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The Cargo Rebellion tells a true story of mutiny on the high seas in which four hundred indentured Chinese men overthrew their captor, the Connecticut businessman and slave trader Leslie Bryson, taking a stand against an exploitative global enterprise.
The laborers learned that Bryson’s claimed destination of San Francisco was a lie to trick them into deadly servitude in the dreaded guano islands of Peru. Reaching a dramatic tipping point, the mutineers rose up and killed Bryson and several of the ship's officers and then attempted to sail back to China.
This book's centerpiece, a deft graphic account of the rebellion in the context of the “coolie trade” and the struggle to end traffic in human “cargo,” is supported by essays that spotlight the rebellion itself, how the subject of indentured Asian workers is being taught in classrooms, and how Chinese workers shaped the evolution of American music, particularly in the making of the first drum set. The Cargo Rebellion is a history from below that does justice to the memory of hundreds of thousands of indentured workers and demonstrates how Asian migration to the Americas was rooted in slavery, colonialism, and the life-and-death struggle against servitude.
“A powerful graphic tale of the Robert Bowne Rebellion of 1852 in one
of the darkest moments of human trafficking: the coolie trade. Fearless
and visually striking, The Cargo Rebellion celebrates the
unbroken spirit of the dispossessed as hundreds of indentured Chinese
men mutinied against the captain to set themselves free.”
—Lydia H. Liu, author of The Clash of Empires: The Invention of China in Modern World Making
“Slave Mutiny in the Pacific? Hell yeah! Here in these pages is a history we should have known, a powerful account of ‘Coolie’ rebellion during the other oceanic slave trade—the one organized in the name of free labor and abolition. Beautifully illustrated and told, this is a text you will read many times over.”
—Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination
“Three cheers for this creative graphic history from below! The mighty mutiny of 400 Asian workers aboard the ship Robert Bowne is
told here with verve and visual power, showing how the violence of
global capitalism met resolute resistance. Read and be inspired by this
timeless and heroic tale.”
—Marcus Rediker, co-creator of Prophet against Empire: Benjamin Lay, A Graphic Novel
“We
chose to remember. Through deft writing and powerful illustrations, Ben
Barson, Jason Oliver Chang, Alexis Dudden, and Kim Inthanvong draw our
attention to Chinese rebellion, a mutiny of 400 Chinese indentured men
to secure freedom from captivity. Their insistence on remembering
dislodges us from a collective amnesia that erases histories of Asian
resistance. This is a story needed now more than ever to connect
violence against Asian Americans to the workings of global racial
capitalism and ongoing enslavements in the present.”
—Diane Fujino, editor of Contemporary Asian American Activism: Building Movements for Liberation
“The Cargo Rebellion: Those Who Chose Freedom
is an eloquently written and beautifully illustrated account of a
landmark incident of successful resistance and rebellion by nineteenth
century indentured Chinese workers. It relates a story that has been
hidden from official histories but which endures in the counter-memories
of freedom loving people. Today when new virulent and violent forms of
racial capitalism use displacement, dispossession, and deportation to
consign working people to increasingly unlivable destinies, The Cargo Rebellion provides a model of the irrepressible power of the people that is well worthy of admiration and emulation.”
—George Lipsitz, author of The Possessive Investment in Whiteness
“If
we are to defeat the evils of globalization, we must make it our duty
to unearth the lost histories of workers, refusers, and
rebels—especially those who have been moved, en masse, against their
will, around the globe and across the oceans in the service of
capitalist accumulation. The Cargo Rebellion moves a heavy
history in just 28 exquisite pages. It’s an invitation to remember. An
ode to an audacious workers’ struggle on the high seas. And to salute
those who refused to work on an island of shit.”
—Kanya D’Almeida, author of “I Cleaned The.,” winner of the 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize
—Lili M. Kim, author of Decolonization Dreams: Gender, Race, Empire, and the Korean American Transnational Freedom Struggle
“The Cargo Rebellion
is a brilliant fusion of arts depicting a global working-class
struggle, long ago, for the precious hope of freedom. Hurrah for Ben
Barson and his collaborators!”
—Paul Buhle, co-editor of Encyclopedia of the American Left, authorized biographer of CLR James
“Cargo carries a precious load. Long live the Afro Asian legacy to liberation!”
—Quincy Saul, author of Maroon Comix: Origins and Destinies
“This
strikingly illustrated work recounts a very powerful and inspiring
story of resistance to Western imperialism and capitalist exploitation.
It is a notable chapter in the struggle between domination and
liberation that must not be forgotten. Perhaps even more importantly, it
is the kind of story that kindles our righteous indignation and
strengthens our will to continue that struggle today.”
—John P. Clark, author of Between Earth and Empire: From the Necrocene to the Beloved Community