Part graphic novel, part memoir, Wake is an imaginative
tour-de-force that tells the story of women-led slave revolts and
chronicles scholar Rebecca Hall’s efforts to uncover the truth
about these women warriors who, until now, have been left out of the
historical record.
Women warriors
planned and led slave revolts on slave ships during the Middle
Passage. They fought their enslavers throughout the Americas. And
then they were erased from history.
Wake tells
the story of Dr. Rebecca Hall, a historian, granddaughter of slaves,
and a woman haunted by the legacy of slavery. The accepted history of
slave revolts has always told her that enslaved women took a back
seat. But Rebecca decides to look deeper, and her journey takes her
through old court records, slave ship captain’s logs, crumbling
correspondence, and even the forensic evidence from the bones of
enslaved women from the “negro burying ground” uncovered in
Manhattan. She finds women warriors everywhere.
Using in-depth
archival research and a measured use of historical imagination,
Rebecca constructs the likely pasts of Adono and Alele, women rebels
who fought for freedom during the Middle Passage, as well as the
stories of women who led slave revolts in Colonial New York. We also
follow Rebecca’s own story as the legacy of slavery shapes life,
both during her time as a successful attorney and later as a
historian seeking the past that haunts her.
Illustrated
beautifully in black and white, Wake will take its place
alongside classics of the graphic novel genre, like Marjane Satrapi’s
Persepolis and Art Spiegelman’s Maus. The story of
both a personal and national legacy, it is a powerful reminder that
while the past is gone, we still live in its wake.