The Tryal Rebellion of 1805 is one of the lesser-known but significant accounts of shipboard resistance against slavery. It took place in the South Pacific, off the coast of Chile, involving a group of Senegalese who were being transported Chilean port of Valparaiso. Though they successfully overthrew their oppressors, their victory was short-lived. Their eventual recapture led to one of the most brutal punishments ever recorded for shipboard rebels.
In 1803, a group of West African Muslims were captured in what is now Senegal and sold into slavery by Spanish traders. They endured the horrific Middle Passage to Buenos Aires in the Spanish colony of Argentina. Upon arrival, the captives were forced to march across the vast Argentine pampas and the treacherous Andes Mountains before reaching the Chilean port of Valparaíso. The survivors—72 in total—were then placed on the Spanish slave ship Tryal, destined for the markets of Peru and Ecuador.
The Revolt at Sea
On December 26, 1804, some men led a meticulously planned revolt. As night fell, the captives, though unarmed, launched a surprise attack on the Spanish crew. Using whatever weapons they could find—knives, tools, and the ship’s own firearms—they fought with deadly precision. Some of the Spanish slavers were stabbed to death, others were shot, and many were thrown overboard into the open sea. In total, 25 Spanish crew members were killed in the uprising.
With the deck now under their control, the rebels took Captain Benito Cerreño hostage, forcing the remaining crew to obey their orders. Though they were not trained sailors, they used their knowledge of Spanish and the stars to navigate, hoping to steer the ship back to Senegal.
For nearly three months, they sailed the South Pacific, desperately trying to find their way home. But with no proper navigational tools and dwindling supplies, their journey turned into a slow drift along the Chilean coast. Their desperate situation would soon bring them into contact with another vessel, leading to their downfall.
In February 1805, the Perseverance, a New England seal-hunting vessel commanded by Captain Amasa Delano, encountered the Tryal. Seeing the ship in poor condition with tattered sails, Delano boarded the vessel to offer assistance, bringing fresh water and food. The rebels, fearing discovery, staged a charade. two slaves remained close to Captain Cerreño, acting as though they were his devoted servants. Delano, unaware of the true situation, was impressed by their apparent loyalty.
However, as Delano was about to depart, Cerreño seized the opportunity to escape. He leapt from the Tryal onto Delano’s boat, revealing that the Africans had taken over the ship and held him captive. Realizing the truth, Delano and his men launched a counterattack. Six Africans were killed in the ensuing struggle, and the remaining survivors were captured and handed over to Spanish authorities.
Brutal Punishment and Aftermath
The Spanish response was merciless. Five of the rebellion’s leaders, were executed in the port of Talcahuano. Their heads were severed and displayed on poles as a gruesome warning to others, while their bodies were burned. The women and children who had been aboard the ship were forced to witness the execution, further demonstrating the brutal lengths to which colonial authorities would go to suppress resistance.
Following the suppression of the rebellion, the surviving captives were returned to the slave market, where they were sold once again.
The Rebellion in History and Literature
The Tryal Rebellion was not an isolated event. Enslaved people had long resisted their captivity, and shipboard revolts were almost a regular occurence during the transatlantic slave trade.
In 1839, enslaved Africans aboard the Spanish schooner La Amistad rebelled while being transported between Cuban ports. They killed two crew members and took control of the ship, but after drifting into American waters, they were captured by the U.S. Navy. What followed was a historic legal battle that reached the U.S. Supreme Court, where former President John Quincy Adams successfully argued for their freedom in United States v. The Amistad (1841).
Two years later, in 1841, the Creole revolt took place aboard an American ship transporting enslaved people from Virginia to New Orleans. Led by Madison Washington, 19 enslaved men killed a white sailor and took command of the ship, sailing it to the British-controlled Bahamas. Under Britain’s 1833 Act of Emancipation, the rebels were freed, marking one of the most successful slave revolts in American history.
Both of these revolts became the subject of literary works that shaped public discourse on slavery. La Amistad was widely reported and later became a subject of historical analysis, while Madison Washington’s leadership in the Creole revolt inspired Frederick Douglass to write The Heroic Slave in 1853.
The Tryal Rebellion, however, was largely forgotten—until Herman Melville transformed it into fiction in his 1855 novella Benito Cereno. Based heavily on Amasa Delano’s 1817 memoir A Narrative of Voyages and Travels in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, Melville’s version explores themes of deception, racial power structures, and highlights the terrifying reality of slavery’s grip on both the oppressors and the oppressed.
Sources:
A narrative of voyages and travels in the northern and southern hemispheres : comprising three voyages round the world together with a voyage of survey and discovery, in the Pacific Ocean and oriental islands / by Amasa Delano
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1096&context=etas
