What I expected from this award-nominated graphic novel about women who led revolts during and after the Transatlantic Slave Trade: Justice. Vindication. Strong, clever African women standing up to oppressors, liberating themselves and others, making their marks on history. Blood. Thunder. Justice.
What I got: a new understanding of just how hard being a historian can be, and an additional reminder of how unjust, dehumanizing, and atrocious chattel slavery in the Americas was.
There were slave revolts led by African women, and a few of them are in this book. So is the author, as the main character. As a result, the narrative is largely about her transcontinental research efforts and how often they’re stymied by systemic gatekeeping, projected shame and simple indifference. The women that Hall searches for are often not mentioned by name in historical documents, or disappear after a cursory mention, or can only be found in private corporate records forbidden to the public to obscure liability.(Lloyds of London, your day is coming…)
But these women existed, and so do Hall’s endeavors to keep their contributions to resistance and revolt in the historical record, expanding on them where she can and candidly sharing her frustrations about how often she can’t. It’s an admirable, ongoing process. It’s also personally frustrating and exhausting–even models of resistance are stolen from Black women by the constant, relentless tide of self-serving, revisionist histories and targeted erasure.
This feels much more about the struggle and trauma of being a historian of American slavery than it does about the events referenced in the title, but that’s a good thing. It’s still a very worthwhile read.
Archive access and clear, numerous records to Wake.
(Fellow readers? Next month marks FIVE years of Equal Opportunity Reader and my general mood-reading diversity shenanigans. I really should have planned a party. If you’ve been hanging around all this time, or even if you haven’t and want to show a little love, consider visiting the Equal Opportunity Bookshop and buying yourself something new to read. We’ll get a commission from anything you purchase from a link on this site. Thanks for visiting, and go read something good! Peace!)
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