Based on a real case of 1852, the book follows Manuel Pereira, the steward of a storm-wrecked British ship who brings it into Charleston and is promptly imprisoned because South Carolina law jailed free Black sailors while their ships stood in port. Adams, who had lived in the South, shows the police, officials and prison behind that law.
An antislavery protest novel of 1853 that exposed a law the British government formally protested. Download the free EPUB.