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Race
Published six years prior to the start of the Civil War and in the midst of a fierce national debate over slavery, Melville would have been aware of the racial implications of his story as he was writing it. While the story is based on an actual event, Melville embellishes the story greatly, adding many flourishes, including Captain Delano's thoughts on Black people. There is little documentation of Melville's views on Black people or slavery. This leaves his stories, such as Benito Cereno, frustratingly difficult to interpret. Some critics have pointed out that Melville had two experiences that would give him a unique perspective on slavery: he had served as low-ranking sailor on a whaling ship (a thankless job, although certainly nowhere near as horrible as slavery) and he was briefly a captive of the Typee cannibals in the South Pacific. He was also witness to the rituals and behavior of the Typee cannibals, which could have affected how he saw other races. It is possible that Melville's experience may have influenced his portrayal of the Black slaves in Benito Cereno as particularly ruthless and violent.
Another interpretation is that there is actually nothing especially surprising or unusual about how the slaves on the the San Dominick behave—including killing the slave owner Alexandro Aranda and hanging his corpse from the ship's masthead as a warning to the sailors—given the fact that they are literally fighting for both their freedom and for their lives. One might expect the so-called "civilized" and presumably Christian white sailors on the San Dominick or the Bachelor's Delight to behave in exactly the same way had the tables been turned and they were snatched from their families and their freedom and faced with the prospect of being forced into slavery for the rest of their lives. This may strike some as a particularly "modern" take, but it should be noted that opposition to and abhorrence of slavery was significant and growing in the United States in 1855—particularly in New England where Melville lived and wrote.
Genuine vs. Perceived Authority
Benito Cereno is, obviously, a story about slavery. However, it is also a story about authority. Amasa Delano is the main character of the text. He is also a wealthy white man and the captain of a whaling ship, which makes him the pinnacle of traditional authority. His economic status, his race, and his title have rendered Delano accustomed to a specific world order in which wealthy white men like himself hold all of the power. As a result, he is blind to the power and authority that Babo has over Cereno. Melville makes it abundantly clear throughout the novella that Delano is unable to comprehend what is really going on aboard the San Dominick because he is too caught up in the way things should be to process what is actually happening. For example, there is an extended sequence in which Delano compares the clothing of Cereno and Babo after he meets them for the first time. He catalogs the different expensive pieces that make up Cereno’s gentlemen’s attire (from his velvet coat to the silver buckles on his stockings) and then notes that Babo is only wearing trousers that are clearly made from an old top-sail. Delano observes that their “contrast in dress denot[es] their relative positions.” This is obviously not true, as the reader will soon learn, but Delano is unable to look past Cereno’s perceived authority—something that will continue until Babo attacks Cereno at the end of the text, making the truth unavoidable.
The Illusion of Morality
Delano clearly thinks that he is a good and moral man. He goes to investigate what he perceives to be a ship in distress, he provides the San Dominick with provisions from his own ship when he sees that their supplies are low, and he even stops the white sailors from immediately seeking vengeance on the remaining slaves after Delano and the sailors regain control of the San Dominick. However, over the course of the novella, readers can determine that Delano is not as moral as he claims to be—he is a deeply racist man who does not see Black people as his equals. For example, about halfway through the novella, Melville writes, “[Delano] had often taken rare satisfaction in sitting in his door, watching some free man of color at his work or play. If on a voyage he chanced to have a black sailor, invariably he was on chatty and half-gamesome terms with him. In fact, like most men of a good, blithe heart, Captain Delano took to negroes, not philanthropically, but genially, just as other men to Newfoundland dogs.” Delano may believe that he has a “good, blithe heart,” but this conflation of Black people and dogs suggests that he does not view Black people as humans. As a result, readers can infer that Delano’s morality is actually just an illusion and is, instead, self-righteousness masquerading as morality.
