dd ; Kidnapped At Sea by Andrew Sillen

KIDNAPPED
AT SEA

ANDREW SILLEN

The true story of David Henry White, a free Black teenage sailor enslaved on the high seas during the Civil War, whose life was falsely and intentionally appropriated to advance the Lost Cause trope of a contented slave, happy and safe in servility.

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KIDNAPPED AT SEA

The civil war voyage of
David Henry White



David Henry White, a free Black teenage sailor from Lewes, Delaware, was kidnapped by Captain Raphael Semmes of the Confederate raider Alabama on October 9, 1862, from the Philadelphia-based packet ship Tonawanda. White remained captive on the Alabama for over 600 days, until he drowned during the Battle of Cherbourg on June 19, 1864.


In a bestselling postwar memoir, Semmes falsely described White as a contented slave who remained loyal to the Confederacy. In Kidnapped at Sea, archaeologist Andrew Sillen uses a forensic approach to describe White's enslavement and demise and illustrates how White's actual life belies the Lost Cause narrative his captors sought to construct.

Kidnapped at Sea is the first book to focus on White's actual life, rather than relying on Semmes and other secondary sources. Until now, Semmes's appropriation of White's life has escaped scrutiny, thereby demonstrating the challenges faced by disempowered, illiterate people—and how well-crafted, racist fabrications have become part of Civil War memory.




Articles and Podcasts



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The Author’s Corner with Andrew Sillen

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https://currentpub.com/2024/10/11/the-authors-corner-with-andrew-sillen/

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Praise for Kidnapped At Sea

In this fast-paced narrative, Andrew Sillen uncovers the astounding story of David White, a free Black teenager kidnapped from a US ship and forced to accompany the Confederate raider Alabama. Through a haunting account, Sillen restores White's humanity and in doing so provides a timely examination of the necessity for addressing historical crimes.

— Caroline E. Janney, author of Ends of War: The Unfinished Fight of Lee's Army after Appomattox

This book represents the best in weaving a compelling narrative across generations, geographies, and genres by an archeologist who has effectively used the perspective of his discipline to connect a young Black man's short life to the horrors of piracy, slavery, and colonial conquest.

— Mamphela Ramphele, author of Dreams, Betrayal and Hope.

This well-researched and captivating account of the Civil War Battle of Cherbourg commands the attention of Naval and Civil War scholars alike. The embedded story of the teenage sailor David Henry White is effectively used by the author for a revealing analysis of personal, professional, and moral strengths and flaws of all involved.

— David Brown, U.S. Maritime Service (Ret.)

What Sillen has done with Kidnapped at Sea is truly monumental. David Henry White's soul is somewhere between here and heaven, grateful to Sillen for finding he facts, telling his story, and honoring his dignity.

— Teresa H. Clarke, Chairman & CEO Africa.com

Kidnapped at Sea is masterful and engrossing. The sharp focus on the 'invisible' David Henry White vividly conveys the plight of the enslaved. It makes the reader care far more than a conventional history. In its methodology, it is akin to the way Anne Frank's diary made the reader see and understand the Holocaust more than all of the recitals of facts and numbers. A stunning professional accomplishment.

— Roy Furman

In this gripping story, Andrew Sillen rescues from Lost Cause mythology the story of David Henry White, a free black man kidnapped and enslaved on board the CSS Alabama for 600 days before his untimely death. In the process, Sillen offers an important reminder that the struggle for a 'new birth of freedom' was fought as much on the high seas as it was on the battlefield.

— Kevin M.Levin, author of Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War's Most Persistent Myth

Sillen’s Kidnapped at Sea adds new evidence-based arguments that anyone researching CSS Alabama must explore, but more importantly it returns humanity and agency back to David Henry White, an illiterate teenage freeman who found himself impressed into Confederate service until his death under the Stainless Banner.Alabama for 600 days before his untimely death.

— Neil P. Chatelain, Assistant Professor of History Lone Star College—North h|Harrris Campus
About the Author
Andrew Sillen

Andrew Sillen is a visiting research scholar in the Department of Anthropology at Rutgers University. He has authored or co-authored over 50 academic and popular articles on archaeology and human evolution.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, he attended P.S. 152, Midwood High School, and Brooklyn College before earning his Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1981, studying with Francis E. Johnston (Anthropology) and Irving M. Shapiro (Dental biochemistry).

Sillen’s dissertation focused on the then-new field of using of chemical signals in fossils to reconstruct diet and habitat. He was a Smithsonian Fellow-in-Residence from 1981-1983. In 1985, Sillen took a position as Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Cape Town (UCT), where he became Professor of Paleoanthropology in 1996. During this period, his research focused on the Cradle of Humanity site of Swartkrans. In 1988 he co-authored an article with C.K. Brain which appeared on the front page of Nature, identifying the then earliest-known use of fire, ca. 1 million years ago. In 1998, then Prof. Sillen joined Vice Chancellor Mamphela Ramphele’s Executive Team as UCT’s first Director of Development. During this period, UCT completed the Upper Campus Project Campaign—then the largest capital campaign undertaken by a South African University—which resulted in a rebuilt central library (The Oppenheimer Library) and facilities for the Center for Higher Education Development (CHED). Substantial funds were also raised for postgraduate scholarships in Law, Science, and the Humanities, under a program known as Growing Our Own Timber (GOOT).


Following his return to America in 2001, Sillen worked for the Synergos Institute, where he helped raise funds to bring Archbishop Desmond Tutu and other members of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission to Cali, Colombia, to discuss peace and restorative justice. After returning to Brooklyn, from 2005-2017, Sillen served as Vice President of Institutional Advancement at his alma mater, Brooklyn College, where he designed and completed capital campaigns for the new Barry R. Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema at Steiner Studios, the Leonard and Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts, the Don Buchwald Theater, and the Murray Koppelman School of Business. Recently he served as U.S. philanthropic advisor for UCT’s new Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance. He continues to write and pursue a variety of archaeological and other research interests from his home in Brooklyn, New York.



Sample

A sample from Kidnapped At Sea





While the gaps in White’s life story may seem frustrating, the fragments that remain provide something just as important: evidence that whatever his story was, he never got to tell us, and what Semmes conveyed about him years after his death, were by any standard, deliberate lies. This limited demonstration requires in the first instance a forensic approach. Therefore, in this book I have sought to adhere to the limited documentary record, and to squeeze every last ounce of juice from it, in order to expose the lies through which White’s short life was appropriated and used to construct a False Cause narrative. In telling his story, beyond the documentary record specific to White, only information generally applicable to young Black sailors of his time and place was used to provide the necessary context. And while there is no way to know what White thought, there is much to say about what he experienced, and so the key places he lived and visited are described, as well as the people he most certainly encountered. Along the way, some key incidents and accounts from American history help us understand the forces amassed against him. Perhaps the closest we can come to knowing him is to imagine ourselves in his situation.










The Voyage

voyage map

Captures


Data from Semmes, Raphael, Logbook of the Alabama, Alabama Department of History and Archives, and Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I: Vol 3








Updates

Events and Updates


Corrections

Prior to publication, but after printing, the following errors were noted, which will be corrected in subsequent printings:


p. xiii: “double identity” should read: “double consciousness”.

p. 41 (Figure 4.2 caption): White in “Portage Bill of Ship Tonawanda from Liverpool, 36 th Voyage of the Tonawanda”…” should read: “White in Portage Bill of Ship Wyoming’s 48th voyage from Boston…”

p. 67: …the only U.S. Navy ship to have court-marshalled purported mutineers at sea and hanged them from the yardarm. should read: …the only U.S .Navy ship to have hanged purported mutineers from the yardarm without trial.

p. 110: (Map 2): The end of the voyage should read June 19, 1864.

p. 128: “The article quoted Captain Julius…” should read: “The article misquoted Captain Julius…”

p. 131: (bottom of page): “The article also contained the following passage, quoting Captain Julius”

should read: “The article also contained the following passage, misquoting Captain Julius”

p. 233: (see map 1) should read (see map 2)







Selected Publications





Sillen, Andrew, 2024, The Cope Line Voyages of David Henry White; Evidence From the Cope Family Archive, The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 148:1,1-20



2018 Sillen, A. & Balter, V., Strontium isotopic aspects of Paranthropus robustus teeth; implications for habitat, residence, and growth, Journal of Human Evolution 114:118-130



1998 Sillen, A., Hall, G., Armstrong, R.A., & Richardson, S. 87 Sr/ 86 Sr in modern and fossil foodwebs of the Sterkfontein Valley, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 62:2463-2473.



1996 Experimenting with the Pleistocene: The Reconstruction of Early Hominid Diets and Habitats in Southern Africa. Cape Town, University of Cape Town Inaugural Lecture Series No. 199.



1996 Sillen, A., ‘Parkington, J.E. Diagenesis of bones from Eland's Bay Cave Journal of Archaeological Science 23:535-542.



1994 Sillen A., ‘Lee-Thorp, J.A., Trace element and isotopic aspects of predator-prey relations in terrestrial foodwebs. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 107:243-256.



1990 Sillen A. ‘Brain, C.K., Old Flame. Natural History 4/90:6-12.



1988 Brain C.K. & Sillen, A., Evidence from the Swartkrans cave for the earliest use of fire. Nature 336:464-466.



1987 Sillen, A., ‘South Africa students feel the whip", Philadelphia Inquirer, (May 27), Op-Ed page



1982 Sillen, A. ‘Kavanagh, M., Strontium and paleodietary research: a review. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology 25:67-90.



1981 Sillen, A., Strontium and diet at Hayonim Cave, American Journal of Physical Anthropology 56:131-138.









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