Sundquist, contradicting Schiffman, builds upon the “revelation of Babo’s true design, as his disguise of dutiful slave falls away to reveal a countenance lividly vindictive...” (146) thereby believing the violence is not justified. Sundquist emphasizes the vicious murder of Alexandro Aranda by Babo, which he showed as merely a warning to the other seamen, a warning of deliberate terror. Sundquist alludes to the thirty-nine men from the Santa Maria Columbus left at the north coast base of Navidad on Hispaniola in 1492 that were massacred by the natives. He is forming a parallel connection with this massacre to the revolt onboard San Dominick, portraying the maliciousness of these deaths, not their justification.
Secondly, he distinctly alludes to Francisco Miranda, who wrote about his desire for liberty and independence but at the same time feared the anarchy of a revolutionary system. He condemned blood and crime under the pretext of establishing liberty, and would rather remain if necessary one century more under the barbarous and imbecile oppression. Hereby, Sundquist shows how violence was not justified even if it was for one’s freedom from oppression.
Sundquist would further agree with Vanderbilt’s criticism. Vanderbilt bases most of his argument on the revolts. One of them for example was when Amasa Delano went back to his ship with Benito Cereno after the slaves took over the San Dominick, and upon returning he hurriedly sent his white American crew, who were greedy for their share of the gold, armed with muskets, against the blacks who lacked firearms. Delano, according to Vanderbilt, appoints his chief mate as the “leader” for this economic aggression, the San Dominick. In the violent battle a score of blacks are killed, whereas the whites suffer no fatalities whatsoever, only minor injuries. One of the injured was the appointed chief mate who ironically echoed the inscription below Aranda’s skeleton, “Follow your leader”, as he commanded the Americans to invade the San Dominick. Portraying the violent nature of the oppressed, Babo, the slave turned master turned slave, now awaits his fate at trial, and is further oppressed than he was in the beginning, proving Vanderbilt’s ironic “justification” of the trial once again. He clearly says that when the black slaves become black masters in the shipboard revolt, the effect of their humanity is far more deadly than under their previous black servitude. (Vanderbilt p.66)
The two threats that Delano perceives aboard the San Dominick, according to Sundquist are “Spanish misrule and deterioration, and threatened black insurrection and liberation.”(162) A reign of terror against the blacks had occurred after Delano’s men recaptured San Dominick, Delano had to prevent the Spanish crew and Benito Cereno himself from “cutting to pieces and killing” the Negroes after the trial had been retaken. (Sundquist p.159) Sundquist and Vanderbilt would both agree that herein lays no justification for the violence, only crude anger and vengeance.
According to Vanderbilt’s argument, for the final moment in Cereno’s testimony which will legalize the uncivilized beheading of Babo, all in all, Delano stands as a Superior American referee, presumably outside the tragic history of which he was, in fact, an accomplice. Where is the justification? It’s ironically implied by the trial. This is the trial in which Babo did not utter a word, the same trial that was held by white men, and in a court that encouraged slavery, thereby, implying that the trial was a mere mockery of justification.
In distinction to the other critics, Swann portrays the psychological fear in Benito Cereno. Swann brings out the psychological terror of slave revolts that Melville’s story imposed on slave owners. According to Swann, this constant undefined state of fear led the slave owners to apply physical force to control their slaves. By treating the slaves in a state of oppression, the slaves were just as eager to revolt against the slave owners, as the slave owners were to contain them. Swann vividly states, “The slave-owner’s increased repression - increased by his fear of insurrection - whether because repression produces ever more forceful opposition...” In reality Swann is condoning the violent oppression that the slave owners impose upon their slaves, claiming that the fear is valid enough to justify the forceful repression, as well as stating “...and if a few people get their heads bashed in by the pigs, that’s just too bad”, implying that the brutality is reasonable.
This indelible hidden fear in the slave owner’s minds was clearly shown by their means to protect them-selves, as illustrated by Swann. He brings out the night patrols and the guns kept by the bed in the South that portrayed their constant living state of fear. This ideological fear was the foundation for the need to apply physical means (the violence) to control the slaves and bring them back into their destined place in the institution. This is Swann’s justification for the slave revolts, as well as the justification for the slave owners to recapture San Dominick and the deadly violence that these two main events brought about. Swann concurs with Schiffman by relating the environmental effects that were brought about on the slaves, which Schiffman implemented to justify Babo’s violent nature.
The violence in Benito Cereno is illustrated in different scenes. It is shown in a physical, as well as in a psychological way by these critics. The justification of it in “Benito Cereno” is argued amongst them, with each one having a unique argument for their position.
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