The Future of a Neglected Past: Slavery, Slave Narrative and Africa 's Project of Self-Knowledge
Abstract
Many Africans know the horrors and cruelties of colonialism on African peoples but not an equal number know the even more inhuman cruelty of slavery. Indeed outside graduates of African history at secondary and university levels of education it is reliable to argue that the pains and pangs of trans-Atlantic slave trade is not effectively popular among Africans. Hence the desire for restitution as exemplified in the call for reparations hardly generate a sustained pan-African interest.
Several reasons account for this state of affairs. The first is the colonial foundation of formal education in Africa which distorted African history with the wrong view that African history began with European presence in Africa . The second reason is that popular literatures that emerged to tell the African story were literatures that were devoted to the colonial discourse and not slave narratives.
This paper sets to point out the missing link in the story of Africa 's project of self-knowledge. Taking two works of African slaves as examples: The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olauda Equiano (Gustavus Vassa the African)(1789) and The Letters of Ignatius Sancho(1781) as examples, the paper highlights the relevance of these slave narratives in Africa's project of self knowledge. The paper holds that these texts are important works that tell the African story and argues that telling the African story without incorporating them is a subversion of truth with negative consequences for the African mind. It recommends incorporating these texts in curriculum of studies in African colleges.
I
HISTORY and THe Imperatives of africa 's Project of SElf-Knowledge
What I characterize as self knowledge project in Africa is the attempt to articulate the values, ideas and ideals that define Africa as a socio-cultural cum historical entity; the attempt by Africa to achieve a worthy and reliable account of herself in a manner that shows that she is at home with the concepts and values that emanate from her socio-cultural history. This project finds justification in the fact that Africa herself is a significant entity in the human drama who by her engagements with other segments of the human community has suffered some level of historical injustice perpetrated by other segments of mankind who has gone as far as claiming intellectual authority over Africans. It is against this trend that the need to achieve an authentic historical knowledge that will demonstrate the African weight and worth becomes relevant so as to generate and regenerate views, values, concepts, and symbols, rites and rituals that are credible and reliable enough to define African contribution to mankind.
Africa 's project of self knowledge project has of necessity, to be historical and cultural. In the first place, the history that preceded the wrong characterization of contemporary Africa is so influential that an effort by Africans to interpret Africa should begin with addressing this wrong history. It would arguably need almost the period it took to damage the African humanity to undo the damage. Apart from the racial philosophy of Fredrick Hegel, who in his “hateful attitude towards Africa” (I. Onwewenyi,1993,p.100),provided strong rational grounds to institute a world ruled by racism, and denied Africans a place in world history, “the entrance of Africans into European history, which came in the status of slavery, presaging an era of merchandise in human misery,”(L.N.Mbefo,1988,p.21), constitutes a vital source of wrong identity for Africans for which Africa's project of self knowledge should be considered urgent. Other factors include “the darkness of human geography” (the position that argues that the north wind produces different effects on men). This theory advanced by the Franciscan Friar, Bartholomew the Englishman holds that “while the North wind makes men of the north tall and fair in body, the hot moist wind of the South makes men of the South not so bold nor so wrathful as those of the North.”(L.N.Mbefo, 1988, p.23), There is also the biblical factor which saw Africans as divinely ordained slaves to mankind (See DMC, Mutiso and S.W.Rohio, 1975). This position well articulated by Edward Blyden infers from the Ethiopian factor in the Bible that Africans were destined to be humble servants to other races of mankind.
These wrong ideological standpoints anchored on almost the essential human spiritual tripod of knowledge, religion and geography are what the self-knowledge project should address for it is here that culture which is dynamic medium for instituting difference and prejudice is founded. This self knowledge also justifiably demands a protest culture of knowledge devoted to the defense of African humanity and if this were to move from a protest or defensive culture to offensive culture it should be tolerated. As a popular axiom has it even if a goat is pushed to the wall it will turn back to the face the enemy. For Africa, the trouble is not just that she has been pushed to the wall without respect or regard but that certain geography of humanity considers this unjust project their major vocation in human history as if Africa is the opposite of Europe . The consequence of this is that centuries after the heinous crimes of slavery, imperialism and colonialism, Africans are beleaguered with how to achieve a new identity as an effective anti-thesis to the wrong characterization of Africa . As what was founded on some ill-conceived intellectual presupposition, it would take no less than a well conceived intellectual proposition to undo the damage and recreate the African identity. And this is precisely the overriding relevance of Africa 's project of self-knowledge. As Abiola Irele puts it:
The intellectual presuppositions of colonialism represented a formulation in negative terms of African identity; its racism was a large statement about the nature of the African which called for a refutation. In the intellectual confrontation with imperialism, it was necessary to enforce this refutation by elaborating a new set of valuations which reversed the terms of the colonial ideology. (A.Irele, 1981, pp.17-18).
Perhaps what Irele forgets and which this work sets out to remind any interested mind on the African project of self-knowledge is that intellectual pre-suppositions of slavery which came before the outright colonization of Africa is even worse .This calls for strong refutation.
The real worry is that several years after trans-Atlantic salve trade which formalized the effort at dehumanization of African humanity, the generation and regeneration of knowledge claims in disfavor of the African remains embarrassingly overwhelming. In a recent theory of difference and value making rounds world over, Samuel Huntington proposed heterogeneity as formula for the progress of mankind. To do this he identifies eight major civilizations namely: Western, Islamic orthodox, Latin American, Indic, Confucian, Japanese, and perhaps African (Huntington, Clash of Civilization, 1993:p.25 ) and argues that these civilizations are legitimate enough, morally, socially, politically. The expression “perhaps African” is a disturbing sign and evidence that the historical misrepresentation of Africa still finds its place among leading contemporary theorists despite its generational harm to knowledge as a human heritage.
But this contempt with African humanity deserves to be contested with very strong historical details and this validates he essence of self-knowledge project. Apart from what appears to be certain tolerable gap in African history or what we might call “the eclipse of history” in Africa, that is the inability to account with profound details, what became of Africa between the end of Egyptian civilization and the birth of organized kingdoms of Africa, there is profound evidence of steady progress in arts and learning in Africa. The discovery of the writings of sages like Zera Yacub of Ethiopia, who by all of standards is an equivalent of Greek Socrates, the Nsibidi writings of Cross river basin of Nigeria which is an equivalent of the pictorial writings of Asia world are all evidence that much of what other portions of the world apply to substantiate their claim to continued progress and development is not lacking in the African instance. Even with reference to the period of doubt and detail mentioned above, the important works of Martin Bernal entitled Black Anthena now gives us a clue to Africa's contribution to Greek civilization that followed and accounts for part of what became of Africa after the fall of Egyptian civilization. The joy is that despite the doubts in, denials of and contempt with African humanity the African spirit has remained and whether we call it Africanity or African personality the truth is that we can now talk of the phenomology of the African spirit that has survived the dirty and dangerous politics of difference played against Africa for which she is advancing to what we can now call African renaissance at the moment.
In her modern political history, Africa's effort to demonstrate the capacity for self-consciousness as an entity is historically traceable to the dramatic upsurge of black consciousness in the United States of America between the two world wars in what is popularly referred to today as Harlem Renaissance. During this period “Africa became a strong valourized symbol and the obsessive centre of a quest for identity”(A.Irele,1981,p.102), as proud sons of Africa celebrated their colour, culture and identity and glorified all things black as a positive way of uplifting the identity of the blackman. Thus, they elevated all things and branded them in the ideology of blackness: “black power,” “black color,” “blacks Africa ,” and “the Napoleonic power of black man.” In the same vein, the apostle of black pride W.E.B Du Bois initiated Pan-Africanism in Paris around this period. Through this organization, he made contributions to the cause of African identity and the evolution of black race, and this according to Russel L. Adams, “was manifest by his stated belief that black people were, through racial superiority and integrity, destined to humanize the civilized world.”(R.Adams, 1978, p.38). It is in line with this new aspiration that Dr. Aggrey made his famous statement that “he who is not proud of his colour is not fit to live.”
The Harlem Renaissance addressed a lot of issues relating to African identity: the racial segregation, political disenfranchisement, economic labor, exploitation, and cultural discrimination (Masolo, D.A, 1999, p.10). In addition, it also laid a solid ideological groundwork for further efforts to address the question of African identity. Such gallant efforts as those of Pro-African intellectuals like Edward Blyden and Leopold Sedar Senghor were arguably inspired by this movement given the similarities in their vision and mission. It is also important to note that this is where we trace the historical origin of the expression “African” or “black” personality, which has become a prominent ideology on the question of African identity. In the very historical expression of Langston Hughes, which he wrote on June 23, 1926, the distinguished black American poet said: “We, the creators of the new black generation, want to express our black personality without shame or fear. If this will please the whites, much the better, if not, it does not matter.” (R.Adams, 1978, p.3).
The Harlem Renaissance or the era of “blackism” was followed by the emergence of nationalism in Africa which took several forms namely: cultural nationalism, plaintive nationalism, radical nationalism, Pan-African nationalism and ideological and integral nationalism. Cultural nationalism saw Europe's invasion of Africa , “in terms of cultural inferiority of the Africans or the non-existence of African culture. . . . Thus nationalism from this point of view is an attempt to define oneself as a cultural people. It was nothing more than the colonized's plea for acceptance by the colonizer as a cultural man rather than a cultureless beast” (See DMC, Mutiso and S.W.Rohio, 1975 Introduction).Plaintive nationalism on the other hand was a quest for cultural rights of the African. Under this form of nationalism, Africans had managed to put across the message that they were cultural people and wished to be organized into the colonizer's pattern of social order. The essence of plaintive nationalism “was a request for assimilation into the colonizer's society in the colonies” (See DMC, Mutiso and S.W.Rohio, 1975, p.321). Radical nationalism on the other hand was revolutionary in form and content. It was a demand for the termination of colonialism. It is this form of nationalism led by important historical figures such as kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Nnamdi Azikiwe of Nigeria , Patrice Lumumba of Congo and Nelson Mandela of South Africa that has led Africa to political independence. But the African story is not concluded by this level of independence. There is the need for mental independence and this is why the need to tell the story of the intellectual history of Africa arises. Such a story should tell what has defined, determined and defended African concepts, ideas and ideals all these while. How has African identity survived all these while and who were the intellectual heroes of Africa for which Africa has survived all these while as an autonomous rational entity? It is in attempt to answer this question that we shall look at arts which provides the reliable medium for intellectual expression. In this instance we shall be addressing ourselves to African literature an outstanding form of African arts.
II
Literature as Alternative Source of African History
“To understand the history of the black people is to enter into the very psyche of the black writer”
S.E.Ogude, Genius in Bondage: A Study of the Origin of African Literature in English, 1999, p.14
Modern African history cannot just summarized by Africa 's political history. Indeed much of what define the evolution of African humanity goes beyond the brief details supplied above. Such details are supplied by the arts whether in its written form or applied form .This is because arts account for the evolution of culture and provide insight into the different intellectual forces that shape the growth of cultural expressions. By so doing, it defines the movement of the mind. For instance, while the art of dancing remains a human heritage and while it arises from human nature and desire, why people dance one form of music or the other and why this transforms into their culture is left to be determined by written arts which are the social scripture of the people. In this regard written arts serve as a reliable weapon for determing the intellectual and cultural history of a people. This is because arts present the concepts of life that define the intellectual history of a people. The forms of artistic expression contain the mode and manner a people define their engagement with the human drama at any point and it is for this reason that literary arts stand as an alternative and reliable source of history.
In Africa a deficient trend has obtained all these while for which the effort to account for the intellectual history of black Africa cannot be said to be a huge success. This is arising from the fact that what is popularly celebrated as African literary heritage are mainly literary works that narrate African story from the colonial period of African history. It is hardly known of any secondary or lower schools in Africa where slave narratives are known and read in the school curriculum. What this means is that the popular African history supplied or suggested by African literary arts is the colonial history and not the even more horrible story of slavery. Indeed this problem has a historical root which deserves to be known. Neither the first congress of Negro writers took place in Paris in 1956 nor the second one that closely followed and was held in Rome in 1959 recognized African literature beyond the colonial story (S.A.Gakwandi, 1977, p.3). In these forums, African writers discussed the strategies towards the recreation of African identity; the need for the rehabilitation of African culture and for its proper integration into world culture. They resolved to institute African Cultural Research Centre and to translate into autochthonous language, works of Negro writers in foreign languages. They also recognized the place of philosophy in the elaboration of culture and through its commission on philosophy, raised important issues that border on relevance of concepts that emanate from the African world (See DMC, Mutiso and S.W.Rohio, 1975, p.321).Slave narratives were not recognized as an important organ of African literature that deserve a special focus and attention and this is evident from the fact that special mention and recognition were not given to it. Yet this is the era in African literary growth that produced Olaudah Equiano who has been rightly called “the father of black literature” (C.Achalaonu-Olumba, 2007). Interestingly; these congresses announced the emergence of African literature as a strong vehicle for the expression of African humanity and formalized a trend of thinking that made colonial history more fundamental than the slave history that preceded it.
The result of this has been the flowering and growth of literatures that tell the African story beginning from colonialism and not slavery. Among the Anglo-phone African writers the over-bearing influence of this claim is evident in several literary works whose themes justify this claim. In Ferdinand Oyono's Houseboy and Alex La Guma's A Walk in the Night the theme of colonial injustice dominates the works. In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart , Elechi Amadi's Concubine and John Munonye's The Only Son, we see the original traditional African discussed as an anti-thesis to the illusion that Africans were a “cultureless” people. In Chinua Achebe's No Longer at Ease and Mongo Beti's Mission to Kala, the illusion of progress that characterized modern Africa constitutes the theme. In Wealth for Udomo and One Man One Matchet , Peter Abrahams and T. M. Aluko discuss the theme of nationalism. In Wole Soyinka's The Interpreters and Chinua Achebe's A Man of the People, we see the African writer's disenchantment with the inability of their politicians to control the affairs of their new states. In Ayi Kwei Armah's The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born and Duosu's The Gab Boys, we read the theme of freedom which in modern African states soon turned into a nightmare. In Ngugi wa Thiogo's A Grain of Wheat and Sembene Ousmane 's God's Bits of Wood, the writers confront the theme of commitment.
Among the Francophone African writers the themes are strikingly similar as they center on the need to realize the individual through the expression of freedom. The example of Cameroonian literature demonstrates this. Richard Bjornson in The African Quest for Freedom and Identity: Cameroonian Writing and the National Experience (1991) puts it that “. . . in Cameroon that communal discussion revolves around two crucial issues: the desire for freedom from various forms of oppression and the need to forge a valuable sense of individual and creative identity.”(C.Dunton, 1993). Summarily therefore, we can argue that African literature revolves around such great themes as freedom, injustice, culture, corruption, communalism, etc, all of which border on the conflict of values in pre-colonial and post-colonial Africa and on the challenge of recreating African identity by way of ensuring that the transitional phase of African life does not erode all the noble cultural values that define the African people or institute a fresh world where transition becomes an institution.
III
African Literature: Whither Slave Narrative?
A curious lacuna therefore has existed all these while in Africa's project of self knowledge which African literature have come to promote and it is important to fill this gap. This has to do with the minor role assigned to slave narrative and the literary tradition emerging from slavery. S.E. Ogude (1983:8) recognized three arms of African literature – the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial literature. He defined post-colonial literature as the literature that grew out of slavery is often ignored. While many Africans are knowledgeable in colonial and post-colonial literatures which has served reliably to advertise and recall the pains and pangs – cultural, political, historical, intellectual, etc of colonialism, the even more horrible and wounding pre-colonial story of slavery does not occupy a relevant place in their memory. As a result it does not provide moral force in African minds by way of urging them to ask in just any terms and means a restitution of this inhuman exploitation of Africans can be achieved. Yet this is one task that must and should be done and where it is not done it should be left to memory as a wound that refuses to heal even by history. The slave story is one story which deserves to go beyond history texts and historical monuments to literary forms. This is because literature relives life and imitates reality in a reliable form for which it stands at the heart of the art. Thus the concern with slave narratives should be not just to popularize and familiarize Africans with narratives by slaves themselves, but even to create more important literary works from the slavery experience. This is because it serves to infuse “racial vigilance” on the part of Africans to serve as an inner rational force that will re-engineer a positive culture of memory for Africans widely known as a people with a short memory of hate. Between 1998 and 2000, this author was involved in a project which set out to promote this memory project as it relates to slavery. I was a member of the Federation of Pan-African Associations and Clubs of Organization of African Unity, OAU-PEPAC initiated by the Cameroonian scholar Professor Maurice Tadjedeu, the goal of which was to re-unite Africans and bridge the gap among the African family. This organization carried out a project of reconciliation at Gore Island in 2000 – the very spot where Africans were sold in hundreds of thousands to slave traders. After this historical ritual however, the question still remains – how much of this – the tragic story of slavery is instilled in African historical consciousness? And if any, what is the productive social force coming out of it? If the Jews could extract reparation from the Germans for holocaust why has Africans not been able to do likewise?
The answer to this is simple: It is about the contempt with which we treat the slave story. It is about a neglected past that holds an important key to the African future: the neglected story of slavery as told by the slaves themselves which has been ignored in educating Africans. Hence slave narratives is only read and known by a few learned students in African universities. In neglecting this aspect of the past Africa however, Africa not only loses a reliable source of her historical pride but a source of her future, for history must always be conceived as a project of wholeness that must build on the past.
Two examples of important slave narratives abound here. They are the autobiography of the leading African slave of Igbo extraction: Olauda Equiano: The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gutavus Vassa the African written by himself and The Letters of Ignatius Sancho widely known to have been written by Ignatius Sancho. Our work will discuss these works with the view to draw some valuable lessons from them and emphasize how they serve as (1) A source of intellectual history of Africa (2) A source of Self-Will and Self-Belief for Africa (3) A handbook for racial vigilance on the part of Africans.
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olauda Equiano is basically an autobiography of the author where he narrates how he was abducted from an African village, widely believed to be Isseke near Okija in the present day Anambra State of Nigeria . The author narrates how he was sold and resold into slavery and how he finally landed in Britain where he spent his adult of life. In the very first chapter of the book the author tells his readers that he was born in the year 1745 “in a charming vale, named Essaka” (Olauda Equiano, The Interesting Narrative .p.14). In the next twelve solid chapters that follow, Equiano presents a vivid and condensed account of himself as well as a moving testament of black presence in the slave world. Chapter one and two articulate the author's own account of his country, culture and customs, parentage and how he became a victim of slavery which was the custom at the time of his birth for the African and for the advanced world. In chapter three we are presented with the author's arrival at Virginia and how he was bought by Captain Paschal who took him to England.In chapter five we witness an interesting turn in Olauda Equiano's life. He is baptised into western Christian life and ethics. Thereafter he began a series of expedition to West Indies, (chapter five), to Georgia , Montserrat (chapter seven), New Providence, (chapter eight) and back to England (chapter nine). In chapter ten the author narrates the story of his conversion to Jesus Christ and the remaining part of the work is a story of his effort to convert his acquaintances to Christianity, a desire to bring Christianity to Africa and an effort to be actively involved in the re-settlement of slaves at Sierra Leone .
Beyond its autobiographical and historical merit however, Olaudah Equiano's work however provides vivid insight on the intellectual capabilities of modern African.His, is not just an autobiography but a relevant creative work that provides evidence of immense creative intelligence. An intellectual can be conceived as a profound interpreter of human history either by words, deeds and actions: one who provides enduring insights into beliefs, positions, opinions, ideas, views, values and ideals that define the human encounter with the world at any moment and provides the basis for a critical review of these. While providing an account of his life, Olaudah Equiano, a genius par excellence, provides a worthy attempt to establish the potentials of a black brain, black wisdom and insight. His views provide the basis for a comparative contrast between slavery in Africa and slavery in the new World. He provides evidence to the fact that there is a stronger economic force that direct slavery from the western axis for which this slave project better called “mega-slavery”, appropriated racism to enlarge the slave industry. The concept or notion of slavery comes under close scrutiny and review after reading Equiano. Right at the on-set of his trip he observed that:
The white people looked and acted as I thought in so savage a manner;
for I had never seen among any people such instances of brutal cruelty;
and this not only shown towards us black but also some of the whites
themselves ( Olaudah Equiano , The Interesting Narrative .p.30)
Equiano writes that though slavery was part of the society he came from, it was not produced on the industrial scale that Atlantic slave trade made it. Apart from the fact that wars were waged essentially “to obtain prisoners or booty” some of whom turned to slaves, it was a clear economic enterprise as it was in Britain . Indeed slavery at a larger scale was heightened by traders who bought European goods (p.18). These people whom Equiano refers to as Oye-Ebo (p.17) generally bring “fire-arms, gun powder, hats, beads and dried fish”. ( ibid, p.17). Equiano gives a strong insight for us to believe that trans-Atlantic slave trade is simply an economic adventure almost like the trade in goods that replaced it after its abolition. Writing about slaves in Africa , Equiano articulates that:
...they do no more work than other members of the community, even their masters; their food, clothing and lodging were nearly the same as theirs, (except that they were not permitted to eat with those who were free-born); and there was scarcely any other difference between them than a superior degree of importance which the head of a family possesses in our state, and that authority which as such, he exercises over every part of his household. Some of these slaves even have slaves under them as their own property and for their own use, ( Olaudah Equiano , The Interesting Narrative p.19).
An important argument in slavery project in Africa has been the victim that deserves the greater blame in the whole evil. Several writers have provided arguments from the two sides of the story. The pro-European writers believe the Europeans deserve the greater blame for the evil. These include scholars like P.D. Rinchon (cited in Okon Uya 1992:57) and Daniel Mannix. Similarly John D. Fage Introduction to the History of West Africa (1959) (cited in ibid ) and C. Duncan Rice The Rise and Fall of Black Slavery (1975) ( cited in ibid .) also share this view. For Fage, trans-Atlantic slave trade was merely an export of slaves which was a part and parcel of African life. Thus there were if you like, slave industries only needing an outlet which the trans-Atlantic slave trade provided for Africa . On the other hand the pro-African scholars on this issue believe that the trans-Atlantic trade was a new phenomenon in slave trade which was essentially a conceived effort to undermine African growth and development. Prominent scholars who hold this view include Walter Rodney. Olaudah Equiano however has added a fresh insight into this debate and himself, a slave, gives what should be regarded as a first hand account of the trade. His story is even insightful when we read the maltreatment given to slaves – the overwhelming barbarism associated with the trade.
The other lesson embedded in Equiano's slave narrative is his exemplary self-will and self-belief and his firm belief in his African origin for which he defended the black race. Equiano asked:
Are there not causes enough to which the apparent inferiority of Africa may be ascribed, without limiting the goodness of God, and supposing he fore bore to stamp understanding on certainly his own image, because carved in ebony?(Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative ,p.22).
Equiano concluded that with a vigorous tone of assertion: “Understanding is not confined to feature or colour” (Olaudah Equiano, ibid, p.22 ).
At the moment such as this when Africa is seeking to achieve a fresh manner of redefining her humanity and repackaging her culture for world relevance it is important to look backwards to the darkest period of African history – slavery, to establish the persistence of African will and ingenuity and a clear belief in African identity. In this regard Olaudah Equiano becomes a worthy handbook to consult. This is because he rejected the limitations of his circumstance to prove himself and his worth by defending his black identity and exhibiting a keen sense of self will as an African.
At various stages of his life Equiano was a gun-powder carrier or “powder-monkey” as they were called, a guager, a hair dresser, a steward, a project co-coordinator in the Caribbean, a preacher, a civil servant and resettlement officer (involved in resettling slaves in Sierra Leone), a writer, a lecturer, a campaign expert against slavery. While some of these duties were imposed on Equiano by his slave status and circumstance, some of them were what he chose for himself. To have functioned in these different capacities demonstrates a clear evidence of mental strength and vigor and an ability to negotiate life to one's favor which is the defining sign of creative intelligence. Olaudah Equiano in this instance would simply be saying that human intelligence is an equal asset which can function optimally in any space where the viable conditions that promote and fertilize it is available.
Equiano exploited the ethics of labor that define life in his culture to function in the two cultures that define his new world. He had written of his life in the Igbo village of Nigeria before his captivity “we are all habituated from our earliest years. Everyone contributes something to the common stock and as we are unacquainted with idleness we have no beggars.”(See Olaudah Equiano , Interesting Narrative, Ch.1). The kind of labor Equiano was talking about, however, was considerably different from the labor he was forced to do in the new world. The kind of labor he had to learn in the new world was considerably and significantly different from what obtained in the African village of his origin. It should then be a subject of interest how he functioned under the new circumstance of his life to live a profound life of labor and duty.
Olaudah Equiano functioned as a creative Igbo/African personality within an alien culture. No sooner had he found himself in an alien world than he began to use the cultural resource of his African background to recreate himself ,adapt to his slave status and acquire the necessary skills he needed to survive in the new world. The breath of his humanity was high and wide as he refused to be limited within the confines of one race and color. He participated in British wars and by so doing confirmed his readiness to contribute to the new nation he has found himself. He was an explorer who was involved in the attempt to achieve Britain 's imperial claim on India and if this expedition has any positive claim to human history, it would be unfair to exclude Olaudah Equiano's contribution. To have functioned as an African slave in several ways that define him as an European and to have lived to the dictates of modernity in more than one way that deserve to be remembered: as an explorer, a civil servant, a merchant, a humanitarian involved in re-settling of slaves in Sierra-Leone, provide enough evidence for a claim that Olaudah Equiano advanced the cause of being human reliably and reconfigured the theory of race. Indeed, it is quite doubtful if any European adventurer in pre-colonial and colonial Africa exhibited such quality of vitality and dynamism as Olaudah Equiano. It is yet to be known of a European adventurer in Africa who absorbed and adapted to African culture in such a way as Olaudah Equiano absorbed European culture. Thus he demonstrated the unusual capacity of the African to accept and absorb change, part of which has been the charge against it in issues relating to identity. In this way Olaudah Equiano is a fresh thesis that deserves a studied look in issues relating to doubts and contempt with African identity and personality.
It is in connection with this deep and solid conviction in his African origin that Africans must popularize Olaudah Equiano's works beyond the walls of the academia. For it must at all times be remembered that the eighteenth century when Equiano wrote his work “most European societies were unanimous in denying the Black man a full claim to humanity” (S.E. Ogude, 1983:87). Hence even the believably enlightened minds and philosophers of this era such as Baron de Montesquieu did not believe that the Blackman has a soul. The claim of this philosopher on the Blackman is hardly believable but it deserves to be known. Said Montesquieu, a French thinker:
It is hardly to be believed, that God whose is a wise being should place a soul, especially a good soul, in such a Black and ugly body. (Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws, Vol. I BK. XV. Chap. V. as cited in S.E. Ogude, 1983:109).
With this position emanating from a philosopher, popularly regarded as the gadfly of an age, it can be imagined the general notion about the blackman that obtained this time. Yet this is the period, Olaudah Equiano wrote and defended the black humanity. It is for this reason that Africa 's project of self defense; itself an important desire in self knowledge should recognize Olaudah Equiano.
Another African slave who contributed much to defend African identity and pride with his ideas and who deserves a worthy study for this reason is Ignatius Sancho Born in 1724, in a slave ship, Ignatius Sancho is an important slave and contemporary of Olaudah Equiano whose writings defended the Black humanity and re-presented the African identity by advertising the African intelligence. Even as a youth, Sancho manifested an unusual will for which he caught the attention of the Duke of Montagu (1690 – 1749). Important accounts of Sancho suggest that while he may have entered the service of the Duke after his death, he “frequented the Duke's house where, in addition to lending him books, the Duchess seemed to have seen to his education in an informed fashion”. (S.E. Ogude, 2002:23). What followed this informal education is a harvest of ideas, words, wisdom that made Ignatius Sancho “the first African man of letters” (Ogude, 1983:87). His artist ingenuity was so profound that Sancho is also known to have left musical compositions before his death on December 14, 1780. Hence it is on record that Sancho was African to be honoured with an obituary notice in the British press (Ogude, 1983, p.96).
The greatness of Sancho however goes beyond all these. The relevance of Sancho as a historical phenomenon for which his works should serve as an important literature is the depth of his Africanity . In spite of his white upbringing Sancho was unequivocally Black and African. For Sancho the abominable slave trade “is a subject that sours my blood (Sancho)” (cited in Ogude, 1983:104). In a comment on slavery, (while thanking an author who sent him a work that addressed the theme), Sancho referred to slavery as:
The unchristian and most diabolical usage of my brother Negroes, the illegality, the horrid wickedness of the traffic, the cruel carnage and depopulation of the human species.(Ogude, 1983, p.105)
Ignatius Sancho was easily the fore-runner of the likes of Steve Biko, Marcus Garvey, and W.E.B. Du Bois in issues and matters relating to Black humanity. He was simply and squarely “the intellectual spokesman for the Blackman” (Ogude, 1979:103) in the eighteenth century, and it is for this regard that he was a “phenomenon in the late eighteenth century London society”. (Ogude, Ibid, p.103).
How then is African literary landscape comfortable with the minor role assigned to an important slaves like Ignatius Sancho and Olaudah Equiano? This should be an urgent concern for which the need to popularize their works, ideas should be an important dream. In the twenty-first century, it is easily to come across Black Africans born and brought up in Africa, who, for one reason or the other relocate to Europe and no sooner than they do this, begin to manifest a crisis of identity for which they find it difficult to own up to, project and defend their African humanity. Part of the problem of such Africans is that they are not at home with story of people like Ignatius Sancho and Olaudah Equiano. They have deficient knowledge of African history filled with more knowledge of the conquest of Africa than African conquest of the world, African colonialism but not African heroes at slave era. They are not knowledgeable on the fact that a class of Africans had long ago, even before physical slavery rejected mental slavery – the enduring form of slavery. They need slave narratives to read and Africa 's project of self-knowledge demands giving them these books.
iv
Conclusion.
The ambition of this work has been to articulate the basis of relevance of slave narratives as an important arm of African literature that deserves to be more widely known and read more than is the case at the moment. To do this the work has tired to present strong views in support of this desire. The work studied in particular the works of two important African slaves, namely Oluadah Equiano and Ignatius Sancho-popularly regarded as the first African man of letters. Although there are other African salves which deserve our attention for this reason the two slaves we have studied were used as examples for this reason because of the richness of their positions in defense of black humanity and the richness of their ideas and writings as reference works for the African identity. Their works are eloquent testimony to the fact that there has always been an African will that defended the course of African humanity in all phases of human history. Thus if African slaves could uphold such will at the most horrible phase of African history as the era of trans-Atlantic slave trade they are clearly a challenge to modern Africans who suffer crisis of identity even on the African soil. They are simply telling the modern African: you are African, you have been African; remain even more African in an era of globalization.
Works Cited
Achalaonu-Olumba, C, 2007, The Igbo Roots of Olaudah Equiano, Abuja :Afa publications.
Adams , Russel .L., 1978,Africa No. 79, (March): 38.
Dunton, C. Richard , 1993,“ Bjornson : The African Quest for Freedom and Identity: Cameroonian Writing and the National Experience” (1991) West Africa . Magazine, 1993
Equiano,Olaudah, The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano of Gustavus Vassa the African as produced by Susane Shell, Diane Monico and the Online Distributing Team,http://www.gutenberg.net/1/5/3/9/153399
Gakwandi, S.A, 1977, The Novel and Contemporary Experience in Africa ( London : Heinemann.
Irele,A. 1981, The African Experience in Literature and Ideology ,( Ibadan : Heinemann),
Masolo, D.A., 1999, African Philosophy in Search of Identity , ( Indiana : Indiana Univ. Press)
Mbefo,L.N, 1988, The Reshaping of African Traditions ( Enugu: Snaap Press, 1988)
Mutiso D.C.M., and S. W. Rohio, 1975, (eds.), Readings in African Political Thought, ( London : Heinemann)
Ogude, S.E, 1983, Genius in Bondage: A Study of the Origins of African Literature in English, Ife : University of Ife
Ogude, S.E, 2002, The Letters of Ignatius Sancho , Lagos : Centre for Black and African Arts and civilization
Onyewuenyi, I, 1993, The African Origin of Greek Philosophy (Nsukka: University of Nigeria Press)
Roper, H.T. , 1963, The Rise of Christian Europe , as from The Listener, ( London ), 28 November,871
Uya O .E, 2005, African Diaspora and Black Experience in New World Slavery, Calabar:Clear Lines Publishers.
* Acknowledgement is hereby made on an earlier essay by the author entitled Ugwuanyi,O. “Oluada Equiano and Question of African Identity” forthcoming in Chima Okorie(ed.) Olauda Equiano and Igbo World,New jersey: Africa World press(2008) and which provided inspirations for this study .
Dr. Ugwuanyi is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy & Pioneer Acting Head, Department of Philosophy and Religions, University of Abuja, Federal Capital Territory, Nigeria(2007-Till date). He holds a Ph.D in African Philosophy from the University of Ibadan and was a lecturer at Ambrose Alli University , Ekpoma (1994-2003) and Senior Lecturer at Delta State University , Abraka (2003-2006). With over 26 publications Dr.Ugwuanyi who has presented papers in over 10 international conferences in Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, South Africa and South korea is published in journals and anthologies in Kenya, U.S.A and South Africa and has served as a Visiting scholar to the University of South Africa in 2005. His Email is ugwuanyiogbo37@yahoo.com Tel :( 234)8077405891
