Sunday, 28 November 2010
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The Wanderer
Specious (seemingly true but actually false) is a favorite vocabulary word of mine and is an appropriate description of the sailing vessel depicted in this early 20th century painting by Warren Sheppard.
Very early this morning, November 28th, (152 years ago or 1858) the Wanderer slipped silently into a coastal channel and unloaded cargo of more than four hundred African slaves onto Jekyll Island, GA. That would be almost forty years after the trade had been made illegal!
Sightseeing on Jekyll as a youngster, I heard lots of stories about wealthy Northerners vacationing in Georgia. I even learned about their secret meeting in 1913 which hatched what is now known as the Federal Reserve Bank. Furthermore, I was captivated by the lives of the characters in Eugenia Price's historical fiction. Locating their headstones in the graveyard of Christ Church only made history more real and true.
In this case author Eric Calonius shines a bright light on dark voyage in this fast-paced historical narrative.
The Wanderer, a luxury racing yacht flying the pennant of the New York Yacht Club, was secretly converted into a slave ship within a year of being built. Radical conspirators who wanted to defy the federal government and speed the nation's descent into war carefully designed this slaving venture.
There's lots more to the story, revealed in newspapers and courtrooms.
Suffice it to say....
Chief organizer Charles Lamar makes Rhett Butler look tame.
Currently
The Wanderer: The Last American Slave Ship and the Conspiracy That Set Its Sails
By Erik Calonius
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