Classic novel, published in 1855, based on a true story, which takes place, like almost all of his novels, at sea. A fable of great psychological depth and mystery, at times of terror, confronting the Spanish captain Benito Cereno, with the American Amasa Delano.
A Spanish ship, the Santo Domingo, loaded with slaves and food, drifts to an island in the Pacific. The ship is named Bachelor's Delight . The discovery of the Spanish ship's crew, with a suffocating and unclear atmosphere, raises many questions that the American captain will never understand, as he thinks that "the Spanish crew seemed to be the unwitting victims of a mental disorder".
A fable about freedom, equality, the good savage roussoniano and the value of humanity, raises the equality or inequality between men and with racial approaches on the behavior of a slave when he acquires some freedom.
In a brilliant technique for the time, Melville resorts to the official documents, later elaborated by the Spanish justice in Lima, to undo the mess.