The Creole Mutiny: A Tale of Revolt Aboard a Slave Ship

On the night of November 7, 1841, the Creole, a brig transporting at least 135 slaves from Richmond, Virginia, to the auction block at New Orleans, was about 130 miles northeast of the Bahamas when a band of 19 slaves led by Madison Washington seized the crew and its captain. Over the next several days they forced the Creole to sail into Nassau harbor, where the British authorities offered freedom to the slaves on board, touching off a diplomatic squabble and continuing legal ramifications. In The Creole Mutiny, George and Willene Hendrick have pieced together, from scant information and remote sources, the story of this successful slave revolt and of the mysterious figure of Madison Washington, a fugitive slave who had been recaptured while trying to free his wife.