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9781421449517 Academic Inspection Copy

Kidnapped at Sea

The Civil War Voyage of David Henry White
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The true story of David Henry White, a free Black teenage sailor enslaved on the high seas during the Civil War, whose life was falsely and intentionally appropriated to advance the Lost Cause trope of a contented slave, happy and safe in servility. David Henry White, a free Black teenage sailor from Lewes, Delaware, was kidnapped by Captain Raphael Semmes of the Confederate raider Alabama on October 9, 1862, from the Philadelphia-based packet ship Tonawanda. White remained captive on the Alabama for over 600 days, until he drowned during the Battle of Cherbourg on June 19, 1864. In a best-selling postwar memoir, Semmes falsely described White as a contented slave who remained loyal to the Confederacy. In Kidnapped at Sea, archaeologist Andrew Sillen uses a forensic approach to describe White's enslavement and demise and illustrates how White's actual life belies the Lost Cause narrative his captors sought to construct. Kidnapped at Sea is the first book to focus on White's actual life, rather than relying on Semmes and other secondary sources. Until now, Semmes's appropriation of White's life has escaped scrutiny, thereby demonstrating the challenges faced by disempowered, illiterate people-and how well-crafted, racist fabrications have become part of Civil War memory.
Andrew Sillen is a visiting research scholar in the Department of Anthropology at Rutgers University. He was formerly a professor of paleoanthropology and the founding director of development at the University of Cape Town and the vice president of institutional advancement at Brooklyn College.
Author's Note Preface Part I: Context 1. David Henry White and the False Cause 2. Time and Place 3. Childhood in Lewes 4. Passenger Cook 5. Manifest Destiny 6. Gulf of Mexico 7. Secession 8. The Alabama 9. Prelude Part II: Voyage 10. Capture 11. Storms 12. Report 13. Mutiny 14. South to Galveston 15. Port Royal, Olive Jane and the John A. Parks 16. Brazil and the South Atlantic 17. Cape of Good Hope 18. Simon's Town 19. The Indian Ocean 20. The Looming Battle 21. The Battle of Cherbourg 22. Demise Part III: Aftermath 23. Accounts 24. An Ocean of Lies 25. Aide toi et dieu t'aidera Acknowledgments Notes Bibiliography
The true story of David Henry White, a free Black teenage sailor enslaved on the high seas during the Civil War, whose life was falsely and intentionally appropriated to advance the Lost Cause trope of a contented slave, happy and safe in servility.
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