so-soTough to review this one: it‘s an uncomfortable read, as fifer Jessie is pressed onto a slaver bound to Benin. It‘s sometimes graphic and often depressing. Might it be important? Maybe, but for sure it‘s not appropriate for my 7-year-old third-grader. I‘ll consider it when we come around to this era of history again in seventh grade.
“They‘ve different laws than us.They‘ve entirely stopped the slave trade in their own country—the worse for them—and would like us to copy them in their #folly.Why, the trade is the best trade there is!Black Gold, we call it! Still, there‘s one way they help us. The native chiefs are so greedy for our trade goods, they sell their people cheaper than they ever did to tempt us to run the British blockade. So we profit despite the damned Englishmen.”
The Slave Dancer | 
