Benito Cereno

Content Warning: The source material includes depictions of racism and enslavement, as well as racist and antisemitic stereotypes; there is also an instance of implied cannibalism. Additionally, the source material uses outdated and offensive terms for Black people, which quotes within this guide may reproduce.

The year is 1799. Captain Amasa Delano of Duxbury, Massachusetts, anchors his ship, the Bachelor’s Delight, in the harbor of St. Maria, an island off the southern coast of Chile. The next morning, his crew alerts him to a strange vessel coming into the bay. Captain Delano goes to the deck, where he observes that everything from the sky to the sea is gray. Delano spots the ship coming toward the island, making its way through the gray vapors, and is shocked to see that it lacks a flag. Despite this peculiarity, Captain Delano remains unsuspecting; he is of “singularly undistrustful good-nature, not liable […] to indulge in personal alarms” (9), refusing to see evil in others. The narrator notes that, while this underscores Delano’s benevolent nature, readers are invited to form their own judgment about his intelligence.

Delano notices that the ship is moving haltingly. Suspecting it might be in distress, he decides to offer help.