Book
A Darkness at Ingraham’s Crest
First published 1979
Hwesu, the Dahomean protagonist of The Dahomean, has survived the Atlantic crossing only to be reduced in the American South to the imposed name Wes Parks. Enslaved at Ingraham’s Crest, he retains his knowledge of metalworking, healing and the cultural practices of his homeland while learning the rules of a plantation society that claims ownership over his labour and body.
His struggle against that system becomes a contest over identity as much as physical freedom. Pamela Bibbs, the plantation’s northern-born owner, believes herself more liberal than the slaveholding society around her, yet power draws her into the assumptions and violence of ownership. Yerby uses Wes’s remembered African life to expose what enslavement attempts to destroy and to make resistance, escape and cultural survival the centre of the sequel.
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