Table Of ContentAfrican Studies West African
History
Greene
Narratives of Slavery
Testimonies of slavery and the slave trade
W
e TEXTS FROM LATE NINETEENTH- AND
“Greene’s analysis is as valuable as the documents themselves.”
s
—Martin Klein, University of Toronto EARLY T WENTIETH- CENTURY GHANA
t
“These rare examples . . . compellingly reveal the chaos left behind. A
Greene sensitively reveals the human experiences of warfare, scat-
f
tering of communities, and capture of the survivors that wracked r
the Gold Coast region.” —Joseph C. Miller, University of Virginia i
c
a
Slavery in Africa existed for hundreds of years before it was abol-
n
ished in the late nineteenth century. Yet, we know little about
how enslaved individuals, especially those who never left Africa,
N
talked about their experiences. Collecting never before published
or translated narratives of Africans from southeastern Ghana, San- a
dra E. Greene explores how these writings reveal the thoughts,
r
emotions, and memories of those who experienced slavery and r
the slave trade. Greene considers how local norms and the circum- a
stances behind the recording of the narratives influenced their con- t
tent and impact. This unprecedented study affords unique insights i
v
into how ordinary West Africans understood and talked about
e
their lives during a time of change and upheaval.
s
o
Sandra E. Greene is Professor of History at Cornell University.
f
She is author of Sacred Sites and the Colonial Encounter (IUP, 2002).
S
l
a
v
INDIANA
e
University Press r
y
Bloomington & Indianapolis
iupress.indiana.edu
1-800-842-6796
INDIANA
Cover illustration: Slave children, Anyako
Sandra E. Greene
1860–1865. Courtesy of Bremen Mission.
West African
Narratives
of Slavery
West African Texts from
Late Nineteenth-
Narratives
and Early
Twentieth-Century
of Slavery
Ghana
Sandra E. Greene
Indiana University Press
bloomington and indianapolis
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
601 North Morton Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47404-3797 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
Telephone orders 800-842-6796
Fax orders 812-855-7931
Orders by e-mail [email protected]
© 2011 by Sandra E. Greene
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photo copying and recording, or by any information storage
and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publisher. The Association of American University Presses’
Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to
this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of the American National Standard for
Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed
Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Greene, Sandra E., [date]-
West African narratives of slavery: texts from late nineteenth-
and early twentieth-century Ghana /Sandra E. Greene.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-253-35607-9 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN
978-0-253-22294-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Slave narratives—
Ghana—History and criticism. 2. Slavery—Ghana—History.
3. Slave trade—Ghana—History. I. Title.
HT1394.G48G74 2011
306.3'620922667—dc22
2010035373
1 2 3 4 5 16 15 14 13 12 11
To Ethel
CoNTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
A Note on the Translations xi
A Note on Ewe Orthography xv
Introduction 1
Part 1. Aaron Kuku:
The Life History of a Former Slave
1 Enslavement Remembered 21
2 The Life History of Aaron Kuku 47
Part 2. The Biographies of Lydia Yawo
and Yosef Famfantor:
Life in Slavery/Life after Abolition
3 To Stay or Go: Exploring the Decisions of the Formerly Enslaved 77
4 Come Over and Help Us! The Life Journey of Lydia Yawo,
a Freed Slave: Preface and Text 103
5 Yosef Famfantor: Preface and Text 121
Part 3. Paul Sands’s Diary:
Living with the Past/Constructing the Present and the Future
6 Open Secrets and Sequestered Stories:
A Diary about Family, Slavery, and Self in Southeastern Ghana 139
7 The Diary of Paul Sands: : Preface and Text 158
Part 4. A Kidnapping at Atorkor:
The Making of a Community Memory
8 Our Citizens, Our Kin Enslaved 187
9 Oral Traditions about Individuals Enslaved: Preface and Texts 213
Conclusion 222
Notes 227
Bibliography 263
Index 277
ACkNoWLEdgMENTS
This book would not have been possible without the assistance and support of a
wide range of individuals and institutions. I am especially grateful to the many
research libraries and their staffs whose collections and personal assistance
made it possible to make the documents included here available to a wider pub-
lic. To the Bremen Staatsarchiv and the Norddeutsche Mission in Bremen Ger-
many; the Center for Research Libraries in Chicago; Northwestern University
Library and the Garrett Theological Seminary Library in Evanston, Illinois;
Yale University Library in New Haven, Connecticut; Cornell University Library
in Ithaca, New York; the Basel Mission Archives in Basel, Switzerland; and the
librarians at the National Humanities Center in North Carolina, I thank you.
Translations of the German and Ewe texts are a central part of this study. For
their translation work I am grateful to Kodjopa Attoh, Anna Parkinson, Rüdi-
ger Bechstein, Paul Agbedor, Jasper Ackumey, and K. A. Mensah. I also thank
the many undergraduate and graduate students as well as my Cornell University
professorial colleagues whom I enlisted throughout the years to help with the
translation of the German language sources that I consulted so as to contextual-
ize the documents presented here. This group includes Kora Bättig von Wittles-
bach, Jessica Bauman, Timothy Haupt, Sean Franzel, Chris Muenzen, and Her-
bert Deinert, among others. I thank Michelle Moyd, who was a wonderful
research assistant, and Kodzo Gavua, who has been very supportive of my work
on Yosef Famfantor. Ange Romeo-Hall was immensely helpful in proofreading
the entire manuscript. Many individuals read one or more draft versions of the
chapters of this book: Dagwami Woubshet, Judith Byfied, Daniel Magaziner,
Johanna Crane, Jeremy Foster, Carina Ray, and Tamara Loos. Martin Klein and
Joseph Miller read the entire manuscript and provided most helpful comments.
To them I am also most grateful. As with most projects that extend over many
years, I am sure I have failed to mention everyone who was helpful. To them I
apologize, but know that I am grateful to you even if your name does not appear
here. Of course, I am ultimately responsible for any mistakes that may have in-
advertently found their way into the book.
Perhaps the most challenging aspect of this project was that during the
entire period I was writing the book and preparing it for publication, I was si-
multaneously dealing with a particularly stressful family illness. Without the
support of many friends and family, I would simply have been unable to com-
plete this project. To my parents, siblings, nieces, and nephews, to many of the
Description:Slavery in Africa existed for hundreds of years before it was abolished in the late 19th century. Yet, we know little about how enslaved individuals, especially those who never left Africa, talked about their experiences. Collecting never before published or translated narratives of Africans from so
