Who led them, though? The strong male slaves, of course, right? Who else could? That is how accounts of history have programmed us to think. There come many such examples to mind, like the Stono Rebellion, the Haitian Revolution and a lot more. Women as leaders is not something that we see very often in the history books, let alone women as the saviours of groups of people.ĭuring the 400-year long span for which the Trans-Atlantic slave trade remained at its peak, there were many revolts that we encounter. It has been women fighting for something that men were born with. We know of women as victims fighting for justice throughout history, be it the Salem Witch Trials or the Women’s Sufferage Movement. This story of a personal and national legacy is a powerful reminder that while the past is gone, we still live in its wake.Any good account of history will remind you how rigged a game that we play with it is, and how apt Orwellian quote, “Those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future,” remains even after all these years, and Wake by Dr. Illustrated beautifully in black and white, Wake will take its place alongside classics of the graphic novel genre, like Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis and Art Spiegelman's Maus. We also follow Rebecca's own story as the legacy of slavery shapes her life, both during her time as a successful attorney and later as a historian seeking the past that haunts her. Using a "remarkable blend of passion and fact, action and reflection" (NPR), Rebecca constructs the likely pasts of Adono and Alele, women rebels who fought for freedom during the Middle Passage, as well as the stories of women who led slave revolts in Colonial New York.
But Rebecca decides to look deeper, and her journey takes her through old court records, slave ship captain's logs, crumbling correspondence, and even the forensic evidence from the bones of enslaved women from the "negro burying ground" uncovered in Manhattan. The accepted history of slave revolts has always told her that enslaved women took a back seat. Rebecca Hall, a historian, granddaughter of slaves, and a woman haunted by the legacy of slavery. They fought their enslavers throughout the Americas. Women warriors planned and led revolts on slave ships during the Middle Passage. Part graphic novel, part memoir, Wake is an imaginative tour de force that tells the "powerful" ( The New York Times Book Review) story of women-led slave revolts and chronicles scholar Rebecca Hall's efforts to uncover the truth about these women warriors who, until now, have been left out of the historical record. Description A Best Book of 2021 by NPR and The Washington Post
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