Rating: *****
Tags: Fiction, General, United States, Historical, Historical fiction, African American, Slavery, African American Loyalists, Slaves, Antislavery Movements, Lang:en
Summary
Abducted as an 11-year-old child from her village in West
Africa and forced to walk for months to the sea in a coffle-a
string of slaves- Aminata Diallo is sent to live as a slave in
South Carolina. But years later, she forges her way to freedom,
serving the British in the Revolutionary War and registering
her name in the historic "Book of Negroes." This book, an
actual document, provides a short but immensely revealing
record of freed Loyalist slaves who requested permission to
leave the US for resettlement in Nova Scotia, only to find that
the haven they sought was steeped in an oppression all of its
own. Aminata's eventual return to Sierra Leone-passing ships
carrying thousands of slaves bound for America-is an engrossing
account of an obscure but important chapter in history that saw
1,200 former slaves embark on a harrowing back-to-Africa
odyssey. Lawrence Hill is a master at transforming the
neglected corners of history into brilliant imaginings, as
engaging and revealing as only the best historical fiction can
be. A sweeping story that transports the reader from a tribal
African village to a plantation in the southern United States,
from the teeming Halifax docks to the manor houses of London,
The Book of Negroes introduces one of the strongest female
characters in recent Canadian fiction, one who cuts a swath
through a world hostile to her colour and her sex.