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Benjamin Barson

Biography

Benjamin Barson

Benjamin Barson received his PhD in music from the University of Pittsburgh in 2020 and his BA in African American studies from Hampshire College in 2010. He is an adjunct professor of music at the University of Pittsburgh, teaching courses on jazz improvisation and history.

Benjamin Barson

Books by Benjamin Barson

written by Jason Chang, Benjamin Barson and Alexis Dudden; illustrated by Kim Inthavong - Graphic Novel, History, Nonfiction

THE CARGO REBELLION tells a true story of mutiny on the high seas in which 400 indentured Chinese men overthrew their captor, the Connecticut businessman and slave trader Leslie Bryson, taking a stand against an exploitative global enterprise. The laborers learned that Bryson’s claimed destination of San Francisco was a lie to trick them into deadly servitude in the dreaded guano islands of Peru. Reaching a dramatic tipping point, the mutineers rose up and killed Bryson and several of the ship's officers and then attempted to sail back to China. This book is a history from below that does justice to the memory of hundreds of thousands of indentured workers and demonstrates how Asian migration to the Americas was rooted in slavery, colonialism and the life-and-death struggle against servitude.