The backdrop of the story, "Macumba, Slave Ship Captain," is the slave trade during the eighteenth century when hundreds of thousands of African Negroes were rounded up and taken to the Americas under hideous conditions in slave ships. The story is about one of these slaves who was a village chief and with his people, staged a revolt on a Spanish slave ship heading for Brazil. The result of this revolt was over two hundred slaves being aboard a large square rig sail ship after the crew had been killed, and not knowing how to sail the ship, or in what direction. The ship was under full sail and at the mercy of the wind. Due to circumstances over which they had no control, the slave ship beached on an African beach far from their home villages with no means for them to get back to their villages. It is a story of hunger, thirst, slavery, and battles with muskets, spears and cannons. An encounter with a Dutch pirate ship and its captain resulted in Chief Macumba becoming a pirate captain with a Negro slave crew and many instances of danger at sea and in the lion country of Africa.
