Kidnapped at Sea: The Civil War Voyage of David Henry White
Kidnapped at Sea: The Civil War Voyage of David Henry White
Kidnapped at Sea: The Civil War Voyage of David Henry White
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Description
Description
The true story of David Henry White, a free Black teenage sailor enslaved on the high seas during the Civil War, whose life story 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.
About the Author
About the Author
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.
Critical Reviews
Critical Reviews
--My Civil War Obsession Sillen's Kidnapped at Sea adds new evidence-based arguments that anyone researching CSS Alabama must explore, but more importantly it returns humanity and agency back to David Henry White, an illiterate teenage freeman who found himself impressed into Confederate service until his death under the Stainless Banner.
--Emerging Civil War What Sillen has done with Kidnapped at Sea is truly monumental. David Henry White's soul is somewhere between here and heaven, grateful to Sillen for finding the facts, telling his story, and honoring his dignity.
--Teresa H. Clarke, Africa.com [A] blockbuster story of battles at sea that naval history fans will devour.
--Blake Stilwell, Military.com Kidnapped at Sea is well researched and well written in an easily readable style. I would highly recommend it for students of the American Civil War, slavery and maritime history.
--Jim Miller, Civil War Notebook
Publishing Information
Publishing Information
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