Black History Month - Ottobah Cugoano

Black History Month: 28 October 2020

 

Ottobah Cugoano was an African abolitionist who was active in England in the latter half of the eighteenth century. Captured and sold into slavery at the age of 13 in present-day Ghana, he was shipped to Grenada. In 1772 he was purchased by an English merchant who took him to England, where he was freed. Later working for the Cosways, he became acquainted with British political and cultural figures, and joined the Sons of Africa, abolitionists who were Africans.

 

In England, Cugoano became very prominent in the abolitionist movement. In 1786, he joined the African-British William Green in successfully appealing to Granville Sharp to save Harry Demane from being forced into slavery. With Olaudah Equiano and other "Sons of Africa" he continued to write against slavery, contributing public letters to London newspapers. His most important published text was "Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species" (1787), later published in a shorter version, "Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery" (1791). The book excoriated slavery, calling for immediate abolition of the trade and emancipation of the enslaved. It was the most radical abolitionist text of its time.

 

Want to learn more about Cugoano's story? Click here for more information.

Black History Month - Ignatius Sancho

Black History Month: 6 October 2020

 

Ignatius Sancho was the first known Briton of African descent to have voted in an 18^th Century general election. At the time, there were restrictive property-owning requirements that voters were required to meet, and only around 3% of the population qualified. Being an independent male property owner, owning a house and a grocery shop in London, Ignatius had the right to cast his vote for the Members of Parliament in both the 1774 and 1780 elections. He was nicknamed in his time as 'extraordinary' and became a symbol to the British abolitionists of the humanity of Africans and the immorality of the slave trade.

 

Ignatius was born in 1729 on a slave ship crossing the Atlantic Ocean, but his mother died not long after in the Spanish colony of New Granada. His father supposedly took his own life, rather than live as a slave. While living in Greenwich, John Montagu, the 2^nd Duke of Montagu, was impressed by Ignatius' intellect and friendliness, and so encouraged him to read, while lending him books from his personal library. By the late 1760s, Ignatius had already become accomplished and was considered by many to be a man of refinement. Two years after his death, 'The Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho' was published and is one of the earliest accounts of African slavery written in English by a former enslaved person.

 

Want to find out more about Ignatius Sancho? Click here for more information, or here to find out more about his letters.