payment page
An enslaved African man who leads the rebellion aboard the San Dominick, Babo is a complex character. He is arguably more intelligent than either Cereno or Delano; he has almost total control over Cereno for the majority of the story, and he successfully fools Delano by pretending to be Cereno’s slave. He understands and thus plays into Delano’s expectations, knowing Delano will accept the charade without question because he cannot conceive of a world in which the opposite is true—that Babo is in charge, and Cereno at his mercy.
It is sheer luck that Cereno survives his leap into the boat and that Babo fails to kill him. Babo's performance as Cereno's servant is so convincing that Delano compliments him on several occasions for his loyalty to his master and even offers, half-jokingly, to buy him. When the story is re-read, there is a blatant irony in the relationship between Babo and Cereno. Babo’s apparent “devotion,” as Delano initially sees it, serves the purpose of furthering the charade while also keeping Cereno in check. Cereno is the real servant, of course, and every time he reels and falls into Babo's embrace, it could be the embrace of death. Babo hovers over Cereno like Death itself, threatening to take his life should he make one wrong move.
In the end, it is Babo who is put to death. When his head is placed on a pike, his gaze is described as being “unabashed” when he meets the gazes of white passersby and while looking upon the grave of Alexandro Aranda at St. Bartholomew’s church and, further out, upon the monastery where Cereno dies three months later. This seems to suggest that the men remained linked, and that the legacy of slavery has far-reaching consequences for all.
