Michele Reid-Vazquez reveals the untold story of the strategies of negotiation used by free blacks in the aftermath of the “Year of the Lash”—a wave of repression in Cuba that had great implications for the Atlantic World in the next two decades. At dawn on June 29, 1844, a firing squad in Havana executed ten accused ringleaders of the Conspiracy of La Escalera, an alleged plot to abolish slavery and colonial rule in Cuba. The condemned men represented prominent members of Cuba’s free community of African descent, including the acclaimed poet Plácido (Gabriel de la Concepción Valdés). In an effort to foster a white majority and curtail black rebellion, Spanish colonial authorities also banished, imprisoned, and exiled hundreds of free blacks, dismantled the militia of color, and accelerated white immigration projects. Scholars have debated the existence of the Conspiracy of La Escalera for over a century, yet little is known about how those targeted by the violence responded. Drawing on archival material from Cuba, Mexico, Spain, and the United States, Reid-Vazquez provides a critical window into understanding how free people of color challenged colonial policies of terror and pursued justice on their own terms using formal and extralegal methods. Whether rooted in Cuba or cast into the Atlantic World, free men and women of African descent stretched and broke colonial expectations of their codes of conduct locally and in exile. Their actions underscored how black agency, albeit fragmented, worked to destabilize repression’s impact.

In book three of the series, Ocean Commotion, Lilly the Lash finds herself in the town of Rockin' Reef, where the mysterious disappearance of store items leaves an entire community in distress, and a young octopus pursuing the merits of HONESTY. Lilly, only ever seen by the reader, sends in a cool and caring shrimp to help the octopus realize the effects of her actions; prompting her to stand tall, accept responsibility, and set things straight!

A history of corporal punishment in the Brazilian navy and the four-day mutiny that took Rio hostage and put an end to the violent practice. Legacy of the Lash is a compelling social and cultural history of the Brazilian navy in the decades preceding and immediately following the 1888 abolition of slavery in Brazil. Focusing on non-elite, mostly black enlisted men and the oppressive labor regimes under which they struggled, the book is an examination of the four-day Revolta da Chibata (Revolt of the Lash) of November 1910, during which nearly half of Rio de Janeiro’s enlisted men rebelled against the use of corporal punishment in the navy. These men seized four new, powerful warships, turned their guns on Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s capital city, and held its population hostage until the government abolished the use of the lash as a means of military discipline. Although the revolt succeeded, the men involved paid dearly for their actions. This event provides a clear lens through which to examine racial identity, violence, masculinity, citizenship, modernity, and the construction of the Brazilian nation. “Offering new insights into the spectacular sailors’ revolt of 1910, Zachary R. Morgan treats the “deep structure” of Brazilian naval discipline, one based primarily on flogging. Slavery was only abolished in 1888, and the mutineers, largely of African descent, saw flogging as an intolerable holdover from the slave era. Morgan also shows the incompatibility of the old labor regime and modern naval technology. Trained on the new battleships in the English shipyards where they were built, Brazilian sailors increasingly viewed themselves as citizens in uniform.” —Joseph L. Love, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign “Legacy of the Lash is a stellar contribution to the growing global scholarship on mutiny and maritime radicalism. Zachary R. Morgan brings back to vibrant life the history-making powers of Brazil’s motley crews in the early twentieth century.” —Marcus Rediker, author of The Slave Ship: A Human History

For abstracts see: Caribbean Abstracts, no. 11, 1999-2000 (2001); p. 111.

Hughes's last collection of poems commemorates the experience of Black Americans in a voice that no reader could fail to hear—the last testament of a great American writer who grappled fearlessly and artfully with the most compelling issues of his time. “Langston Hughes is a titanic figure in 20th-century American literature ... a powerful interpreter of the American experience.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer From the publication of his first book in 1926, Langston Hughes was America's acknowledged poet of color. Here, Hughes's voice—sometimes ironic, sometimes bitter, always powerful—is more pointed than ever before, as he explicitly addresses the racial politics of the sixties in such pieces as "Prime," "Motto," "Dream Deferred," "Frederick Douglas: 1817-1895," "Still Here," "Birmingham Sunday." " History," "Slave," "Warning," and "Daybreak in Alabama."

Twelve-year-old Jordan is becoming dangerously involved with a street gang when he is suddenly transported through time to become a slave on the plantation of his ancestors

From 1792 to 1795, George Vancouver sailed the Pacific as the captain of his own expedition — and as an agent of imperial ambition. To map a place is to control it, and Britain had its eyes on America's Pacific coast. And map it Vancouver did. His voyage was one of history’s greatest feats of maritime daring, discovery, and diplomacy, and his marine survey of Hawaii and the Pacific coast was at its time the most comprehensive ever undertaken. But just two years after returning to Britain, the 40-year-old Vancouver, hounded by critics, shamed by public humiliation at the fists of an aristocratic sailor he had flogged, and blacklisted because of a perceived failure to follow the Admiralty’s directives, died in poverty, nearly forgotten. In this riveting and perceptive biography, historian Stephen Bown delves into the events that destroyed Vancouver’s reputation and restores his position as one of the greatest explorers of the Age of Discovery.