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Sao Tome: Journey to the Abyss--Portugal's Stolen Children | 
 enlarge | Author: Paul D. Cohn
Publisher: Burns-Cole Pub
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
Buy New: $11.90
You Save: $2.10 (15%)
New (12) Used (8) from $8.49
Rating:  18 reviews
Sales Rank: 194386
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st
Pages: 340
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 1
ISBN: 0964587602
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780964587601
ASIN: 0964587602
Publication Date: December 31, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
In 1485 the Portuguese Crown and Catholic Church began to kidnap Jewish children, forcibly convert the young conscripts, and ship them to Sao Tome Island off the African equator to work the government sugar plantations. The collision of slavery, sugar agriculture, and discovery of The Americas transformed this island colony into the nidus of the wholesale black slave trade that infected Africa and Western commerce for the next 350 years. Sao Tome reveals the Medieval Churchs complicity in the business of human bondage. This little-known chapter of the Diaspora tells the story of young Marcel Saulo and his sister Leah abducted with other children from their synagogue in Lisbon and shipped by caravel 4,000 miles to the West-African island where they bear witness to the holocaust of African slavery. This is a historical novel that chronicles one mans courageous struggle against religious and racial persecution, torture, and disease, and explores the abyss of Inquisition, Portuguese and Spanish world expansion, and the blight of slavery fueled by the calamitous growth of sugar commerce.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 13 more reviews...
 Little Known History: The Beginning of Slavery March 22, 2007
Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States)
11 out of 13 found this review helpful
Sao Tome is an inordinately readable novel based on fact, one of those discoveries that not only introduces a fine author but also reveals information known by all too few of us. In his Foreword author Paul D. Cohn reveals the source of his novel: the Saulo Chronicle was written between 1497 and 1500, the journal history of a young Jewish lad from Portugal who was kidnapped by the Catholic Church as part of the Inquisition and shipped to the West African Island of Sao Tome where he endured hardships not only of separation from his family but also the filthy unhealthful living conditions as a slave on the sugar cane plantations and yet survived to witness (and fight against) the inception of the commerce of slavery spurred on by the discovery by his fellow countryman Christopher Columbus of the New World.
Cohn's writing technique is very straightforward and narratively complex while remaining riveting as story telling. His descriptions Marcel Saulo's two month ship journey from Portugal to Africa, the treatment of the Jewish children who were expected to convert to Catholicism once on the island (or be killed), and the gradual adaptation to live in a strange place whose indigenous problems included virulent malaria and typhoid fever in addition to the local wars occurring between separate parts of the island as well as rebellion as the African slaves were brought together to sell to slave traders - all elements that defy belief yet are convincingly recounted. How Saulo met and married a Jewish girl only to lose her to tragedy and subsequently bonded with other girls both Jewish and African and how he managed to maintain his Jewish soul while converting to the Catholic ways in order to survive, challenging in his own way the concept of slavery by treating his 'workers' as free men and women, and how he fought the changes in the island regimes and in Portugal's government of the island all make for a story that is a journey of courage and bravery and faith.
If the novel has a flaw it is in the need to edit the number of side stories that flood the pages. Characters arise and disappear so quickly that the reader needs to back reference to keep the flow of the novel in line. But that is a small dent in a novel that commands respect and enlightens the reader. This is an extraordinary accomplishment and pleads for a wide readership. Grady Harp, March 07
A Wonderful Historical Novel April 13, 2006
L. Hale
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
Paul Cohn's Sao Tome is a beautifully written, thoroughly researched historical novel. The characters are engaging, the story is compelling, and the descriptions of life on Sao Tome are richly detailed. This book inspired me and moved me to tears. I loved it.
An excitingTale February 9, 2006
Susan R. Oppenheimer
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
Sao Tome is an exciting read. I recommend it wholeheartedly.
Paul Cohn describes the harrowing experiences of a young
Portugese, Jewish boy who was kidnapped and sent to Sao Tome
Island during the Inquisition. The tale, based on historical records, recounts the fate of the children sent from Portugal and also tells the tale of the slaves imported from Africa
to work on the sugar plantations. It is written with sympathy
and shows the reader the unbelievable difficulty of life for those who were victims of the Inquisition and of slavery.
Sao Tome: Journey to the Abyss--Portugal's Stolen Children January 25, 2006
Trish Richards (Bozeman Mt.)
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
I completely enjoyed this novel, am looking forward to a sequel if any. Marcel was someone whom I stayed awake for into the wee hours of the morning, always anticipating what would befall him or his family within the next chapter. I found the novel descriptive, so that it was easy to visualize his environment, his captors and his family! Read it, you will like it.
Sao Tome is a Gem!! January 31, 2006
Charity R. Hogge (Portland, Oregon)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Sao Tome is heart-breaking, inspiring, and compelling ... his characters spoke to my heart. The historical details of this book are rich and seem very accurate. The storyline held my attention 'till the very last page. Mr. Cohn has woven a great story--I highly recommend it!
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