Engendered Economics

 

 

2

Family Troubles

Brian Cooper

 

 

In the mid-seventeenth century a young middle-class Englishman goes to sea against his parents’ wishes. Seized off the coast of North Africa, he endures slavery, escapes, and makes his way by boat along the west coast of Africa accompanied by a young boy. Rescued by Europeans, they set forth to Brazil where he sells the boy and begins a profitable new life as a plantation owner. Ever restless, he joins neighboring plantation owners in outfitting a trading and slaving vessel bound for Africa. The boat is shipwrecked on the reefs of an uninhabited desert isle off the coast of South America, with our Englishman the sole survivor. Utilizing his wits, his religious faith, and material salvaged from the wreck, ...