page_title: Benito Cereno
section_title: Plot summary
hierarchical_section_title: Benito Cereno / Plot summary
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Amasa Delano
context_page_description: Benito Cereno is a novella by Herman Melville, a fictionalized account about the revolt on a Spanish slave ship captained by Don Benito Cereno, first published in three installments in Putnam's Monthly in 1855. The tale, slightly revised, was included in his short story collection The Piazza Tales that appeared in May 1856. According to scholar Merton M. Sealts Jr., the story is "an oblique comment on those prevailing attitudes toward blacks and slavery in the United States that would ultimately precipitate civil war between North and South". The famous question of what had cast such a shadow upon Cereno was used by American author Ralph Ellison as an epigraph to his 1952 novel Invisible Man, excluding Cereno's answer, "The negro." Over time, Melville's story has been "increasingly recognized as among his greatest achievements".
  In 1799 off the coast of Chile, captain Amasa Delano of the American sealer and merchant ship Bachelor's Delight visits the San Dominick, a Spanish slave ship apparently in distress. After learning from its captain Benito Cereno that a storm has taken many crewmembers and provisions, Delano offers to help out.
context_section_description: Benito Cereno takes place in 1799. The captain of a sealing ship Bachelor’s Delight, Captain Amasa Delano, spots another ship drifting listlessly towards the bay of Santa Maria. Wondering if the ship may be in distress, Delano boards his whale-boat and sets sail towards the suspicious ship. He learns that the ship is called the San Dominick and meets its captain, Benito Cereno.  Upon arrival, Delano is greeted by Spaniards and black men and women who beg him for water and supplies. Delano is troubled by the amount of black people on board since they greatly outnumber the Spaniards. This disparity is explained by the collective cries of those on-board, claiming that they had been hit by a fever that killed more of the Spaniard crew than of the slaves. Assuming the standard roles of the races, Delano ignores many troubling signs. The ship is actually filled with rebel slaves who killed their owner, Alexandro Aranda, and are in control of the Spaniards including Captain Benito. Captain Benito is constantly served by Babo, the leader of the rebellion, and Delano does not suspect anything despite the fact that Benito was never left alone. Under Babo's control, Cereno claims he headed toward the Bolivian coast in order to acquire more hands on deck. Due to all of the aforementioned conditions, the ship has doubled its path several times. At this point, Don Benito stops and states, "I have to thank those Negroes you see, who, though to your inexperienced eyes appearing unruly, have, indeed, conducted themselves with less of restlessness than even their owner could have thought possible under such circumstances." When Delano asks about the slaves' master, Alexandro Aranda, Benito states that he took fever aboard the ship and died. Delano sends his men back to bring more food and water and stays aboard in the company of its Spanish captain, Don Benito Cereno, and his Senegalese servant, Babo, who is always by his side. Don Benito’s timidness and unwillingness to punish the wild behavior of the slaves confuses Delano, but he overlooks this strange behavior. Cereno is constantly attended to by his personal slave, Babo, whom he keeps in close company even when Delano suggests that Babo leave the two in private. Delano, however, does not bother Cereno to ask questions about the odd superficiality of their conversation. Delano doesn't see Babo's extreme care for his master as odd, but instead appreciates Babo’s faithful care of Cereno and offers to help out by sending three Americans to bring the ship to Concepción.
  Delano is disturbed by the incidents he observes among the hatchet polishers and oakum pickers, such as when a black boy slashes the head of a white boy with a knife. Surprisingly, Cereno does not acknowledge or even seem to care about this behavior. This is also evident with Atufal, a slave who even in chains appears regal and rebellious. The whispered conversations between Cereno and Babo make Delano feel uncomfortable. Gradually, his suspicions increase as he notes Cereno's sudden waves of dizziness and anxiety, the crew's awkward movements and hushed talks, and the unusual interaction of the slaves and the crew. Yet Delano answers Cereno’s questions about the crew, cargo, and arms aboard the Bachelor’s Delight without reserve, reasoning that the innocent are protected by the truth. When The Rover arrives with supplies, Delano sends the dinghy back for more water while he continues to observe curious incidents.
  Babo reminds Cereno that it’s time for his shave. "Most negroes are natural valets and hairdressers; taking to the comb and brush congenially as to the castinets, and flourishing them apparently with equal satisfaction," springing from "the docility arising from the unaspiring contentment of a limited mind." Babo suggests that Delano join them in the cuddy to continue his conversation with Cereno, and Delano witnesses the shaving with an appreciative eye for Babo’s graceful skill as a barber and a hairdresser. Their suspicious behavior continues when Babo first searches "for the sharpest" razor and Cereno "nervou
caption: Amasa Delano's portrait. Frontispice from his A Narrative of Voyages, 1817.
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