Black History Month 3: Ottobah Cugoano

Since 1987, October has been designated as “Black History Month” in the United Kingdom. This is an annual opportunity to reflect specifically on the men and women of the African diaspora, and to commemorate their courage and contributions. Over the course of the rest of the month, I will be publishing brief articles relevant to black history month - especially but not necessarily limited to short biographies of often neglected or largely forgotten black men in Britain that I hope might prompt further reading and research. 

Ottobah Cugoano

The place: Near the coast of modern-day Ghana, around 1770. 

The people: A group of almost twenty children and young teenagers who often spent their days together, going into the woods to collect fruit and catch birds. On this particular day they had come to a field were playing.

The problem: They were being watched.

A gang of strong, rough men suddenly emerged from the trees and stopped the children’s play. They claimed that the children had committed an offence against their lord and would have to personally answer for it. Some of the children tried to run away, but the gang pulled guns and swords on them and advised that they comply if they wanted to live. 

The children, who knew they had done nothing wrong, nevertheless felt they had no choice. As they trembled and cried in fright one of the gang tried to calm them. He said he would get them clear but they needed to trust and follow him. He led them through unfamiliar terrain till they reached a town in the evening, too late to see the offended lord, they were told. When the children awoke the next morning the alleged friend and several of those with him were gone. 

The children were told the plan had changed, that they would first go to a feast, before meeting the lord. They journeyed half a day to a place where a large number of people were gathered eating, playing music, singing, and dancing. The children began to relax a bit and greatly enjoyed the day, but evening came quickly and they were told it was too late to return to the lord’s town, and even if they could it would again be too late to speak with him to resolve the reported problem. Some friendly people in the village agreed to keep them in their homes for the night. 

Morning came. A lad of around thirteen awakened, excited by the prospect of rejoining his friends, finally meeting the offended lord, and returning to his uncle, whom he had been visiting for a few months. He was told his friends had gone on various errands, and the men who had brought them were at the seaside to get rum, guns, and gunpowder. Something was not right. Any childish naivety the boy had was quickly dying. Days passed. No news came of his friends or the men who had taken him. His host spoke with him about family, asking if anyone might be looking for him, and promising to get him home soon. After six days someone came to take him home to his father in Ajumako, where he lived with the Chief’s household. 

Two days into their journey and they still were not at Ajumako, but an unfamiliar town. Here the boy first saw people with white skin, and was frightened that they might eat him, as the inland children were sometimes warned. He also saw, to his horror, his own people chained and cuffed, abused and groaning. 

“Why have you brought me here?”, he asked the guide.

“To learn the ways of the white-faced people”, came the reply.

And in moments, the young Ottobah Cugoano, household companion to the children of Ambro Accasa - Chief of the Fante at Ajumako, realised his worst fears. He had lost his freedom that day playing in the field, and successfully groomed, was now being guided into the hands of slave-traders. He was sold for a gun, a piece of cloth, and some lead. 

Cugoano was put on a ship with other captives bound for Cape Coast, where they were moved to another ship. They continued to travel in sight of land, tormenting Cugoano and his fellow captives with thoughts of home and freedom. Then one day there was no more land to see. The brutality that they endured led the captives to conspire a suicide mission, thinking death to be better than slavery. The men were kept in chains, but the women were used to satisfy the crew’s sexual urges, and the children to be bossed about - the women and children then would attempt to blow up the ship by setting it alight. The plan failed when one of the women betrayed them to a man she was sleeping with. The consequences were bloody, and made the journey even worse. 

Cugoano survived the passage, and was sold as a slave in Grenada. He observed and endured the atrocities of slavery in the West Indies for eight to nine months, before he was purchased in 1772 by a gentleman who took him to England, where he secretly worked at learning to read and write. When his owner discovered this, he sent him to school to learn properly. 1772 also saw the judgement of the Court of King’s Bench in the case of Somerset vs. Stewart, rendering chattel slavery unlawful in England and Wales (though not the colonies of the British Empire), and resulting in the freedom of such slaves kept in bondage across the British Isles, including Cugoano. 

Cugoano remained in England, and through his efforts at learning to read, discovered and read the Bible, which introduced him to an even greater liberty than that which he now enjoyed as a free man. He would later write:

But, among other observations, one great duty I owe to Almighty God, (the thankful acknowledgment I would not omit for any consideration) that, although I have been brought away from my native country, in that torrent of robbery and wickedness, thanks be to God for his good providence towards me; I have both obtained liberty, and acquired the great advantages of some little learning, in being able to read and write, and, what is still infinitely of greater advantage, I trust, to know something of HIM who is that God whose providence rules over all, and who is the only Potent One that rules in the nations over the children of men. It is unto Him, who is the Prince of the Kings of the earth, that I would give all thanks. And, in some manner, I may say with Joseph, as he did with respect to the evil intention of his brethren, when they sold him into Egypt, that whatever evil intentions and bad motives those insidious robbers had in carrying me away from my native country and friends, I trust, was what the Lord intended for my good...But, above all, what have I obtained from the Lord God of Hosts, the God of the Christians in that divine revelation of the only true God, and the Saviour of men, what a treasure of wisdom and blessings are involved? How wonderful is the divine goodness displayed in those invaluable books the Old and New Testaments, that inestimable compilation of books, the Bible? And, O what a treasure to have, and one of the greatest advantages to be able to read therein, and a divine blessing to understand!

Cugoano was eventually employed by artists Richard and Maria Cosway, thereby coming to the attention of others with positions of power and influence. He became involved in the growing abolitionist movement and joined the “Sons of Africa”, a group of leading members of London’s black community that worked alongside the “Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade”. 

In 1787, Cugoano published Thoughts and sentiments on the evil and wicked traffic of the slavery: and commerce of the human species, humbly submitted to the inhabitants of Great-Britain, later producing an abridged version in 1791. In this work he became the first published critic of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, and the first person to call for its total abolition in the English language, indeed: “a total abolition, and an universal emancipation of slaves, and the enfranchisement of all the Black People employed in the culture of the colonies.” This work was infused with exegetical explanations of Biblical texts, suggestions as to a both redemptive and reparative way forward, and an appropriately fiery critique of the culture and its prevailing philosophies – especially its ignorant and blasphemous misappropriation of Scripture and Christianity for slavery and consumerism. Though not the primary focus of his work, comments on a proposed system of economic aid for poor black people are extended somewhat to all the working poor of England, as is a means of assisting those who cannot find work with temporary living support and incentivising employment. 

Nothing is known about Cugoano himself after the publication of his book, but while he is largely forgotten, the significance and impact of his widely distributed work joins and quite literally leads the other abolitionist efforts at the time in leaving a model of faithfulness and a legacy of freedom.

For further reading:

Ottobah Cugoano, Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species (Cambridge Library Collection - Slavery and Abolition: 2013). You can read Cugoano's work free online at https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eccodemo/K046227.0001.001/1:5?rgn=div1;view=fulltext

"Quobna Ottobah Cugoano: A Bibliography" at http://www.brycchancarey.com/cugoano/biblio.htm

Tomorrow I will post a selection of quotes from Cugoano’s “Thoughts and Sentiments” arranged by theme.