Flash for Freedom! (The Flashman Papers): Book 5

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Flash for Freedom! is a 1971 novel by George MacDonald Fraser. It is the third of the Flashman novels. George Hiscoe and Thomas Little - A pair of slave traders who Flashman is given to by the Mandevilles, charged with delivering him and Cassy to a plantation. Both are killed by Cassy in the course of their escape. A run in with the US Navy after they unload most of the slaves at Honduras lands Flashman and the crew in the USA, but he has a scheme, and ends up on the side of the law, but not for long. The Underground Railroad engage his services to accompany a man up to Canada, but even then circumstances conspire against Flashy, and he must make an escape again. From here, the story is far from over. I'm not doing a PhD in postcolonial literature, thank God, but if I was I'd be tempted to put a chapter on The Flashman Papers in my dissertation. And in that chapter, I might argue that they are some of the most withering critiques of colonial attitudes and policies written by a white author in fiction. They appear, on the surface, to be pure escapism, but if you keep your wits about you, you'll find there's much more at work. This is the 3rd book in the Flashman adventure series. I found this book very disturbing. The premise is that Flashman gets involved in a bit of gambling scandal (for once not his fault) and his father-in-law decides to get him out of the country and puts him on a sailing ship. It turns out the ship is a slavery and Flashman finds himself off the coast of Africa taking on a load of slaves and then heading to America. As he tries to return to England, he will be involved with the Underground Railroad, meet Lincoln and find his life at risk many times. That is the basic story.

What I found most interesting about this book was that it got into the international politics of slave trading. It was allowable to own slaves in America, but slave trading itself had been outlawed and was punishable by death. Consequently, when Flashman finds out he's on a slave trading vessel, he's horrified not for moral reasons, but because he's worried about being caught and hanged.

Presented within the frame of the supposedly discovered historical Flashman Papers, this book describes the bully Flashman from Tom Brown's School Days. The papers are attributed to Flashman, who is not only the bully featured in Thomas Hughes' novel, but also a well-known Victorian military hero. The book begins with an explanatory note detailing the discovery of these papers, the supposed controversy concerning their authenticity and Fraser's hinted at vindication through an article from The New York Times from 29 July 1969. [1] The NYT article is instead about the publisher's ( World Publishing Company) concerns that 10 of the 34 reviewers of Flashman had ignored the publicity material that stated the book was a novel. Instead, these reviewers had praised the memoir for its "ring of authenticity", but "the only difficulty with these encomiums for Sir Harry Flashman is that he is a complete fiction". [2] The confusion is somewhat understandable because "Fraser has been lauded for his meticulous research, thrilling plotting and sensitivity to the realities of history and human nature, as well as his refreshingly non-PC attitudes. ,,, and "his peerless gift for dialect and slang., but it is the device of the series’ outspoken and morally dubious protagonist that makes such accounts stand out." [3] But there are two humorous scenes that truly stood out for me. One involved Flashman’s description of Captain Spring and his wife: Good-bye,’ says Cassy, and that was the last I ever saw of her – or of the two thousand dollars we had had between us.” Peter Omohundro - A slave-catcher who recognises Randolph while Flashman is trying to smuggle him out, leading to Flashman abandoning his charge. He later reappears in Flashman and the Redskins, where he recognises Flashman in a bar and tries to have him arrested, but is killed by Spring.

One of Harry Flashman's few positive qualities is a sharp eye for a hypocrite, and we see the two-faced dealings of British lords who abhor far-off slavery but own local factories where children are worked to death, and the paternalistic American abolitionists who think of themselves as benevolent angels rescuing "simple creatures" from bondage. We're also treated to a portrait of young Abraham Lincoln, one of the few characters in the series perceptive enough to instantly see Flashman for the "rascal" he is.The Good - hard to find anything edifying in this story. However, considering the current climate in the US, the denial of systemic racism by the right, the mistreatment of Negroes by the police, Republican governors passing anti-voting laws and denying Critical Race teaching in schools, it's probably not a bad book to be read as it describes the slave trade and treatment of slaves in the harshest possible terms. Even though it's fiction, there are interesting factoids provided at the end of the story. His description of the period is excellent (accurate? well, I can't actually verify it as I'm not quite that old), you can see it in your mind very clearly. The appearance of Abe Lincoln made me feel better, one of the positives in the book.