The island nation of Iceland is known for many things majestic
landscapes, volcanic eruptions, distinctive seafood but racial
diversity is not one of them. So the little-known story of Hans
Jonathan, a free black man who lived and raised a family in early
nineteenth-century Iceland, is improbable and compelling, the stuff
of novels. In The Man Who Stole Himself, Gisli Palsson lays out
Jonathan's story in stunning detail. Born into slavery in St. Croix
in 1784, Jonathan was brought as a slave to Denmark, where he
eventually enlisted in the navy and fought on behalf of the country
in the 1801 Battle of Copenhagen. After the war, he declared
himself a free man, believing that not only was he due freedom
because of his patriotic service, but because while slavery
remained legal in the colonies, it was outlawed in Denmark itself.
Jonathan was the subject of one of the most notorious slavery cases
in European history, which he lost. Then, he ran away never to be
heard from in Denmark again, his fate unknown for more than two
hundred years. It's now known that Jonathan fled to Iceland, where
he became a merchant and peasant farmer, married, and raised two
children. Today, he has become something of an Icelandic icon,
claimed as a proud and daring ancestor both there and among his
descendants in America. The Man Who Stole Himself brilliantly
intertwines Jonathan's adventurous travels with a portrait of the
Danish slave trade, legal arguments over slavery, and the state of
nineteenth-century race relations in the Northern Atlantic world.
Throughout the book, Palsson traces themes of imperial dreams,
colonialism, human rights, and globalization, which all come
together in the life of a single, remarkable man. Jonathan
literally led a life like no other. His is the story of a man who
had the temerity the courage to steal himself.
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