DEBALO

By
Toby Benoit

 The violent and bloody period of the slave trade in America changed the lives of many Africans forever. This novel explores the atmosphere of violence during this time in our nation’s history through the eyes of a young Massarwa bushman who must learn a new way of life.

Debalo can barely believe the direction his life has taken. The free and proud life of a warrior and hunter, to which he was born, is gone. For a time he labors in the fields of south Louisiana as another man’s property, but the cruelty of slavery has taken its toll and Debalo decides it is time to escape. He gathers what is left of his strength and spirit and flees to a life in the wilderness. With thoughts of home keeping him sane throughout his escape, Debalo takes advantage of a chance encounter to gain passage home to Africa. However, with the market for slaves so profitable, even a supposed ally can be cruel.

Once aboard a ship and sailing into the Gulf of Mexico, Debalo is informed that he is to work aboard the ship as a privateer, assisting in the capture of Spanish shipping. After the successful looting of a merchant ship in the Gulf of Mexico, the privateer captain orders his ship to the port of Tampa to be repaired after the pitched battle to claim the Spanish ship.

 Debalo knows that his chance to escape the treachery of the pirate crew has come and with help gained from an unlikely source, he takes advantage of the opportunity and seeks out refuge among a band of Seminole Indians. However, Debalo’s troubles are not over, as the Florida frontier is braced for war.

The United States had made good on it’s purchase of Florida as a territory of the United States and with that political purchase, slavery arrives in Florida and Debalo finds a place fighting for freedom alongside the Seminole warriors and thousands of Freed Black men during the Second Seminole War.

Each page of the dramatic novel burns with wild adventure. This novel is written as historical fiction and allows the reader a glimpse of life in the South during the slavery era of the nineteenth century.