about THE Pilot

 The British have seized New York, and nineteen-year-old Paul Cuffe—a free-born Wampanoag and Black seaman—is captured by the British Royal Navy and thrown aboard the Good Hope prison ship in Brooklyn. Initially anticipating another adventure, his optimism fades when he meets Sproat, the volatile Scottish Commissary, and witnesses the grim reality of the prison hulk: hundreds of starving, desperate men, most of them white, trapped in squalor with nothing to lose. When Sproat provokes a riot, Paul is saved by Diallo, a self emancipated slave determined to return to Africa, and befriends Elias, a brutalized young white Quaker boy desperate to return to Nantucket. 

As conditions worsen, Paul is haunted by memories of his childhood summers on Martha’s Vineyard, when Indigenous nations gathered in unity, and he spent his days with Will Rotch Jr., an affluent white Quaker boy, and Alice, a spirited Wampanoag girl. 

When Alice reveals her arranged match with the formidable James Pequot, Paul challenges James to a brutal game of Squi but suffers a humiliating defeat. As summer ends, Paul and Alice exchange heartfelt gifts, their farewell heavy with unspoken longing. 

Back aboard the Good Hope, a fleeting Fourth of July celebration is violently crushed by Sproat. As starvation takes its toll and Elias nears death, Paul rallies the prisoners in a desperate escape plan. Setting the ship ablaze, he leaps into the frigid waters of Wallabout Bay, the flames behind him symbolizing not just survival, but the birth of a leader destined to fight for freedom.