The true story of David Henry White, a free Black teenage sailor enslaved on the high seas during the Civil War,
whose life was falsely and intentionally appropriated to advance the Lost Cause trope of a contented slave,
happy and safe in servility.
David Henry White, a free Black teenage sailor from Lewes, Delaware, was kidnapped by Captain Raphael
Semmes of the Confederate raider Alabama on October 9, 1862, from the Philadelphia-based packet ship
Tonawanda. White remained captive on the Alabama for over 600 days, until he drowned during the Battle of
Cherbourg on June 19, 1864.
In a bestselling postwar memoir, Semmes falsely described White as a contented slave who remained loyal
to the Confederacy. In Kidnapped at Sea, archaeologist Andrew Sillen uses a forensic approach to describe
White's enslavement and demise and illustrates how White's actual life belies the Lost Cause narrative his
captors sought to construct.
Kidnapped at Sea is the first book to focus on White's actual life, rather than relying on Semmes and
other secondary sources. Until now, Semmes's appropriation of White's life has escaped scrutiny, thereby
demonstrating the challenges faced by disempowered, illiterate peopleand how well-crafted, racist fabrications
have become part of Civil War memory.
