1. English 2034 America & Benito Cereno

2. First History
First nations (“Indians”) prehistory in North and Central America

3. First Settlements
Jamestown (1608)
Puritan dissenters and providence

4. First Settlements
“A new heaven and a new earth”
“Divine providence”

5. Jamestown Massacre, 1622
Indian / European hostilities

6. European possessions at 1750

7. American War of Independence 1765-83
War and constitutionalism
The ‘rebel’ attitude

8. The Old South French / European aristocratic values Classless, or not?
Questionable allegiances to industrial north?

9. Civil War,
North / South legacy

10. Slavery
Southern bitterness after reconstruction
Freedom and racism

11. The sea in Literature The “romance” of exploration and travel
Shipping as a commercial and capitalistic activity, but also adventure
Are ships what trains, then cars, then airplanes represent? Freedom?

12. Herman Melville ( )
Born in New York City to a merchant of French goods
Became a teacher, then a sailor in 1839
Married; moved his family to Massachusetts in 1850; became a customs inspector
Major novel: Moby Dick (1851)
Died of cardiovascular disease
Little critical success in his lifetime

13. Benito Cereno First serialized in Putnam's Monthly in 1855
Re-published in The Piazza Tales (1856)
Based on a real encounter with a ship overthrown by mutinous slaves in 1805
Critical reception: “read by some as racist and pro-slavery and by others as anti-racist and abolitionist”

14. 1807: International slavery prohibited by Congress
1865: Slavery abolished

15. Themes
European racist fears of “black rage”; Caliban in Shakespeare’s Tempest
Is Melville criticizing Captain Delano for not seeing how evil the black slaves are– or does he see them as fighting for their freedom?
Is Babo a murderous monster, or a misunderstood victim?
How innocent is Captain Delano in this economy of slavery?
Or: is it just a story about “evil,” with no real race question?