caribbean

Did you know that there is a prequel to Robert Louis Stevenson’s epic pirate adventure Treasure Island? It’s true! Porto Bello Gold, by prolific pulp fiction writer Arthur D. Howden Smith, tells how the treasure got to Treasure Island, complete with Billy Bones, Captain Flint, and, of course, Long John Silver. Despite some kitschy chapter titles, such as “Fetch Aft the Rum, Darby McGraw” and “The One-Legged Man and the Irish Maid,” Porto Bello Gold is more than just Roaring Twenties fan fiction.

Robert Charles Dallas (1754-1824), a British writer, was born in Jamaica and returned there after an education in England and Scotland.  In the West Indies, runaway slaves who formed communities independent from white society (often with American Indians) were called “Maroons.”  Those in Jamaica – about whom Dallas provides a first-hand account of their culture and mode of life – were considered the greatest threat to British colonists due to hostilities in the 1730s and again in the 1790s.

This small book, furnished with black and white pencil drawings throughout, details life on a slave ship in vivid detail. It also shares stories of life in a slave castle in Africa prior to boarding the ship. It honestly describes the horrors that enslaved Africans were forced to endure during the Middle Passage crossing from Africa to the New World. Two million kidnapped Africans who were transported across the Atlantic Ocean died during the Middle Passage. Those who survived were delivered into the hands of slavery.