Sweet Water and Bitter: The Ships That Stopped the Slave Trade - Couverture rigide

Rees, Sian

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 1584659807 ISBN 13 : 9781584659808

Editeur : University Press of New England, 2011

Synopsis

Book by Rees Sin226n

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

In 1807, at the height of the Napoleonic war, ships of nearly all the European nations crowded the malarial wharves of West Africa where merchants traded at the great slaveholding pens and packed their human property into ships' holds bound for the sugar mills of Cuba and Haiti, and the tobacco plantations of Virginia. In that same year Great Britain passed the Abolition Act, and the last English slave ship left the African coast with her cargo, shortly to be replaced by the ships and men of the Royal Navy's Preventive Squadron. For the next fifty years this small fleet patrolled 3,000 miles of treacherous coastline in a determined, unilateral, and only quasi-legal effort to interdict vessels with their human cargoes. The squadron lost more than 17,000 men to disease, conflict, and varied misfortunes, but they liberated more than 150,000 African slaves, and slowly-through negotiation, intimidation, and military and diplomatic triumphs and setbacks-they helped put an end to the rich, shameful, ""peculiar institution"" of European and American trade in West African slaves. Through firsthand accounts of naval adventures, ship-to-ship actions, bold raids into the interior, and daily life at sea, Siân Rees brilliantly colors this huge canvas in a series of vivid portraits of the men and officers of the Preventive Squadron. Sweet Water and Bitter is a moving chronicle of suffering, exploitation, and one nation's determination to suppress slavery.

Quatrième de couverture

'Siân Rees combines thorough research and strong storytelling in Sweet Water and Bitter' Pride Magazine
Sweet Water and Bitter is the extraordinary sequel to Britain's abolition of the slave trade in 1807. The last legal British slave-ship left Africa that year, but other countries and illegal slavers continued to trade. When the Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815, British diplomats negotiated anti-slave-trade treaties and a 'Preventive Squadron' was formed to cruise the West African coast. In six decades, this small fleet liberated 150,000 Africans and lost 17,000 of its own men in doing so. This is the tale of their exciting and arduous campaign.

It is a story of unforeseen consequences, and a swashbuckling naval adventure, full of sensational, first-hand accounts of life at sea; of the grim 'barracoons', luxurious compounds and the lonely garrisons dotting the coast. Combining flawless research with an intimate and dramatic narrative, this is a voyage that no one will forget.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: University Press of New England
• Date d'édition: 2011
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1584659807
• ISBN 13: 9781584659808
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 360
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible