After finishing Benito Cereno, I stopped for a minute to marvel at what a masterpiece Herman Melville had written. Melville’s depiction of the practice of slavery is a scene that I had never thought about or heard about before. Most of my knowledge of slavery is in reference to American Slavery, a few generations into the start, so I never really knew too much about the journey or the experiences of slaves who were brought straight from their homelands. Not to be offensive, but it is a common belief that after a few generations of slavery, many slaves were uneducated as a result of the oppression that they faced. I truly believe that Melville’s depiction of slavery was positive. Something that is easy to forget is that as silly as someone may sound speaking a language that isn’t there native or first language, you cannot determine how smart someone is in their native tongue. I never would have thought that Babo was the mastermind behind the entire revolt, ordering all the other slaves and puppeteering Don Benito in Captain Delano’s presence. Melville shows another side of slavery that I had never before thought about and despite the brutality and the malice that the Blacks aboard the San Dominick showed towards the crew members and passengers, I sympathized with the Blacks more so than I did the crew members of the ship, with the exception of Don Benito. Finally, I do not think Captain Delano can be blamed for his blindness. I do not think the vast majority of people are perceptive enough to have picked up on what was actually going on, especially as Captain Delano was not only an experienced sea captain, but an incredibly observant one as well. I doubt that in his place, any of us would have been able to piece together what was going on, especially with Babo’s masterful puppeteering and Don Benito’s compliance.

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