First published 1999
Rutherford Calhoun has just gained his freedom, but marriage looms as another kind of bondage. The year is 1830, and this former slave will do anything to avoid the altar. He slips aboard The Republic as a stowaway, thinking he has found his escape route. Only after the ship leaves port does Calhoun discover the horrifying truth. The Republic is a slave clipper sailing to West Africa to collect human cargo. Calhoun finds himself trapped on a vessel dedicated to the very trade that once enslaved him. The ship becomes a floating prison where he must navigate between the brutal crew and his growing awareness of the moral catastrophe unfolding around him. As The Republic crosses the Atlantic, Calhoun faces impossible choices that will test everything he believes about freedom, survival, and what it means to be human.
Genres: fiction, historical-fiction, 19th-century, african-american-historical-fiction
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, moral-dilemma
Setting: West Africa, Atlantic Ocean
Period: 1830
240 pages · Paperback · Payback Press
Content warnings: slavery, violence