Slavish Shore: The Odyssey of Richard Henry Dana Jr.

by Jeffrey L. Amestoy

In 1834 Harvard dropout Richard Henry Dana Jr. sailed to California as a common seaman. His account of the voyage, Two Years Before the Mast, quickly became an American classic. But literary acclaim could not erase the young lawyer’s memory of the brutal floggings he had witnessed aboard ship or undermine the vow he had made to combat injustice. In Slavish Shore, Jeffrey Amestoy tells the story of Dana’s unflagging determination to keep that vow in the face of nineteenth-century America’s most exclusive establishment: the Boston society in which he had been born and bred.



The drama of Dana’s life arises from the unresolved tension between the Brahmin he was expected to be on shore and the man he had become at sea. Dana’s sense of justice made him a lawyer who championed sailors and slaves, and his extraordinary advocacy put him at the center of some of the most consequential cases in American history: defending fugitive slave Anthony Burns, justifying President Lincoln’s war powers before the Supreme Court, and prosecuting Confederate president Jefferson Davis for treason. Yet Dana’s own promising political career remained unfulfilled as he struggled to reconcile his rigorous conscience with his restless spirit in public controversy and private life.



The first full-length biography of Dana in more than half a century, Slavish Shore reintroduces readers to one of America’s most zealous defenders of freedom and human dignity.

Genres: Biography, History

400 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2015

Reviews

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have known Jeff since the early 1980s, when I worked in a restaurant in Waterbury Center and he was the Commissioner of Labor, before his several terms as Attorney General and then as the Chief Justice of the VT Supreme Court. I really look forward to reading this.
I am reading this and find it to be very interesting and well researched and written. I now am compelled to read 'Two Years Before the Mast' as it is that experience that largely lead to Dana's life as an advocate for those less fortunate.
I can tell that the author is quite impressed with the subject, and he presents his story in a quite favorable light. Richard Dana lived an incredible life, keeping company with many luminaries of the day. He had many remarkable experiences, and achieved much, despite numerous personal attacks on him by rivals. I am not reading Two Yeas before the mast, and am liking it quite a bit.

[Elena Rodriguez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent biography of one of the more interesting figures of the 19th C. Having read "Two Years Before the Mast" many years ago, I looked forward to learning the rest of his story. Amestoy satisfied my curiosity with a heavily researched biography that was nevertheless very readable. There are some areas of Dana's life which the author either drew a veil over or did not have enough verifiable evidence to clear the air of mystery. Presumably this is to be expected when lawyers write books!

I recommend this to anyone with an interest in knowing more about either Dana or the whole atmosphere in the north (particularly Boston and Mass.), especially in the years leading up to, during and after the Civil War. Dana's defense of fugitive slaves - and the financial and physical dangers he therefore faced - are fascinating. The details about the Union's seizures of ships, questions regarding the limits of presidential authority, and the shifting political sands during the Civil War help round out my knowledge of the history of that time. The attempt to bring to trial (or not bring to trial) Jefferson Davis and Dana's involvement in that was totally new to me.

[Easyreader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating book, but sad. The central figure constantly believed that he was morally right. Now I tend to agree with his positions on most legal mid-nineteenth-century topics -- but he was so certain of his rectitude that he was nearly unable to get along with people in this world. He had no sense of compromise and little sense of the calming power of listening to people. Frequently positions were offered to him because of his knowledge, but then the offers were often -- almost always -- withdrawn becauseof how he had behaved with people involved in the possible work setting. My heart went out to his wife, among other reasons, because she and he had five children together, and it sounds as if she raised them pretty much on her own.

If you decide to read this book, I recommend doing it in spurts, both for emotional relief and for think-over time, when you can consider the situations described. I admire the author for remaining cheerful and undaunted.

[Stephen Kiernan · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent legal biography by a former Vermont attorney general and chief justice of the state supreme court. Dana won fame as the author of Two Years Before the Mast, but this book contains a larger picture of his life -- as an anti-slavery lawyer in 1850s Boston, as a political candidate, and as an uncompromising defender of the Constitution.
Meticulously written and researched.