Captain Harry Foster Dean’s 1929 memoir The Pedro Gorino is the extraordinary story of his time in southern Africa around the turn of the twentieth century. Dean’s narrative describes his thrilling maritime adventures and his encounters with important figures in history, but he never loses sight of his main purpose: establishing a colony where diasporic Africans could settle alongside native-born Africans and together build a racial empire. His beloved ship, the Pedro Gorino, was at the center of his plans. A race leader manqué, Dean attempted throughout his life to convince Black people everywhere of the importance of the sea for the success of the race.
A rich selection of contextual documents supplements the annotated memoir, providing materials on Dean’s life and work, imperialism and environmental exploitation in South Africa, Black seafaring, and the Pan-African missionary movement.
Comments
“For years I’ve often puzzled over my yellow clothbound copy of Captain Harry Dean’s singular autobiography The Pedro Gorino. That is because relatively little has been known about the author of this strange, surprising, and occasionally apocryphal romance of sail and of globe-spanning Pan-Africanism in the age of the New Imperialism. How could a narrative with so much evident interest to students of the Black Atlantic attract such scarce attention for nearly a century? At last, Nadia Nurhussein has expertly and generously re-edited Dean’s episodes, contextualizing The Pedro Gorino’s literary and historical imagination and amassing the scarce facts available beyond Dean’s own accounts. Dean’s place is restored in a literary history that spans from Martin Delany and Victor Hugo to Joseph Conrad and Alain Locke. This edition is a generous gift to readers of this improbable book.” — Harris Feinsod, Johns Hopkins University
“This critical edition of Harry Dean’s Pedro Gorino brings Dean and Black nautical history to the fore. Born of a time in which sailing and ships were still so central to global power, the book has always offered insight into key ways in which African Americans understood the significance of maritime life. Nurhussein re-presents Dean’s memoir with a careful curation of vital primary-source documents to help us situate the book and Dean in that time. At a moment when Black Studies is increasingly being called to understand itself on more global terms, Nurhussein’s efforts are urgently necessary, profound, and timely.” — Victoria J. Collis-Buthelezi, Associate Professor of English and Director of the Centre for the Study of Race, Gender & Class, University of Johannesburg
List of Maps and Figures
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Harry Foster Dean: A Brief Chronology
Maps
A Note on the Text
The Pedro Gorino
- Appendix A: The Reception of The Pedro Gorino1. From “Grandeur in a Black Seafarer’s Odyssey,” New York Times (3 March 1929)
- 2. From “Trader Dean,” Time (10 June 1929)
- 3. “More Books of the Week,” The Spectator (22 June 1929)
- 4. From Arthur A. Schomburg, review of The Pedro Gorino, Opportunity (July 1929)
- 5. From W.E.B. Du Bois, review of The Pedro Gorino, Crisis (November 1929)
Appendix B: Further Adventures of Harry Foster Dean
- 1. From Harry Foster Dean, “A Trip through Uganda,” Voice (July 1907)
- 2. “Refused Ride in Elevator; Sues. Harry F. Dean, Colored, Says He Sustained Injury to His Rights,” Oakland Tribune (10 October 1911)
- 3. From “Negro Barred in Ship Deals, Says Captain,” San Francisco Chronicle (23 December 1923)
- 4. From “Capt. Harry Dean, World Traveler, Dies; Noted Author Had Been Ill Seven Years,” Chicago Defender (27 July 1935)
Appendix C: Black Nautical Histories and Seafaring Knowledge
- 1. From Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789)
- 2. From Frederick Douglass, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881)
- 3. From James H. Williams, Blow the Man Down: A Yankee Seaman’s Adventures under Sail (1959)
Appendix D: Imperialism, the South African War, and Southern Africa
- 1. From Cecil Rhodes, speech on “the Native Question” (1894)
- 2. “A Sketch of Sigcau, Pondo Chief,” Christian Express (1 March 1895)
- 3. From “The Week,” Imvo Neliso Lomzi (19 March 1895)
- 4. From “Pondoland,” Imvo Neliso Lomzi (18 April 1895)
- 5. From Sir Harry H. Johnston, A History of the Colonization of Africa by Alien Races (1899)
- 6. From “The Boer Atrocities,” Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser (14 December 1901)
- 7. From “The King Who Owns Delagoa Bay,” The Sphere: An Illustrated Newspaper for the Home (8 November 1902)
Appendix E: Mining, Exploitation, and Extraction
- 1. From “King Solomon’s Mines. Europeans Stumble Upon Ruins of an Ancient African Civilization,” Chicago Times (1891)
- 2. From A.V. Alexander [Alice Victoria Alexander Kinloch], “Are South African Diamonds Worth Their Cost?” (c. 1897)
- 3. From Gardner F. Williams, “The Diamond Mines of South Africa,” National Geographic (June 1906)
- 4. Captain Harry Dean, “Liberia Asks America to Develop Commerce. Little Republic Offers Opportunity for Trade. Sea Captain Sees in It Solution of Negro Problem,” San Francisco Chronicle (8 July 1923)
Appendix F: Pan-Africanism, Emigration, and the African American Missionary Movement
- 1. From Paul Cuffe, A brief account of the settlement and present situation of the colony of Sierra Leone, in Africa (1812)
- 2. Martin Delany, “A Project for an Expedition of Adventure, to the Eastern Coast of Africa” (1852)
- 3. From Edward Blyden, “Africa and the Africans, by a Negro,” Fraser’s Magazine (August 1878)
- 4. From Bishop H.M. Turner, “The American Negro and the Fatherland” (1896)
- 5. A. Kirkland Soga, Letter to the Editor, The Colored American Magazine (August 1904)
- 6. From Fanny Jackson-Coppin, Reminiscences of School Life, and Hints on Teaching (1913)
- 7. From Bishop L.J. Coppin, Unwritten History (1919)
- 8. From Marcus Garvey, “Africa for the Africans” (1922)
Works Cited and Select Bibliography
Nadia Nurhussein is Professor of English at Johns Hopkins University.
