Arcadia Public Library

Presents a short novel that centers on a slave rebellion on board a Spanish merchant ship in 1799.

"Comprising personal accounts from an intensely consequential chapter in our country's history, The Great Stain tells the story of American slavery from its origins in Africa to its abolition with the end of the Civil War. In this 'essential' (Kirkus) new work, Noel Rae integrates firsthand accounts into a narrative history that brings the reader face to face with slavery's everyday reality, expertly weaving together narratives that span hundreds...

"While much of modern scholarship has focused on the American slave trade’s impact within the United States, considerably less has addressed its effects in other parts of the Americas. A rich analysis of a complex subject, this study draws on Portuguese, Brazilian, and Spanish primary documents—as well as English-language material—to shed new light on the changing behavior of slave traders and their networks, particularly to Brazil and Cuba....

"Run for It--a starkly stunning graphic novel by internationally acclaimed illustrator Marcelo d'Salete--is one of the first literary and artistic efforts to confront Brazil's hidden history of slavery. Seen through the eyes of its victims, Run for It tells of ordinary slaves who rebel against their masters. Run for It's vivid illustrations and magical realism engage the reader's poetic imagination through stories of individual suffering caused by...

11-year-old Kofi Offin dreams of water. Its mysterious, immersive quality. The rich, earthy scent of the current. The clearness, its urgent whisper that beckons with promises and secrets... Kofi has heard the call on the banks of Upper Kwanta, in the village where he lives. He loves these things above all else: his family, the fireside tales of his father's father, a girl named Ama, and, of course, swimming. Some say he moves like a minnow, not just...

From the author of 1491, the study of the pre-Columbian Americas, this new work is a history that explores the most momentous biological event since the death of the dinosaurs. More than 200 million years ago, geological forces split apart the continents. Isolated from each other, the two halves of the world developed totally different suites of plants and animals. Columbus's voyages brought them back together, and marked the beginning of an extraordinary...

Discusses the European enslavement of Africans, including their capture, branding, conditions on slave ships, shipboard mutinies, and arrival in the Americas.

Bad luck continues to follow Tom Tin and his mates as they find themselves aboard a formerly abandoned ship, are taught to be sailors by two black-hearted castaways they rescue, and sail to a Caribbean island where they make important new friends and enemies.

In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation's history. Hurston was there to record Cudjo's firsthand account of the raid that led to his capture and bondage fifty years after the Atlantic slave...