Join us this month when we'll be discussin g The Wager \;: a tale of shipwreck\, mutiny and murder by David Grann.
\n
On January 28\, 1742\, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on \;the \;coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men\, barely alive\, and they had an extraordinary tale t o tell.
\nThey were survivors of His Majesty's Ship \;the Wager\ , a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission durin g an imperial war with Spain. While \;the Wager \;had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as "the \;prize of all \; the \;oceans\," it had wrecked on a desolate island off \;the \;coast of Patagonia. \;The \;men\, after being marooned for month s and facing starvation\, built \;the \;flimsy craft and sailed fo r more than a hundred days\, traversing 2500 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes.
\nBut then ... six months later\, anoth er\, even more decrepit craft landed on \;the \;coast of Chile. Th is boat contained just three castaways\, and they had a very different sto ry to tell. \;The \;thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not h eroes - they were mutineers. \;The \;first group responded with co untercharges of their own\, of a tyrannical and murderous captain and his henchmen. It became clear that while stranded on \;the \;island&nb sp\;the \;crew had fallen into anarchy\, with warring factions fightin g for dominion over \;the \;barren wilderness. As accusations of t reachery and murder flew\, \;the \;Admiralty convened a court mart ial to determine who was telling \;the \;truth. \;The \;st akes were life-and-death - for whomever \;the \;court found guilty could hang. \;
\nhttps://akronlibrary.libnet.info/event/11906826 URL;VALUE=URI:https://akronlibrary.libnet.info/event/11906826 ATTACH:https://static.libnet.info/images/events/akronlibrary/Book_I_Stacks .jpg END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR