Reviewed by Lynley Capon
Based on the original Book of Negroes, Lawrence Hill's novel of the same name (2007, HarperCollins Canada, 486 pages) is heart-wrenching, gripping and enlightening. It's a story about the human spirit's ability to endure unimaginable trials.
Hill writes about the African-Americans who were shipped to Nova Scotia in about 1783 after the American War of Independence and Britain's withdrawal from the fledgling United States. This Canadian author has an African-American father and a white mother who were active in the civil-rights movement.
For years, Hill investigated the fate of many Africans sold into slavery in the 1700s, their experiences, eventual journey to Nova Scotia and the return of some to Africa. In Canada, his novel appears as The Book of Negroes. In the U.S., Australia and New Zealand, it's called Someone Knows My Name.
Narrated in the first person by a young girl, Aminata Diallo, the story begins in 1745 as she lives peacefully in an African village. Her life is disrupted when slave-traders invade, kill her parents and enslave her. The tale of her trek with other slaves to Africa’s west coast is vivid. Those who died on such journeys were untied and left to rot. Aminata can't avoid stepping on their putrid flesh along the trail.
Reaching the seashore after three months of walking, she's assailed by the smell of filthy slave-ships, one of which she must board. The harrowing journey to the Americas is depicted in simple terms. “Homelanders were dying steadily, at the rate of one or two a day. The dead were shown no respect. The splash of a man or a woman hitting the water horrified me more each time and insulted the spirits of the dead.”
The narrator fares better. Speaking two African languages and having helped with midwifery at her mother's side, she's chosen to assist the ship's doctor. So she survives the ocean ordeal in better shape than others.
Repeatedly, Aminata’s bravery and quick wit save her life, but can't spare her from the pain of slavery – of being branded, losing a beloved husband, being raped and having her baby taken away when she worked on an indigo plantation on St Helena Island, Carolina. Secretly, she learns to read and write English, which leads to her being bought by a Jewish gentleman living in New York who treats her with good regard and gives her dignity.
Meanwhile, the American struggle for independence from Britain erupts into war. Aminata migrates to Nova Scotia, but pain and hardship follow, and life in Nova Scotia proves difficult too. Finally, an opportunity emerges to return to Africa.
Aminata reaches the place we now call Sierra Leone, notably the town of Freetown, today's national capital. But that's not the end. Then she goes to London as a speaker in an anti-slavery movement led by William Willberforce.
When reading, I came to believe that the modern wars and upheavals ripping apart many African nations have roots in the rape and pillage of villages and the enslavement of people centuries ago. Horrors have continued, and the story still unfolds.
Approval rating: 80 per cent
For more information: www.lawrencehill.com
(January 9, 2009)
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