A Powerful Story of Greed in the 17th Century Dutch Slave Trade - an Editorial Review of "Black Cattle"

Book Blurb:

In the tradition of Wilbur Smith and Patrick O’Brian—a sweeping tale of men driven by empire and undone by conscience.

A powerful novel of greed, loyalty, and survival in the brutal world of the seventeenth-century Dutch slave trade.

West Africa, 1687. On the lawless edge of the Dutch colonial empire, the West India Company tightens its grip on the coast, its ships filled with gunpowder, muskets—and ambition. Skipper Aldemar Burghoutsz, a battle-hardened seaman haunted by his own past, sails a slave-trading pinnace into a world where profit is measured in human lives. At his side stands Gillis Graauw, a younger sailor torn between loyalty and conscience. Together they enter a deadly arena where European merchants, African kings, and Moorish middlemen fight for dominance along the Gold Coast.

From the stifling barracoons to the decks of the slave ships, from the gold-laden rivers to the fever-ridden shores, Black Cattle lays bare the human machinery of empire—its greed, its faith, and its cruelty. No one emerges unscathed: not the conquerors, not the conquered, and not those who stand between them.

Rooted in true events yet told through living, breathing characters, Black Cattle is a sweeping work of historical fiction—part maritime adventure, part moral reckoning. It is not history retold—it is history lived.

For readers of Wilbur Smith, Patrick O’Brian, and Ken Follett, Black Cattle delivers seventeenth-century storytelling at its most visceral, cinematic, and deeply human.

Black Cattle (original Dutch title: Kroesvee) was published in the Netherlands in 2019 and has since been reprinted three times. The novel is included in the literature list of the official historical Canon of the Netherlands (June 2020). It is the first of four standalone historical novels in the Sons of Japheth series about the Dutch and the slave trade in the seventeenth century.

Paperback and hardback editions include more than 60 black and white illustrations specially created for this edition.

Book Buy Link: https://geni.us/Nl7BD

Author Bio:

John Meilink (1961) grew up near the ports of Amsterdam and Zaandam, the cradle of Dutch seafaring. His versatility is reflected in two passions: on one hand as a software engineer and programmer, on the other as a writer of historical novels and stories. In the Netherlands and Belgium, he has successfully published three historical novels in the Sons of Japheth series — a collection of stories about the Dutch and their involvement in the seventeenth-century slave trade. His work has been recognized through the inclusion of all three books in the official Historical Canon of the Netherlands, a government institution that provides guidelines for the teaching of Dutch history.

Editorial Review:

Title: Black Cattle

Author: John Meilink

Rating: 4.5 stars

"Black Cattle" by John Meilink is a formidable fictional historical novel that provides a gritty, multi-perspective exploration of the Dutch involvement in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade during the 17th century. Set along the Gold Coast- Modern-day Ghana, it is a book that aims to profoundly show the brutal mechanics of the trade, from the violent capture of Africans in the interior to the political and commercial rivalries between European powers competing for human cargo.

"The woman lives in the hut farthest on the outskirts halfway between a cassava field and in the shadow of a few fully grown ironwood trees...Still she has no peace. A vague feeling of unease tingles in her stomach. Something is not right... The woman sees them first. A low moan of fear rises in her throat... The man with the musket reaches for the powder on his bandolier, finds the powder horn, and pours the powder into the barrel. He inserts the wad, rams it down with the ramrod and primes the pannat the sife with powder....The distance has already grown...but he is a good shot."

This passage in the first chapter is designed to create a powerful and unsettling emotional response in the reader. The woman's premonition creates a sense of dramatic irony and dread that lets the reader know that something terrible is coming, without letting the other characters to know. Here, her helplessness, maternal panic, and primal urge to flee come alive. The passage also establishes the enslaved as individuals with lives, fears and loved ones. The structure of the passage is a classic style that establishes a sense of normalcy first, then a rising action situation that climaxes in slow motion action that force the reader to experience every deliberate, terrifying step alongside the woman. The sentences are grammatically standard but also descriptive, and are then followed by sentence fragments such as "something is not right" that accurately mirror the character's fragmented thoughts and rising panic.

"There are old women who spread rumors," he continues. "They say the whites want to eat you. That on the ship, you'll be slaughtered and cut into pieces, stuffed into barrels of brine and sold as meat in the white harbors on the other side of the world." "It's lies. Children's stories! Even the whites know very well that all blacks tastes like shit. They'd rather eat each other... The whites have no use for dead, sick or injured blacks. They need strong men and women who can work hard and bring in the harvest. If you obey, nothing will happen to you."

The dialogue here is a devastatingly effective piece of writing that feels strategic. It first gives voice to the ultimate, primal fear of the captives who believe they are being taken for consumption, a common misconception among enslaved Africans. For the historical reader, it is a passage that drips with dramatic irony. As it is commonly known, though they were not eaten, the diseases, starvation and abuse were just as horrific as the cannibalism myth. This excerpt is significant to the themes of dehumanization and pervasion of morality that is shown through the slavers attempt to shift responsibility for the victim's fate onto the victims themselves. The sentences are straightforward and factual and while they are dominated by the passive voice: "were taken" "were counted," through them the reader is able to see the slaves as objects being processed by a faceless, impersonal system and not as agents of their own actions.

"Why would you want to fight the Dutch? They have been here for years and years, as long as we can remember. It's not wrong to hate them- they are unclean barbarians who don't wash, and if you are not careful, they will touch you with their left hand- but they are also powerful merchants."

"We don't hate them. They do what they do. They pit us against each other and walk away with the profit. Anyone who opposes them is destroyed. We understand that; every lion fights for its own pride."

This passage presents a debate between two distinct philosophies. The first speaker's logic carries an undeniable sense of historical inevitability that is quickly followed by a cultural contempt that later culminate in an irrefutable argument of power. Here, one gets the sense that he is saying 'our feeling are irrelevant; their power is a fact we must accept.' The second speaker's logic flows from a sense of acceptance to a sharp analysis of Dutch strategy, concluding with a law of the jungle worldview. The latter is a deep, unsentimental understanding of the geo-political game being played. The very structure of the dialogue reinforces this divide, moving from a rhetorical question that frames resistance as futile, to the long and winding ones that convey a resigned finality.

"Black Cattle" by John Meilink is for serious historical fiction readers seeking to be immersed in a dark chapter of history and emerge with a more profound understanding of the human capacity for cruelty and survival. It is one of the reads out there offering a devastatingly powerful literary experience that is as educational as it is emotionally resonant.

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