Slavery in Melville's "Benito Cereno"

Slavery in Melville's "Benito Cereno"

Introduction

In “Benito Cereno”, Amasa Delano is the narrator. He captains a ship 'The Bachelor's Delight' which is a Massachusetts whaling ship. Once while anchored near Santa Maria island, the crew spots a ship approaching the island. This ship was just floating and moving by the waves and its sails were torn. Seeing this, Delano decided to investigate this ship so he sent a boat. Upon approaching the ship named 'San Dominik', Delano notices that the ship seemed like it was in this condition because of the weather. Only on the ship, he is confronted by black slaves and sailors who beg him for food and water so he ordered his men back to his ship to get the supplies. The ship's captain 'Benito Cereno' seemed to be very nervous and confused.

Upon inquiry Cereno told the tale of how his ship faced bad weather due to which they had to throw away their supplies in order to lighten the weight of the ship. After the storm, their ship drifted away due to strong winds. During this time, they were left without supplies out in the ocean. Since the owners of the slaves claimed that they could be allowed to be set free from their chains, Cereno decided to try this out, which actually worked and proved to be successful (Melville, n.d.). His servant Babo also played an important part in keeping the slaves calm during this tough situation.

Melville's Views about Slavery

Benito Cereno was published at a time when slavery was a major issue before the civil war. In this story, the author Melville portrays slaves as being cunning and brutal who would often attack their mastery in order to set themselves free. This usually led to the death of white masters who would be killed despite being armed. This is quite different from reality as slaves were not as they were being portrayed. Since every white man was free while black people were kept as slaves, they were considered inferior compared to whites (Sparknotes, n.d.). It is because of this view; every black person was considered substandard and was not allowed to live along with white people.

In this story, the writer has the view that since black slaves were considered notorious, they should be kept as slaves and chained. He does not consider the fact that since black people are kept chained as slaves ...