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Echoes of Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution in Melville's "Benito Cereno"

“Benito Cereno” simultaneously draws the reader into its mystery and sends us out looking into history and literature for clues to its meaning. It abounds in knots, locks, keys, masks, and shadows that invite allegorical interpretation, but the problem is that much in this story is left unsaid and much must be guessed at. Understanding sources can help us fill these gaps and give substance to the symbols. It is hardly surprising, then, that much of the scholarship devoted to “Benito Cereno” has focused on its sources and analogues. The most obvious source for “Benito Cereno” is of course the Yankee sea captain Amasa Delano’s account of the extraordinary day he spent in February 1805 off the coast of Chile aboard a Spanish merchant ship on which— though he was slow to realize it—a slave rebellion had just occurred. Extensive passages from Delano’s Narrative of Voyages and Travels in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres (1817) were adapted by Melville in the writing of “Benito