africa. he talked at the new public library. [ applause ] thank y >> thank you. this is a wonderful institution and gave me an event to look at this great book. it is a great book. it was a thrill to be asked to do this with greg tonight. he comes at it as a historian and i am a reader of his book and a leader of melville and that is well-fitting we should be meeting into the new york library to talk about the

greatest new yorker that ever lived. i don't think anybody stands in his wake. and to talk about the much larger story that he was expanding upon in it. and greg asked me to do the honors of talking for a minute at the outset about playing out the story which i am sure many of you are familiar with and many of you may not have read as recently. i thought i would do that. and i remember seeing a document once about pablo who played bock every day and said i also do that. so it is benedicts on the house. this is the story of a man who fetches up on the ceiling of a

long expedition. they are running out of seals to kill. and he is in latin off the coast of chile. he sees this ship in a cove and approaches it. this appears in his memmer. he expands upon it in his own way. the story is he went aboard the ship, saw the ship that looked in trouble and was aware it could be a ship in trouble that was going to ambush them perhaps. we went there thinking they might need help and brought water, pumpkins and a catch of

fish. he went on board and thought what he was seeing was a ship which had run into all kind of trouble and where the slaves, it was a slave-trading ship. he didn't realize from the outset was this was a ship where there was a slave rebellion and they had risen up and killed a great deal -- well the slave trader and demanded to be returns from west africa. they were loading off the ghoco of nigeria. they wanted to go back to africa and ended up in a standoff. when they saw this captain approaching they created a masquerade and pretended, even

though the slaves were in control and the white captain was their prisoner. they pretented it was the other way around. they propped up this man and played the slave but controlled the thing. and the whole time the man was on board he imagined being served by such a person and thought this was a fine relationship and look how careful he is. and everything that was with a myth that he slightly picked up he attributed this to the idea maybe this was an ambish and he was a sinister guy. it is only at the late stage of the drama after a long day board. i thought i would read you how

he approaches this and describes the ship in massachusetts. the morning was one puculiar to that coast. everything was mute and calm. everything gray. the sea, seemed fixed like waves led that are cool and sit in the smelters mold. flights of trouble foul with flights of trouble gray vapors among which they were mixed and skin over the waters as swallows over meadows before storms. and deeper shadows to come. he made it very easy for english professors in future years. considering the lawlessness of the spot and the stories of those associated with the seas. the' captain might have been

uneased had he not been liable and hardly to endulge. such a trait implies along with a heart and more than quickness of perceptions may be left to the wise to determine. he sets it up very much as a sunny few of humanity that was blinding him to the reality of a slave rebellion and of what is going on. and throughout the book that runs as the theme. i will go now and leap toward the very end where having found out what happened and he is having this exchange where he is with benito and he is saying you

saved by life and the captain is saying you saved mine because imagine it went awry and i was more suspicious these slaved would have had my head and killed me. by maintaining the deception you saved my life just by me masking your deception saved mine. they are in the boat and don bonito isn't impressed and he said forget it. the blue sea and sky turned over new leaves because they have no memory because they are not human. but these mild traits to they not come with a human-leak

healing to you? with their fastness they walk me to my tomb. you are saved cried the captain. more and more astonished. you are save. what cast such a shadow on you. the negro. and that is an exceptional story. he hands it over to tell the story himself but as if it was legal documents. how did you get into this? this was a real captain and a real story. how did you find this and expand upon it? >> there really was slave revot

and all of the characters are real. they suggested i assi assign an was preparing to teach the class and i was reading around about the novela. it turns out literary scholars know it was based on chapter 18 of the story for quite a while.

this isn't a few thing. this is a true story. >> which is a fairly poplar sea captain. >> it wasn't that poplar but it was out there. there was a bunch of, you know, papers out there easily available. and there was just something -- i think i read it was based on a true story and a footnote in this great book by michael ro n rogan. and it struck me, i think i had to read that footnote a few times. it was like finding ou ouout "alien" was true. there is evil on board but you don't know where it is. and thanks to the wonders of google book you can download and

i did so. it was 500-something pages. and chapter 18 is fascinating but the whole thing itself is one misadventures after another. his portrayal is one of the first fully american abroad kind of for bearer of everything in between and after. and it is superficial but in a way that has depth and resinates and says something about the united states and the mumbling in the world. but the actual real story says something even -- one, i think

he captures something profound about the american experience. and his encounter and reaction which we can get to later on in the discussion and i think it is rooted much more in social reasons and economics rather than just the kind of blindness and cheeryness that is associated. the book i wound up writing has two narrative lines. it stages the africans and the other follows them into the south pacific. >> let's talk about that. the story is an amazing story and greg has reconstructed it with this exact shipment of slaves but giving you a sense of the immensity of the trade and making sure you understand how

much this age of freedom was the age of slavery and how much everything was linked to this. epidemology is in there and culture is in there and everything is in there in terms of how the world is reacting to the slaves. but the slaves on a british ship that are picked up by a pirate or privateer on a contract to offload them in south america and this was a standard procedure. >> i don't speak french, but believe it not, he had one arm. i never realized i wanted to start a book with a one-armed pirate until i actually did. he, yeah -- he was a part of the french revolution and was a sea

fair of jack vene and in the case of latin america they were actually the merchant capital. they seized british goods because the french were in an n ongoing war and had relationships with south america merchants and brought the goods into the area and the most profitable cargo seized off the british ships were slaves. and one group that wound up on the trial -- >> the trial is the name of the actual boat. >> they were bringing them from chilly -- chile to lima.

>> talk about, somewhere, but not as much as what we should, the slave trade in the united states and how that worked a little bit. but to the extent it was a huge part of the latin america area and the southern hems sphere is something you are expanding on here. it was as big of a deal there economically in terms of trade and what the slaves were able to do. >> one of the events that were opening up to the extend of slavery and people in the united states and students of u.s. h history treat slavery as their

own thing. but this was linked to the expansion of the free trade and the ocean revolution in the caribbean and south america and that was the last stage after the cotton gin and the move into the mississippi valley and after the war of 1812 it explodes in the united states. one of the things this story does is it gives you a sense of the spatial growth but a chronlogical sense as well. they left new england in 1803 on the sealing expedition and slavery is dying out in new england and assumed to be dying out in the south. it is in full swing in south

america. 1804 was the height of what the spanards called free trade in blacks. more slaves came in in 1804 than any year previously. >> how many? >> many came in as contraband. >> that is the thing. they can't get off the ship and have to march to the pacific coast and that is an odyssey because these are not setup deals. in other words, it isn't clear for many captains what is going to happen with the cargo when they arrive.

>> right. that was the cruelty of it. >> the conversion of con ttraba was there. and even though some were allowed to be sold but the rest he wanted out of there so there remember schemes to convert them to commodities. what they are doing is sailing into the future. he encounters in the south pacific this race, terror and violence that will later explode in the united states. and that is the kind of -- it is almost circular and then melv melville reads the story when slavery does explode and there is an interesting circle there. >> it is like a glimpse of the

future coming from the past. what was the feeling this was all about? melville doesn't get his due but he was the great business of the wells. what is the the others? >> well, he was from a good yeman fam ohio and he was an ancestor from delano roosevelt and came from a family of fi fisherman and was born the last year of the french-indian war that set the stage for u.s.

independence. the american revolution c catpolted him into world history. from the american revolution he ran away in he went from one ad venture to another. he can never redeem the promise that the revolution suggested. and he did for a little bit. in this first voyage in the 1790's, this was the first with hum human combust even more than wailing. they are taking tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of skins. >> blubber also? >> just skins. trading them in china for spices and tea and porcelain and bringing them back.

delano in the first expedition took hundreds of thousands of skins and was enormiously successful and seemed like for a while he had matters to establish himself. >> and his is way down south? >> the islands off chile. and by the second expedition in 1803, the seals are disappearing. what is happening is the chinese market is being flooded and the prices are falling. the seals are roting and the skins are rotting in the docks. and the price is plummeting. and that is leading to him accelerating the killing on the islands. so you have oversupply and extinction going on hand and hand. and during the boom, there is a

cooperation among the sealers and money to be made and sealing itself is about an all or nothing system of labor relation as you can imagine. and once the seals start disappearing, the conflicts start emergenemergencing. delano by the time he crosses path with the trial, his own crew is mutiny. the seals are gone now and his men are jumping ship. >> this is how many years? >> 1803 and back in 1807 with the trial in 1805. his crew jumps ship in tazmania and he takes on a bunch of escape convicts. and they start using him as he

is going back to chile. there is no money to be made. >> how do they know that while at see? >> they are going from island to island and there is no seals left to kill. he crosses path with the trial and week talk about the deception and his blindness, but once you realize he is the victim of a con and this manipuilation he rallys the men and that brings them together. ahab is this kind of avatar or embodies a concern kind of power that held up as a precursor of a totalitarian because he is able to through his creating an emotional bond with the men and

they participate in the madness, i think delano represents a modern form of power and control over labor in the context of natural resource and this interception with race and territory. >> i provide them and there is a social undering them. and you can see the intersection of slavery and environmentalist. >> iowa a section where you, throughout the book, greg has these sections called interlu s interludes, which are wonderful meditations on the various aspects of the material and on melville. it where you do the comparisons

and really looking at them as you say the character today, or the way we think of him and what we use to explain global warming and president bush that cause destruction. but you say that is not true. those are the men that never defend and as moby dick's essay those that carry in the day in and day out. melville sets him up as an american who isn't reading the comp complexity of the drama he is in. but you are saying he

represents -- and melville sets him up for a fool in that passage from the first page. not a stupid fool. but a fooled person. and not much establishment. >> but someone that believes in the rights of property and he encounters the french revolution in the indian ocean and he has a clear understanding that inconstitutionalism important. ...

>> something that went with the territory. that happened a lot. often with the same demand, take us back to africa. this fascinating diagnosis by these medical experts who were brought in to analyze why the slaves were so unhappy but don't talk to them. some revolts on ships were quite common. at think that there were a few

surveys the accounted 600. i think that's just a fact check. every -- some of the african super bowl of this deception have been involved in two other slave ship results before they even get -- >> you can survive one of these. >> right. the incentive to keep the crossing a live. but my point was that none of them are documented. so it was quite common. i think what was remarkable about this one is -- i mean, these west african 73 -- i mean, probably a year-and-a-half or deal before they even got to the south pacific. then they seized the ship.

their up and down the coast of chile and peru for 53 days. they survive at least one or will store. two women die of dehydration. >> a skeleton crew. >> having hung the skeleton of a ship's captain. >> but think about that context. i mean, that dehydrated and starving and dying, literally dying. and they come up with this -- they manage to summon the reserve, the resources in order to perform, to shed the trappings of freedom which had proved to be fragile and assume the role of slavery in order to fool someone for nine hours.

your nose why or what attracted into the story, but i think one of the things certainly has to be the way it these west africans were able to use the things that there were said not to have possessed, a cunning and reason and any kind of internal control, all of the things that usually are associated with freeman in order to prove the line. humble and simple-minded. what's fascinating is you compare to harriet beecher stowe's uncle tom's cabin. her case for abolition and emancipationist by presenting african-american slaves as simple-minded, as being somehow

more to work christians in their transparency and motives. >> right. perception. >> the write the story in which cunning and deceitful and they respond to the brutality that is inflicted on them with equal brutality and violence. it's a fascinating story. >> of losses last line. some months after. us somewhat admiring description of the fact that he never says a word. he never talks about anything, we will respond to any aspect. the tale of the annual. the body was burned to ashes. for many days the head of fixed on the polls. so not really being subtle here.

the slave bodies. hal was -- not to all the drolen the normal side, but how was that read at the time? >> it wasn't. they see it by -- >> undersold moby dick. >> it was published about four years after moby dick. moby dick was a commercial and critical failure. this was the moment they're really identify m is emotionally and physically exhausted. a little bit. and he published it in a journal , a publication here in new york. came out in three segments, october, november, december

december 1855. there were notices of it in the times. cut quickly into obscurity like much of his other writing until the 1920's. >> and when you went about reconstructing is, he said you came across this mind blowing footnote. you went all over vermont his debut were finding -- >> what i find culminating is held intensive documented all this is. all the captains were riding correspondents about surviving the terrible conditions, but recalculations and turnings lives in the commodities, protecting them and trading them off. all of that is on paper and preserved.

>> how were you able to reconstruct this exact shipment on this unbelievable odyssey across the ocean and then up over the mountain? >> doing this kind of archival research, when you're trying to reconstruct an event that provides some kind of structure and organizing structure. if one were to go out and write a history of slavery and freedom in the americans, but if one is trying to follow the itinerary, this protocol, in some ways a hidden history of capitalism, documenting transactions and sales. that was helpful. and the court case itself, it was -- because -- so now though, though one way this comes back to the question about sources

and research, the one major change is that he has someone tried comfort. in reality he spends about eight months trying to get half of the work of the surviving slaves in order to maintain loyalty and his crew. and they have this falling out. he is basically pursued trying to get the money. so all of this, those court cases are documented. that legal proceeding dealing with spanish authorities. there's a lot of people related to that. i was only able to kind of document one group.

they -- the west africans on the trial who stayed in this deception, they don't become a consignment as such until they are sold to this provincial aristocrat who gets in the slavery in order to stem his position. that's when they become the west africans. prior to that they come in in many different ways. i was only able to identify one stream. the privateer. >> quite amazing that that has survived. >> and again, it was 1804. probably more than half of the enslaved people that came in were contraband and undocumented . >> and so you have all of this

documentation. i mean, what do you really make in the end of the original story chasing them down like that, is it as much of a microcosmic story? >> i think without -- >> he had a good nose. >> no, i think -- well, again, the moment that it happened, a generation after the american revolution, the year that haiti declares itself independent. it really is the apex, the heart of the age of revolution, the age of liberty. how the moment of free trade, the liberalization of the slave system and everything that came with it, spanish america and the way it intersects, as i mentioned earlier with this bill

men buster resource extraction and u.s. expansion. so even if no phil did not read it and turning into this compelling novella it's still a fascinating story. >> and you found that most of the slaves were -- >> identified. the leaders or identified as muslim. there were a number of other incidental evidence that suggests that they followed the islamic calendar. they started at the beginning of ramadan. well, ramadan started when they were a few days into that. they staged their uprising on the holiest day of ramadan, the night of power. they knew how to read and write in their own language, the new contract law.

at least the leaders, and then there were identified. there was another slave ship uprising the model chapter in the book. it was also led by muslims. the viceroy wrote a letter back to stand making a suggestion that spanish authorities have been making for centuries when that they stop enslaving muslims >> too much trouble. >> the idea is, again, one can speculate. the viceroy did not say what those perverse ideas work, but i think that when catholics talked about is on they did not have to a specify what the perverse idea is war. everyone knew what the problem was without having to lay it out >> what percentage of slaves, do

you have any sense? >> one scholar says as many as 10%. it's estimated based on origen's . there are -- there is evidence of muslims who were enslaved. it's well documented. >> and how to five him how much of what was perceived to be the problem were educated and illiterate? a higher percentage. >> well, i think that was part of it. they staged a rebellion. the new header read and write in

their own language. bellsouth new spanish enough to listen and on the conversation and make sure he was not being tipped off. i think that there's -- even beyond literacy, as long was a prophetic universal religion that had a strong egos of solidarity and social justice that, i think, helped in slaved people's survive and all sorts of ways. >> health-conscious other than people like that traders and the viceroy, health-conscious or the people, the white people of the americans who are not the people of the americas, but the fact that there were muslims, was that part of the perception or was that despite all the same as if it were an immense? >> i think it was not a problem

until it became a problem. so it -- in body head the largest urban slave rebellion in the americans in history had very strong participation by muslims. and then became very much part of the counter and surgeon response of islam. and from the beginning, again, from nearly the first -- the early uprisings and movements for resistance, muslims were often identified as the problem. spanish authorities were constantly issuing edicts about not enslaving muslims. there were a problem. >> let me ask you about with delano being down there in latin america, new england

abolitionist who runs a slave ship. obviously his for steadier is that slavery is bad. then he realizes that bureau for white captains in the killing number of people. the unleashes a lot of violence without any hesitation which helps unite his crew. where was he really on this? out of somebody like that really regard slavery? did he feel any fellow humanity? did he feel altman the lack its property? >> i think he felt both. in principle he saw himself as a modern person. he explicitly said he was opposed to slavery in his memoir but then he's caught in this vortexes of exhaustion and

supply and demand, and the response as it does. >> trying to collect. >> yakima in order to keep his crew intact. there was an interesting trajectory. he comes back. he is basically broke. you know, all of those of creation and self mastery kind of -- he is -- he is actually -- he has actually acquired early kind of cultural pluralism and his understanding and tolerance. he's not a supremacist. in some ways there's a lot in common between he and no fill in their understanding of non-western people. he comes back and becomes

increasingly disillusioned with the whole thing, christianity, the united states. what's interesting, he is on this voyage with his brother. he and his brother come back and have almost diametrical responses to the violence that they are involved in outside the u.s. borders, which i think is kind of emblematic. his brother becomes a fundamentalist. it becomes a christian fundamentalist. he embraces the kind of fire and brimstone christianity which is at odds. they come from duxbury, and early town that embraced unitarianism and moved away from calvinism. at a very liberal understanding of christianity and man's capacity for self protection. a lot of ministers that would go on and be very influential in

creating and articulating what eventually becomes unitarianism came from duxbury. and the delano brothers came out of that hot house of optimism. and you see that there responses becomes a fundamentalist. a mass of becomes a jaundiced. he writes a letter to his brother right before dice in the early 1820 s that basically talks about abolishing christianity and is very, very critical of the united states and the missionaries, particularly the missionaries of. and it's not -- so in some ways. >> the new left in the new

right. this kind of, you know, very strong criticism and and embrace. that embodied and it represented the involvement in this kind of race terror and other -- and fill your overseas. failure beyond the u.s. border. >> interest in what you say. >> the real question, how you say amasa delano. >> he tells the story. an amazing little thing. >> particularly happy. >> there's always one. it's in the book of samuel. he's the cousin of king david is killed by his cousin who pretends to embrace an and

thyssen and poll is peered in affection as he sticks a dagger in his side and his intestines spell-out. so -- >> you don't know a lot of them. >> his other brother, samuel, william, alexander. they named him amasa delano which is the namesake. off on a tangent, but he was named after is on ". >> he was named after his uncle who was in the 7-year war, was involved in a massacre of native americans and vermont, canada region. and resorted to cannibalism as they were escaping the retribution of the native americans and the french. they had -- they wound up taking

one of the native american hostage and then there were starving and wound up killing the boy and even the boy. then they themselves were captured by the community that the blood was from and massacred. so why you would name -- why somebody would be named -- you can imagine. you can read into the name that. i mean, what you say about him having an similarity about some of his views, seeing other people, that seems like something that mill bill does not see in him. in other words, that's the side that is not the innocents abroad he wises up also. an exposure to the world that came with all the sailing around the people who would go on the voyage and the loading crews and

taking them from wherever there were. the had to deal with an awful lot more unity than your average person. >> you know, it's hard to tell. a little bit of an aside. they are obsessed with not just the sources of his writing, but the actual physical copies of the book. he wrote an annotated, underlined. they have his shakespeare, bible , darwin, everything. they'll have a copy of his memoir. and one can read that more and see a lot of other stories. certain -- he could be this kind of revolutionary war veteran that, as i mentioned, was thrown into world history that can't understand it. he's encountering all of these great events and people.

in know, there's a lot of -- no, i don't know -- to answer your question, he did transform. he did not transform into a sympathetic character. in fact, this innocent abroad bumbling to the world. in some ways, you know, certain kind of emblematic of and in a sense that can't see cause and effect, the relationship of one's actions to the consequences. >> i feel like we're just getting started, but we're actually at the point where we should open up for questions. the protocol up, the microphones you will be on c-span.

so any questions? even answered everything. [laughter] [inaudible question] >> well, in the true events, the historical events is the organizer of the deception, but he's not the person who plays the role of the body servant. it's his son. a kind of combines those two characters. there's been a lot of speculation among literary theorists what it was. you know, why he used that name.

>> he didn't have a restaurant. >> anybody else? >> i think he started to answer this question. any evidence? >> there is no evidence. he is undoubtedly a more complex character, but there's no evidence. there's nothing, there's no literary award traces of what he was thinking, what he wrote. so there's a connection between heat and the memoirs that his father-in-law who actually plays a role as a judge enforcing the fugitive slave act which leads

to the requisition of politics in the 1850's. as a young attorney in boston he works pro bono to help -- he basically writes his memoirs in order to get out of debt -- probably out of debtors' prison. and he helps with legal services keeping him out of jail, defending him in court, but also drawing up the contract at least to the more. a lot of speculation that in mind if given the more. but he couldn't come across it in the ship's library. there's an enormous number of copies that were printed. you know, the probate record, i think philip reacted to this when i told in the story.

so amasa delano dies and is a total of state is a 50-cent used hammock, an all-time writing desk and 700 unsold copies. [laughter] >> what happens. that somehow resonated. [laughter] and found it very desirable. >> if i have time for one question, there's obviously a huge debate amongst people what he really had done all of this. you talk about it in the book. the question is whether, you know, did he look a slavery in terms of the economics, as a trade, or mobile loose fish they

worried basically says, you know, who is not a slave? no, this kind of larger, existential view of slavery for and has the absence of freedom and the justification of slavery, but then they're obviously clear things refills on the contrary, bondage is bondage. and for him it's a defining aspect, whether it's his characters to pop up throughout. have you read that in the end? word you see him coming out? >> well, again, his engagement with slavery is often on -- at the level where it's about, you know, this kind of emotional bondage or psychological bondage , philosophical blindness. and he definitely -- he was definitely quite critical of the

notion of freedom that was emerging in the united states. the freedom has kind of individual supremacy. he believed that people lived in relations of dependence and obligation and necessity, that that kind of elevation of the notion of freedom obscured. he called it the file liberty. but there is no real -- even really -- it was the whine moment where he engaged specifically with the realities of slavery as a social institution, but there was an earlier moment, and it links up with the story. the very first instance in which he talks about slavery, u.s. slavery, he is in this clause i memoir which he publishes, i think -- i can remember.

maybe 18541849. i don't really remember the date this is wonderful pass a jury comes across this monument in liverpool, the character that represents him and his experiences. and the monument is nelson. out go back. and expiring at the moment of his victory against the french. it's this crazy statue. every other statue in britain is very simple london. up on top of the pedestal. this one has a naked man falling back with this horrible skeleton of death reaching up to grab. and there are these -- that the feed of the pedestal audi's for captives meant to represent

french and spaniard prisoners of war. he goes off on this extended riff about how they're reminded him of slaves in the market. and it's almost this stream of conscious and rift on the rock of africa where. in think the idea is interesting, but slavery created the wealth of the western world. what you is doing it was almost free associating to show the way slavery kind of creates a stream of associations and helps structure conscious. that statue was put up by a committee of some of the best liverpool merchants. mostly there were all slavers. including the slavered john

bolton who was responsible -- who ordered the ship that had been seized by the french jacobin. so in other words, this statue -- the statue that prompted null to think about slavery in the first place was raised by the man most immediately responsible for bringing the west african to the americans that will inspire novell years later to write this masterpiece. so there's ways in which that story in itself and bodies the omnipresence of slavery in western consciousness. >> a good place to call it. thank you. ambac. [applause]

[inaudible conversations].

[applause] >> thank you for the introduction. i'm delighted to be here to play the role of questionnaire of sylviane diouf about her marvelous new book, "slavery's exiles". and at the end we will have a little time for questions from the audience. there's a microphone over there for that purpose. keep that in mind after we finished our conversation. just to remind you what was said, you can purchase your book outside. is well worth doing. i think to begin sylviane diouf wanted to read a little passage from the book. would you like to start that way >> actually at the end. >> okay. we will plunge right in. let me just ask you, since the

term mayor round is maybe not totally widely known, what exactly is a maroon? >> actually, the term comes from the spanish. in the beginning someone who wandered off the farm. by extension it was used for runaway slaves. it becomes maroon in english. now, what is interesting also is that even know the term is used for any kind of run away, it became used in the swamps, but in the united states maroon was actually reserved for the large maroon communities.

and in the united states maroon were actually called runaway or of wires. >> but normally when we think of runaway slaves we think of people coming into the north, in the canada. you're talking about people who established communities in the south. >> yes. so communities also families, and the south and decided to live in an open way in the woods and swamps. >> now how did you get interested in this subject? it's an interesting and unusual one, but not that many people have written about it. how did you get into it? >> i did not really start wanting to write. i was actually reading a lot

about maroon in jamaica, brazil, cuba. and i was looking for information on maroon in the united states, what they're doing, where they lived. and i couldn't find anything. i found references, you know, a chapter here and they're is a team, something on that particular community, but nothing really comprehensive and detailed. covering the entire time. maybe there's nothing to really find to be to let me just look. as i started to look a found a lot of things, so i decided to rip the book. >> excellent. there is an advanced literature on slavery in the united states, as you well know.

why is this particular aspect very neglected to make your quite right, maroon as a general phenomenon in american and seven history. there were some articles here and there, as you said, but not really very much. what you think it has been neglected? >> well, when i mentioned to other scholars mind doing research on maroon in the united states, the reaction was, how, florida. analysts say, no, and thinking about virginia, the carolinas, georgia. and people were always surprised . you know, the idea, when we look at maroon in the united states people think of florida. a large community, and that's what people think about it. to think of brazil, jamaica.

and the idea, you know, of the large communities, well, they were the exceptions. for the americans maroon communities were actually small, not as big as what the founders. and sometimes several months, several years, one generation. and so again, because, you know, the big communities, to look further individuals and groups and communities based on three criteria. and that was settled in the wilderness, in secret and -- no cultural whatsoever. and then i cannot through those

criteria, i really find a new world that has very much remained under the reader even though they represent the majority maroon. my criteria excluded a number of people. for example, there were just there for a few days. it also excluded the maroon of florida because they were not living in florida in secret. and excluded also, the maroon lived. [inaudible] because there were not living in the wilderness. and there were not living in secret either. >> right. there was -- you mentioned the brazilian example. there was a film of a few years

ago about brazilian, but that a gigantic some. so given that they are secret, but it's one of your criteria, how did you find information about them? the maroon did not leave diaries, letters, publish newspapers. they were in secret. what kind of solicitors did you manage to find? >> that's a surprise. i started thinking, while, he going to look for information. and i use for example 1600's, used legal documents ian. a very early on those mentioned maroon. we can see where the maroons work, what they were up to and

what threat posed. then you have put the books, the plantation books, trees. and i also used newspaper articles mentioned when a settlement was discovered or one -- what the maroons were doing, their activities. runaway slave at, very detailed. and you can follow people. and i did that fares several maroons, including the african maroons, what i did for some of them was to follow them from the slave ship.

and then sometimes back to the plantation. and then back to the woods. sometimes with shackles on their legs. and then you also want to -- i found that. for example, there were trials of maroons. a lot of first-person testimony. there were also -- memoirs of former runaways. sometimes they lived in the woods for some time, but also their family members. for example, for 44 years, his

sister was maroons for years. she actually had three children there. and another was the interview. as you know, about 2300. and there my song really the intimate things. because they were talking about my uncle, my end, my father was in the woods and what they were doing and what the community -- what the relationship with the community was. so there were lots of different. by combining and you can really kind of draw the most accurate portrait they can.

>> in jamaica, if i'm not mistaken, the authorities, the british government's eventually conducted treaties or agreed to treaties with maroons communities. anything like that in the united states? >> note : there were no trees of that sort. communities were small, you know, they went to communities of about 18. but there was never that kind of situation. >> what kind of places where these marine communities connect the sort of landscape, are we talking about places very far from the plantations are actually not -- pretty close?

what sort of geographic area are we talking about? >> you know, when i started i realized very early that i had to kind of construct my own tools to really explore and evidence that brett. and i realize that, you know, they did not really reflect the reality. and when i looked at what was going on on the ground i came up with this idea for the maroons landscape. within this maroons landscape, when we think of those, you know, we have this idea of people living in a specific measure global what i saw was

that actually maroons lived in of very large area. the borders of plantations, but they also went to the city's. the people who lived -- and what i mean is that the people were living far away, but they were living in secluded areas, sometimes not very far, but difficult to access. and that -- you know, the border land was part of this maroons landscape. and that landscape, this maroons landscape actually went into the plantation and into the city. so we have a very large measure. and i also saw how maroons used the entire landscape. they moved from one to another, from one state to another.

they weren't really using, you know, the entire geographic to their vantage. >> and what role do family relations play into four communities? when people escape from plantations and live in the woods or in other areas, did there families come with them? did they go back to farms and plantations to see there families? how does family relation play into this? >> that's one of the things that i discovered which was really fascinating. when people run away to the north or canada day severed our relations to their family. it was very, very hard to do. they could spend the rest of their lives wondering. now one of the reasons, one of the reasons -- and there were

many, but one of the reasons why maroons became a maroons is that what they wanted to do was to live with their family, to be free to live free with the families. and what they did was, for example, they're all family leave the plantation and settle at the border. but there were also of the cases. as you know, slavery dislocated families. the slave trade, that became even more dramatic with people being sold from virginia to alabama. so what people did was to use a number of strategies to keep their families together. for example, virginia, alabama

or run away to the woods or that person would then go to alabama and in there was a third strategy. they would walk back to maryland or north carolina. each time at the end of the road and that's the only place they could be with their families. that was the only way they have. >> that's a very interesting. it suggests an your book shows, the way you been describing it, we should not think of a sharp,

you know, rigid distinction between marines moving away from plantation and then people who were slaves on farms and plantations. they seem to intersect with each other, communicate with each other. presumably there was some kind of assistance from slaves who were living within slavery, food, information. >> absolutely. these continued relations between people who were at the border land of the plantation and people on the plantation -- just as an example, we've been talking a lot, for many months. she came a night to the

plantation. you know, so that was very, very common. maroons, whether they lived in the borders or in the hinterland or coming back to the plantation not only to see, to get for love and comfort, if crude, to get information and no role of a community and was really crucial you can imagine people working in night on plantations. the key to families in saved quarters but went to the plantations -- slaughtered cattle and pigs. they went to the cities to trade

. so the maroons, talking about the large landscapes. the maroons really went all over and continued to have a very crucial and a close relation with the people. >> now, fugitive slaves who escaped to the north, some of them became very famous abolitionists, as you well know, speakers, frederick douglass being the most prominent, but quite a few others. and the abolitionists made a big, you know, devoted a lot of attention to talking about fugitive slaves and publicizing what happened. did maroons play a part in this sort of abolitionist's consciousness? did abolitionist's talk about maroons, use them as evidence zeppelin of the evils of slavery

or attempt to ignore them? >> they tried to ignore them which to me was kind of interesting and shocking. well, maybe not-shocking actually. when they mentioned maroons it was. [inaudible] you know, kind of wise themselves. and the idea behind that would show the evil of slavery. people have to live like wild beasts to escape. to escape enslavement at the same time, you know, the idea of black people being so fooled was not exactly what the

abolitionists were about. [inaudible] , that's put it that way. and so they did not mention the tunnel. very, very rarely. >> how did these maroons, my original anyway, our heritage of the old south is that it's full of slave patrols, you know, people looking for fugitives, looking for slaves who were off the plantation without permission, without a pass. how did these battle groups of communities managed to escape just being captured? >> and that's one of the things that is really exciting to see. of course many were captured, but you also have peoplehood who managed to remain for years.

i'm thinking, for example, of. [inaudible] and he, his wife, and their 15 children lived and the world's for more than 50 years. they got out of the was only after. there were people who spent seven years, ten years, 20 years in the woods. you have to really admirer people who were able to go to the plantation. another example of this man who lived a few miles from their wife and children and lived there for five years until emancipation. during that time his wife and children looked exactly him 90

of the two. the time i saw and, you know, it was the day he ran away. and he actually came three times a week. [laughter] to see her for five years. you know, it's actually extraordinary. the complicity of the community, this would not have been possible because does look add. [inaudible] , one close to the other. people do. people knew. either the general manner, very precisely. there were close to the plantation and did not talk. but one of the ways that people lived, and that to me was a real

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one thing also that i found so you know you have all these incredible determinations to be free and to remain free. at the same time what i found was that people live underground and newspapers mentioned that when they discovered the caves and nobody had anything to say about that. there was no command. some of them didn't even mention it so this is really i mean, the maroons who lived underground were as unseen by anybody in the

american continents. >> that is what i mean when they are references to people living in caves. whatever they were, they were these underground things that could be fairly extensive in some ways. interesting. how do you think he fits into the larger story of slavery systems. is it a major part of back? is it a small side issue? is a part of the spectrum ranging from people on plantations resisting to slave rebellions or how do you fit it into a story of what we know is continual resistance by african-americans to slavery? >> i think you know again i say that it's a major problem because you know just in terms of sheer numbers and we don't know what the numbers are by the

way. i would probably say individuals small groups, families, large communities especially in the small swamp all over the south. in sheer numbers you know what to me is unique in that place in the resistance story is that they were unique in many ways. and even less underground. also they added a special kind of a freedom. they raised their food and nobody else was. when they created a mentality to

life in the white hegemony. when somebody would run away to the south which was two cities or when people would run away to the north to canada or for free blacks they all lived under the control segregated and discriminated against and there were things that they were not allowed to do. if only the maroons were -- and they created that alternative to life and the slavery south and in the free north. and what i conceive of that is also the fact that you know these ideals of voluntary separation, this is something

that exists within the african-american community and you find that actually in many different forms whether it's cultural, political, economic, social. i can see that in the black church, so all these ideas of voluntary separation and determination we see the maroons as really the precursor of ideas that really run deep into the african-american experience. >> a lot of the information in the book is from the colonial era. you dealt with flaws early on. as the south gets more populated as the 19th century goes along the population grows, the woods began to be taken over by the

plantations and farms. i mean does the opportunity or the options shrank as there are less areas to kind of survived and away from my control? >> well what i saw is actually large communities. many of the large communities with one chapter 4 each in the 1780s but then other communities, i mean in the 1860s with actually a cultural sentiment. people eating corn and rice and cows and pigs and rice was the

thing. so those groups continue to exist maybe on a smaller scale and the individuals and families actually we can see maroons coming out of the woods in 1865. some coming out when the young came to the south and going into the woods with the army. we also see the maroons actually enrolling in the army. >> so marans if i'm not mistaken stayed in the woods and in caves for a while and then headed off to the north. >> those were particular cases who people for one reason or another could not go on being marans and decided to then go to

the north. i have some examples of that. there were also people who wanted to go to the north and could not for one reason or another and leave for a year or two years and then found the opportunity and then went away. >> one of the areas you mention which doesn't sound like a very hospitable place the great dismal swamp of virginia. it seems like there were maroon communities. it seems like that was more in the past. >> that was the reason i figured out there were so many. we don't exactly remember it but the 19th century where there were two or 3000 marines there were liberated but the swamp was south of virginia and north of north carolina.

people actually ran away their. some were really living really secretly deep into the swamp. they had farms and they could cultivate and others which is very interesting as well, others slave people. they were people that worked in the swamps on the canal and others who made shingles. and maroons sometimes were employed and gave them part of their rations and they made shingles for them.