Self-Emancipation on the High Seas

The mutiny by enslaved captives on board the U.S. brig Creole in the fall of 1841 was the most successful high-seas uprising in the history of the American coastal slave trade. It gave rise to a major diplomatic dispute with the British, resulted in extensive litigation in the courts of Louisiana, and was later the subject of an important international arbitration. Self-Emancipation on the High Seas considers these matters in detail and reflects on the significance of the mutiny and its place in the history of slavery and its abolition.