"Seguid Vuestro Jefe"

Translation: Follow your leader. It seems that by the end of the story, Benito Cereno's death follows behind his leader, "the negro Babo." This conflicts with previously accepted notions of black slaves who follow the command of their white masters. Throughout the story, Melville portrays a scenario feared by whites at the time, in which the Spaniards are killed off by the slaves and the ship's command is switched and ruled by the fear invoked in Captain Delano. The concept of 'leader' is challenged as an outsider, Captain Delano, recognizes 'unjust' treatment by the slaves against the Spanish aboard the San Dominick. A white leader at the time would never have allowed such behavior by the slaves to have occured without punishment.

The significance of this text and the view Melville portrays the slaves as capable and intelligent beings who should be considered a force to be reckoned with. This is not an attempt to portray solely the evil tendencies of slaves, but rather their ability to conspire and take-over a situation in favor of their needs. In the case of Captain Cereno, he cautiously feigned sickness or mental instability in an effort to protect the life of Captain Delano, while at the ruthless hand of Babo. After reading the text, there are many indicators that Babo was in control. He never left Delano and Cereno alone; he used the razor as a tool of threat and obedience by drawing blood during Cereno’s daily shave; and he portrayed a strong character unlike other depictions of slaves, always catching the fainting Cereno. This last point draws interest in the audience since the slaves were not typically seen to be the kind of support Babo gave to Cereno. Qualities of friendship were quickly gauged by Delano though not seen to be initial indicators of a reversed role of control.

The reader is challenged by Melville's approach to the slaves. Though Babo does not hesitate to kill Aranda, the Spanish leader of the ship and take over, ordering the murder of most of the Spanish aboard, he is meant to be portrayed as a capable leader, ruthless though he may be. His intelligence far outweighs the assumed white leaders, Cereno and Delano. He is able to fool Delano into believing Cereno's tale and invokes a fear in Cereno that diminishes his ability to lead and protect the interests of the Spanish aboard the ship. Cereno is in some ways identified as the "black slave" and by the end, follows his leader of the story, Babo.

Tracing Blackness in Hawthorne and His Mosses

After reading Toni Morrison’s literary criticism Playing in the Dark, I became sensitive to the use of blackness in author’s works. Morrison discussed the theory that historically, white male authors simply ignored the role of the ‘Africanist’ in their works. But Morrison began to read the works again from the standpoint of the writer to understand better the use of blackness. On closer inspection, she began to “contemplate how Africanist personae, narrative, and idiom moved and enriched the text in self-conscious ways, to consider what the engagement meant for the work of the writer’s imagination” (15-16).
In Melville’s Hawthorne and His Mosses, is there an explicit reference to the mystery of blackness, especially in the line “but this darkness but gives more effect to the ever-moving dawn, that forever advances through it, and circumnavigates his world.” This generates the idea that blackness and Hawthorne’s whiteness are both necessary and critical to the other’s existence. Hawthorne’s use of lights and shades interplays between light and darkness, hinting at perhaps a “Calvinistic sense of Innate Depravity and Original Sin.”
Morrison explains how “whiteness, alone, is mute, meaningless, unfathomable, pointless, frozen, veiled, curtained, dreaded, senseless, implacable.” (pg. 59). Without darkness, light has no meaning. Without sin, grace is not something sought after. The use of blackness in Hawthorne’s works places an extreme emphasis on the unknown. “But there is the blackness of darkness beyond; and even his bright gildings but fringe, and play upon the edges of thunder-clouds.” This unknown, or the darkness that sin plays on the soul as well an in the world, is perpetuated in Hawthorne’s use of blackness in the darkness.

In response...

I trust that Mercy Otis Warren is using this piece as a form of propaganda since this passage seeks to anger the audience and take explicit control over their viewpoint. The character Meagre is unwavering and bold in his comments and readers would have little difficulty understanding the message between the lines. Meagre is explicitly noting the root evil behind the work of the British and those who support their rule, i.e. the Tories. “I curse the senate which defeats our bribes,

Who Halzerod impeached for the same crime. I hate the people, who, no longer gulled, See through the schemes of our aspiring clan…” This passage forces the reader to question why he should hate those no longer gulled. What games are the British and loyal supporters playing on those ‘gulled’ enough to blindly accept their schemes? Further down in the passage, Meagre speaks directly against the streak of goodness which runs through the world, “that warms the heart, and feeds the manly glow.” The idea that people inherently can love one another and strive for equal liberty, a basic capacity and need of our shared humanity, is crucial for a ruling body to support and practice. Without such understanding, the ruling overhead would crush down on those beneath them and fail to acknowledge the goodness inherently in man. In Meagre’s speech, it seems that he too was once possessed the ‘manly glow’ which has since lost its luster. He comments on how he “hated Brutus for his noble stand,” which seems innately contradictory to the rest of this passage in that Brutus murdered his close friend and once ally Caesar. Perhaps Meagre (figuratively) stabbed the back of a friend in pushing an agenda that plays on the support of fools and has since regretted his actions. But then, a second look at the cause of Brutus’ actions supports the idea he stood up against a ruling force, therefore playing the part of rebel. As Roman senators began to fear the rise of power of Caesar, following his appointment as dictator for life, Brutus joined the conspiracy against him (Wikipedia).

“Could we erase these notions from their minds,

Then (paramount to these ideal whims,

Utopian dreams, of patriotic virtue,

Which long has danced in their distempered brains).”

This again supports the notion that it is inherent in mankind to love one another and strive for equal liberty. To trick the supporters of British rule is the only way to overcome the innate goodness that runs through each of us. Meagre, once susceptible to his desire for equality in the world, has “plunged in darkness, slavery and vice” and therefore lost the ability to love and support the right cause. Yet, he mocks, somewhat jealously, those that stand up against the oppressors of a noble cause.

The Group, by Mercy Otis Warren

From Act II, Scene iii

Meagre: Let not thy soft timidity of heart
Urge thee to terms, until the last stake is thrown.
It is not my temper ever to forgive,
When once resentment's kindled to my breast.
I hated Brutus for his noble stand
Against the oppressors of his injured country.
I hate the leaders of these restless factions,
For all their generous efforts to be free.
I curse the senate which defeats our bribes,
Who Halzerod impeached for the same crime.
I hate the people, who, no longer gulled,
See through the schemes of our aspiring clan,
And from the rancor of my venomed mind,
I look askance on all the human race,
And if they're not to be appalled by fear,
I wish the earth might drink that vital stream
That warms the heart, and feeds the manly glow,
The love inherent, planted in the breast,
To equal liberty, conferred on man,
By him who formed the peasant and the King!
Could we erase these notions from their minds,
Then (paramount to these ideal whims,
Utopian dreams, of patriotic virtue,
Which long has danced in their distempered brains).
We'd smoothly glide on midst a race of slaves,
Nor heave one sigh though all the human race
Were plunged in darkness, slavery and vice.
If we could keep our foothold in the stirrup,
And, like the noble Claudia of old,
Ride over the people, if they don't give way;
Or with their fates were all involved in one;
For I've a Brother, as the Roman dame
Who would strike off the rebel neck at once.

Poor Richard's Almanac

In Part III of Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography, Franklin concentrates on his achievements and industry within the society, compared to his style and intent in the preceding parts of the biography. Whereas Part I explored his personal life and upbringing and Part II highlighted virtues for the sake of utility and benefit to society as opposed to being virtuous for the glory of God, Part III seems to list his contributions to society. It seems that Franklin has drifted from his original intention to record his life story for his son to solidify his memory as a founding father in America's history. Franklin explicitly writes in the first paragraph of Part I in a letter to his son “having emerged from the poverty and obscurity in which I was born and bred, to a state of affluence and some degree of reputation in the world…” and yet expresses superiority later in Part III on page 95 when he degrades his own by labeling the Poor Richard’s Almanac as “a proper vehicle for conveying instructions among the common people.”

Does this suggest that Benjamin Franklin has forgotten that he too emerged from the lower classes of society? It was by his hard work, determination, and virtuousness that propelled Franklin from poverty to fame. His intent to publish Poor Richard’s Almanac under a pseudonym strikes me as if he cannot include his own name next to something as common as an almanac “scarce any neighborhood in the province being without it.” Seemingly, Franklin would benefit from the fame of having his name attached to such a household item. But perhaps his reason for publishing it under a different name is a bold statement cutting the bridge from his upbringing to his celebratory status.

While he profited greatly from the almanac, his superiority would grant him a second intent in the publication: the ability to impose his thoughts on virtue within the common people. On page 95, Franklin says “I therefore filled all the little spaces that occurr’d between the remarkable days in the calendar with proverbial sentences, chiefly such as inculcated industry and frugality, as the means of procuring wealth and thereby securing virtue.” Franklin, in Part I in the same letter to his son, he comments on “having gone so far through life with a considerable share of felicity, the conducing means I made use of, which with the blessing of God so well succeeded, my posterity may like to know, as they may find some of them suitable to their own situations, and therefore fit to be imitated.” Imitation of Franklin’s entertaining and useful proverbs may improve the status of “common people” by demonstrating his virtues as a measure of success and a means to prosperity.

Though Franklin identifies himself as separate from the lower ranks of society by publishing the almanac under a different name, he still has the greater good of the public at heart and seeks to inform them of ways to alleviate their poverty and obscurity through hard work, determination, and a virtuous nature.