Book Review: The Cargo Rebellion: Those Who Chose Freedom

The Cargo Rebellion: Those Who Chose Freedom is the story of mutiny by indentured laborers on board the American ship Robert Bowne in 1852.Through this event, the book examines Asian immigration to the Americas as indentured laborers following the 1833 end of African enslavement in the English Caribbean and South America.Employing a unique format of graphic novel followed by three scholarly articles, The Cargo Rebellion recalibrates accepted histories of Asians in the Western Hemisphere from California to Latin America and the Caribbean with respect to time of arrival, type of immigration, narratives of personal agency, and relationship to the racialized society of the West.A slim volume, The Cargo Rebellion, like PM Press's other publications The Day the Klan Came to Town and Maroon: Origins and Destinies, hews closely to the publisher's credo as an "independent, radical publisher of books and media to educate, entertain and inspire."As an illustrated work, The Cargo Rebellion draws readers into its pages via an entertaining medium that resonates across generations.Read further, and the depth of primary source information and rigorous scholarship that form the underpinnings of this book become immediately clear.