Kidnapped at Sea is the fascinating and true story of David Henry White, a free Black teenage sailor enslaved on the high seas during the Civil War, whose life story was falsely and intentionally appropriated to advance the image of a contented slave, happy and safe in servility.

 

Kidnapped by Captain Raphael Semmes of the Confederate raider Alabama on October 9, 1862, from the Philadelphia-based packet ship Tonawanda, White remained captive on the Alabama for over 600 days, until he drowned during the Battle of Cherbourg on June 19, 1864. In a best-selling postwar memoir, Semmes falsely described White as a contented slave who remained loyal to the Confederacy.

 

In Kidnapped at Sea, archaeologist Andrew Sillen uses a forensic approach to describe White’s enslavement and demise and illustrates how White’s actual life belies the narrative his captors sought to construct.  Kidnapped at Sea focuses on White’s actual life, rather than on Semmes’ appropriation of White’s life, thereby demonstrating the challenges faced by disempowered, illiterate people—and how well-crafted, racist fabrications have become part of Civil War memory.

 

December 2024 | Hardback 352 pages | ISBN 9781421449517 | Price £27.50