Wednesday Book

Our Man in Charleston by Christopher Dickey tells the true story of Robert Bunch, the British consul in the city of Charleston, South Carolina for just over a decade before and during the American Civil War. Bunch had been sent to help smooth out the troubles left by the previous consul in Charleston, who was too inflexible to do anything but make matters worse between the United States and Britain.

The original issue was a paranoid South Carolina law that required that any black seaman arriving on the coast of the state be arrested and held in jail until his ship was ready to sail off to different waters. The excuse for this law was that, supposedly, free black seamen from other parts of the world including the northern US would incite South Carolina slaves to riot, revolt, massacre, and otherwise create mayhem against the establishment. Since slaves greatly outnumbered their white masters there, the fear was real.

The problem for Britain was that the law permitted local sheriffs to board British-flagged ships and seize black British seamen whether they had any interest in going ashore or not. Once ashore, at best they’d be kept in jail in bad conditions while the ship did its business. at worst they could be kidnapped and enslaved without the local authorities caring very much.( The British consul )