destroy the slave trade at its root. Of all the ships in the Squadron, none was as famous or as feared as the HMS Black Joke. A former slave ship itself, the Black Joke was a sleek Baltimore Clipper that began its service with only a single mounted gun. Despite this minimal armament, in its four years of service, the abnormally fast Black Joke and its crew of sailors - free Africans and British alike - captured far more slavers and freed far more people than any other single vessel in the fleet's history.
The Black Joke: Slavery, Politics, and Redemption on the High Seas uses the story of the HMS Black Joke and its crew to explore this often overlooked chapter in the history of the abolition of slavery; an exploration that, as we struggle to dismantle racist and colonialist legacies today, will demonstrate that battles for freedom are rarely easy, short, or without sacrifice.
Alysha Rooks is an award-winning columnist, a two-time Jeopardy! Champion and also a champion academic -- after studying theatre at the Newcomb College of Tulane University, she went to law school at the University of Michigan, library school at the University of Illinois, and will shortly begin a PhD at Widener University. She is the author of The Struggle is Real: Black Women and White Feminism, which will be published by Seal Press/Hachette in 2020.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Between 1808 and 1860, the British Navy's West Africa Squadron captured 1,600 illegal slave ships off the West Coast of Africa, freeing 150,000 Africans and attempting to destroy the slave trade at its root. Of all the ships in the Squadron, none was as famous or as feared as the HMS Black Joke. A former slave ship itself, the Black Joke was a sleek Baltimore Clipper that began its service with only a single mounted gun. Despite this minimal armament, in its four years of service, the abnormally fast Black Joke and its crew of sailors - free Africans and British alike - captured far more slavers and freed far more people than any other single vessel in the fleet's history.
The Black Joke: Slavery, Politics, and Redemption on the High Seas uses the story of the HMS Black Joke and its crew to explore this often overlooked chapter in the history of the abolition of slavery; an exploration that, as we struggle to dismantle racist and colonialist legacies today, will demonstrate that battles for freedom are rarely easy, short, or without sacrifice.
Alysha Rooks is an award-winning columnist, a two-time Jeopardy! Champion and also a champion academic -- after studying theatre at the Newcomb College of Tulane University, she went to law school at the University of Michigan, library school at the University of Illinois, and will shortly begin a PhD at Widener University. She is the author of The Struggle is Real: Black Women and White Feminism, which will be published by Seal Press/Hachette in 2020.
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Book
Published 2021-05-01 by Scribner |
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Book
Published 2021-05-01 by Scribner |