The Pedro Gorino

A tireless advocate for racial equality, Harry Foster Dean was also a bold maritime adventurer; his unique memoir is now available in a contextualized edition.

Captain Harry Foster Dean’s 1929 memoir The Pedro Gorino is the extraordinary story of his time in southern Africa around the turn of the twentieth century. Dean’s narrative describes his thrilling maritime adventures and his encounters with important figures in history, but he never loses sight of his main purpose: establishing a colony where diasporic Africans could settle alongside native-born Africans and together build a racial empire. His beloved ship, the Pedro Gorino, was at the center of his plans. A race leader manqué, Dean attempted throughout his life to convince Black people everywhere of the importance of the sea for the success of the race.

A rich selection of contextual documents supplements the annotated memoir, providing materials on Dean’s life and work, imperialism and environmental exploitation in South Africa, Black seafaring, and the Pan-African missionary movement.