The Cargo Rebellion tells a true story of mutiny on the high seas in which four hundred indentured Chinese men overthrew their captor, the Connecticut businessman and slave trader Leslie Bryson, taking a stand against an exploitative global enterprise. The laborers learned that Bryson’s claimed destination of San Francisco was a lie to trick them into deadly servitude in the dreaded guano islands of Peru. Reaching a dramatic tipping point, the mutineers rose up and killed Bryson and several of the ship's officers and then attempted to sail back to China.