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“A powerful graphic tale of the Robert Bowne Rebellion of 1852 in one of the darkest moments of human trafficking: the coolie trade. Fearless and visually striking, The Cargo Rebellion celebrates the unbroken spirit of the dispossessed as hundreds of indentured Chinese men mutinied against the captain to set themselves free.”
—Lydia H. Liu, author of The Clash of Empires: The Invention of China in Modern World Making
“Slave Mutiny in the Pacific? Hell yeah! Here in these pages is a history we should have known, a powerful account of ‘Coolie’ rebellion during the other oceanic slave trade—the one organized in the name of free labor and abolition. Beautifully illustrated and told, this is a text you will read many times over.”
—Robin D.G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination
“Three cheers for this creative graphic history from below! The mighty mutiny of 400 Asian workers aboard the ship Robert Bowne is told here with verve and visual power, showing how the violence of global capitalism met resolute resistance. Read and be inspired by this timeless and heroic tale.”
—Marcus Rediker, co-creator of Prophet against Empire: Benjamin Lay, A Graphic Novel
“We chose to remember. Through deft writing and powerful illustrations, Ben Barson, Jason Oliver Chang, Alexis Dudden, and Kim Inthanvong draw our attention to Chinese rebellion, a mutiny of 400 Chinese indentured men to secure freedom from captivity. Their insistence on remembering dislodges us from a collective amnesia that erases histories of Asian resistance. This is a story needed now more than ever to connect violence against Asian Americans to the workings of global racial capitalism and ongoing enslavements in the present.”
—Diane Fujino, editor of Contemporary Asian American Activism: Building Movements for Liberation
“The Cargo Rebellion: Those Who Chose Freedom is an eloquently written and beautifully illustrated account of a landmark incident of successful resistance and rebellion by nineteenth century indentured Chinese workers. It relates a story that has been hidden from official histories but which endures in the counter-memories of freedom loving people. Today when new virulent and violent forms of racial capitalism use displacement, dispossession, and deportation to consign working people to increasingly unlivable destinies, The Cargo Rebellion provides a model of the irrepressible power of the people that is well worthy of admiration and emulation.”
—George Lipsitz, author of The Possessive Investment in Whiteness
“If we are to defeat the evils of globalization, we must make it our duty to unearth the lost histories of workers, refusers, and rebels—especially those who have been moved, en masse, against their will, around the globe and across the oceans in the service of capitalist accumulation. The Cargo Rebellion moves a heavy history in just 28 exquisite pages. It’s an invitation to remember. An ode to an audacious workers’ struggle on the high seas. And to salute those who refused to work on an island of shit.”
—Kanya D’Almeida, author of “I Cleaned The.,” winner of the 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize
“Leave it to this dynamic foursome—Ben Barson, Jason Oliver Chang, Alexis Dudden, and Kim Inthavong—to tell this important and hidden history of Chinese indentured workers’ rebellion. The Cargo Rebellion: Those Who Choose Freedom is beautifully illustrated, succinctly told, and passionately argued. With its timely historical lessons for today’s urgent fight against dehumanization of workers in the face of global racial capitalism, The Cargo Rebellion should be a required reading for everyone from K–12 schools to PhD programs.”
—Lili M. Kim, author of Decolonization Dreams: Gender, Race, Empire, and the Korean American Transnational Freedom Struggle
“The Cargo Rebellion is a brilliant fusion of arts depicting a global working-class struggle, long ago, for the precious hope of freedom. Hurrah for Ben Barson and his collaborators!”
—Paul Buhle, co-editor of Encyclopedia of the American Left, authorized biographer of CLR James
“Cargo carries a precious load. Long live the Afro Asian legacy to liberation!”
—Quincy Saul, author of Maroon Comix: Origins and Destinies
“This strikingly illustrated work recounts a very powerful and inspiring story of resistance to Western imperialism and capitalist exploitation. It is a notable chapter in the struggle between domination and liberation that must not be forgotten. Perhaps even more importantly, it is the kind of story that kindles our righteous indignation and strengthens our will to continue that struggle today.”
—John P. Clark, author of Between Earth and Empire: From the Necrocene to the Beloved Community
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