The Creole Affair
The Slave Rebellion that Led the U.S. and Great Britain to the Brink of War
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- $54.99
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- $54.99
Publisher Description
The Creole Affair is the story of the most successful slave rebellion in American history, and the effects of that rebellion on diplomacy, the domestic slave trade, and the definition of slavery itself. Held against their will aboard the Creole—a slave ship on its way from Richmond to New Orleans in 1841—the rebels seized control of the ship and changed course to the Bahamas. Because the Bahamas were subject to British rule of law, the slaves were eventually set free, and these American slaves' presence on foreign soil sparked one of America's most contentious diplomatic battles with the UK, the nation in control of those remote islands.
Though the rebellion appeared a success, the ensuing political battle between the United States and Britain that would lead the rivals to the brink of their third war, was just beginning. As such, The Creole Affair is just as importantly a story of diplomacy: of two extraordinary non-professional diplomats who cleverly resolved the tensions arising from this historic slave uprising that, had they been allowed to escalate, had the potential for catastrophe.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Twenty years before the American Civil War, the slave-led mutiny of the Creole, a slave ship, threatened to spark a military conflict between the U.S. and Great Britain, after the two-masted brig docked in the British-governed, predominantly-black-inhabited Bahamas. The mutiny led by the ironically named Madison Washington takes up only a small but vibrant part of this split narrative. Former attorney and diplomat Downey (Civil War Lawyers) focuses on the increasingly tense relations between the two countries, and on the negotiations that allowed each to gracefully avoid military action, leaving the empty-handed New Orleans slave owners as the only truly unhappy parties. Downey allows readers to develop interest in the event's main figures, helping enliven the discussion of the relevant legal issues. He also places the incident into context of both continental and at-sea slave rebellions, and of the fairly uneventful British abolition of slavery. It's an enlightening book, and Downey's framing of slavery within maritime history traces the development of a fitful friendship between Britain and the U.S.
