ISP Blog Post #4- Post Colonial look at The Book of Negroes

The Book of Negroes is told from a black woman’s point of view and not from a slave owner’s perspective. We are not only getting the story from a black slave, but she is also a female, both of which give the story to us from a different critical lens than that of the person in power from the dominant culture. Aminata has been stripped of her culture. She was not allowed to pray when she was first taken, she was taught English and told she was not allowed to speak her own languages, Appleby told her her hair was wool instead of hair, she was not allowed to wear African garb, and she had to eat American/British food.  Aminata was also taught the way of the British and the American, using money instead of trade and being owned and not free.

Being back in Africa did not change anything for Aminata. All the Nova Scotia Negroes believed that “none of [them] are truly free, until [they] go back to [their] land” but when they get there it is not as they expected. Aminata did not understand all the ways of Africa because she had become so used to the way that things happened in America. When she reached Africa she met King Jimmy and she said; “It seemed absurd that my first conversation as an adult with an African in my own homeland should take place in English”(Lawrence, . Even the Africans who lived in Africa were changed by European culture.

When Aminata meets Fatima we see that even though she is from Africa the Africans who have lived their whole lives there believe that she is a foreigner; “‘You call me toubab? Did you not hear my story about my husband and my children? I am born in this land.’  ‘That is a story, and a very good one. And I will tell you a story too, if you want one. But you are not asking for a story now. You are asking about my land.’ ‘I am asking about my land. The land where I was born.’ ‘You have the face of someone born in this land, but you come with the toubab. You are a toubab with the black face.’” Even when Aminata is back in her homeland she is still seen as a foreigner.

In Sierra Leone, she is still not completely free from white people. The British govern Freetown and they help the Negroes by sending them supplies and food provisions. The Negroes are heavily affected when the British stop sending provisions so often, and they are almost back in the situation they were in in Nova Scotia. Even when they are in their homeland, they cannot live by their own rules and govern themselves. They still depend on the British to aid them and guide them so that Freetown “prospers” as John Clarkson explains. The book of Negroes looks at a minority in every way possible.

Post colonialism examines the effects of the conquering nation on the local culture; exploring how a local culture is first stripped, then the dominant culture is imposed on the locals and finally how the local culture is forever impacted and changed by the exposure to the dominant culture. The Book of Negroes examines all of these stages through Aminata’s story.  It looks at how Aminata was removed from her home and culture, indoctrinated into the ways of the slave world and then returned to Africa to be faced with how she and her homeland were forever changed because of the European colonization and the slave trade.

ISP Blog Post: Major Issues Examined

I really looked at the definition and use of injustice and found that it is a major issue in The Book of Negroes. “Something unfair that happens, often in violation of a basic human right” is the way that vocabulary.com defines injustice. Some examples of injustices of the world are poverty, gender equality, orphans, racism, abuse, and war. Each one of those injustices that I just listed, some more than others, are explored in this novel.

Aminata is judged so often based only on the colour of her skin. Hill shows the injustice when Aminata is almost raped by a white man in the street. Aminata Diallo is probably one of the most educated people and only because of her skin colour she doesn’t get any of the opportunities that a white person does. The only reason that she cannot climb the ladder to a better life is because her skin is the “wrong” colour. Her problem is that not only is she just black, she is also a woman. Women are disregarded as people and only seen as toys to be played with by most of the men, with the exception of Chekura.

Hill also shows us injustice when he brings in the characters of Lieutenant Waters and Rosetta. They come into the story because Lieutenant Waters wants Aminata to help Rosetta have her baby. It is revealed to us that Rosetta believes Waters loves her, but as outsiders we can see that he cannot lover her only because she is black. He asks Rosetta to leave with the baby so that no one, that he would deem respectable, can ever find out he had a child be a black woman. Rosetta’s character as an individual brings to light yet another injustice; she is a thirteen year old prostitute. She is forced into this form of work because she cannot do anything else and she has no one to take care of her. She then believes that Lieutenant Waters loves her because he takes care of her.

The character of Miss Betty emphasizes another injustice, that of the fact that to be free in New York was just as bad as being a slave in New York. We see that being a slave was almost better, as Miss Betty points out; at least she has clothes on her back, food in her belly and a roof over her head. The people living in Canvas Town have a harder life than if they were still slaves. This seems almost opposite to the way that we think of history. When slaves were freed they were all happier, but the white men controlled so much that even when they didn’t have any actual control over the Negroes; they were still a huge influence on their lives. Miss Betty’s death highlights that influence, because even the “freed” slaves must carry their dead deep into the forest to bury them.

Obviously slavery is a huge issue in The Book of Negroes but I think that slavery is only the tip of a huge iceberg. Aminata has so many more problems than just being a slave, if that were the only problem when she became free the story would have ended. I love how Hill shows us that there is more to slavery than we think at first glance. I love the way that he explains where these terrible actions and beliefs come from, without have to spell it out for us. Everyone is able to see different things in this book because he is guiding us to make our own discoveries. Injustice is the biggest problem that I see.

ISP Blog Post #2: The Book of Negroes from a Feminist Perspective

            In this second part of the book we see that men are the stronger sex and overpower the women. Hill creates irony in the fact that men were considered superior because he has showed many times that men need not only women but Aminata specifically. Hill also shows that women are just as capable; if not more capable than men because the strong and powerful characters that have influenced Aminata’s life so far are all women. Aminata’s mother and Fanta were the strong women in the first fifth, and Georgia is in this second part.

We also see that Aminata, a woman, is overcoming the slavery of white men. Even though she is still a slave in this part we see that she is trying to rebel as much as she can, because she gets married and has a baby, without Appleby’s permission. She also begins to learn, reading and writing skills so that when she is free she has the possibility for a better life, because she is educated. We don’t just see that women are strong, we also see that men are cruel. We see how terrible the men were to women in these times when Appleby rapes Aminata, when William King tries to rape her, when Appleby shaves Aminata’s hair and when he sells her baby. We now see the cruelty that Aminata has to face and it emphasizes the fact that she is a strong woman to overcome all this brutality.  Most white women were never educated and Aminata being a slave put her at a disadvantage in the first place but slave women would never have been educated, but Aminata’s positive spirit leads her to someone who will teach her all she is willing to learn.

We see that she is rewarded for rebelling against the oppression. She never uses violence or force; she does quiet things that empower herself and others. I decided to use the feminist theory to analyze the Book of Negroes because it is written from a woman’s perspective. I think that Hill did a great job with writing a strong female character. Aminata is a great woman already in the novel, she has been a great woman since she was little. She craves her freedom but she never sinks to the level of her oppressors. She only inspires the people around her to be better. She never allows herself to become a negative source of energy. I love this novel so far because Aminata, despite everything she has been through, is such a positive source to be reckoned with.

 Hill really illustrates that women are the heroes of this story, we see that when Georgia saves Aminata from the white men trying to sell her. Right from the very beginning we see that women are the source of life and men need women only to continue their line, for pleasure and to show other women that because they hold power over one, they can hold power over any women they want. That is why Hill chose to include the rape scenes and the reason that Appleby sells Aminata’s child. Men see that she is strong and they are asserting their power over her. Hill balances that beautifully with the character of Chekura, who treats Aminata and women in general the way that a true man should. I think that, by adding Chekura to the story, Hill was also trying to show that many people believed that black people were different or scary in some way but they really are just people. The same as white people, there is no difference. Other than the fact that Chekura doesn’t feel the need to assert his manhood in front of Aminata, he just treats her like a person with kindness and respect. Hill’s choice to make Aminata the lowest possible form of being, as a black woman slave, was a great choice because her story is all the more amazing when she overcomes the oppression she faces. 

ISP Blog Post- The Book of Negroes

While reading The Book of Negroes, by Lawrence Hill, I have really connected with Aminata Diallo the main character. She is a very strong and courageous little girl who was taken from her village in Africa. She shows extreme resilience to the horrors that surround her. I watched the mini-series when it was on TV and I loved it. I thought it was such an interesting story and I loved Aminata’s character. I found in the mini-series and now in the book that she is a very compelling character with an amazing story.

The beginning of the book is all about her childhood and how she lives with her mother and father in their village. Her mother “catches babies” as they say in the book but she is a midwife to our way of thinking. She teaches Aminata her trade when she is very young. I think that being a part of bringing life into the world is what makes Aminata so strong. She sees the essence of life at the beginning of the book but as it continues she begins to see the essence of death. I think that the biggest turning points for her where when she saw the decaying body and when a brand new mother kills her baby. I love the fact that she is telling her story from a child’s point of view. We get to see things as they truly are through the innocent eyes of a child instead of the tainted view of an adult. The story would be very different from an adult character’s point of view.

I think that Fanta, the mother who killed her baby, was included in the novel to demonstrate the difference between adulthood and childhood. Aminata’s mind is more open to ways of surviving. She knows who she is and she will not sway her beliefs but she is able to see and do what she needs to to stay alive. Fanta knows who she is and will not sway her beliefs but she cannot adapt to her surroundings. The way that Aminata was brought up in Africa really sets the tone for the whole book. She sees her capture as something that she has to overcome to get back to her homeland. Adults could only see the oppression from the white people.

Aminata also has the added bonus of knowledge and communication skills which make her valuable to the “toubab” or white men. We see that Aminata will not let these white men touch her inappropriately but she does not resort to the violence that others do to prevent such things. I love the relationship between Fanta and Aminata. I think that it bring a lot of depth to the story, not only through the fact that they are the adult perspective and the child perspective but we also get to see the old ties between them effect how they act on their voyage and we see the different effects that life altering events can have on different age groups. Fanta and Aminata do not have a good relationship and then when we come to find out that Aminata would have been the next wife to the chief of their village, we understand that Fanta does not want her husband to have to have another younger wife. Fanta is pregnant and gives birth when she is on the slave trader ship, as I mentioned earlier she ends up killing her baby. I think that she does this because she doesn't want it living through the horrors that she has to but also because it is a reminder of the life that she lost.

I have loved the first fifth of this book so far. I found it very engaging and I never felt bored with anything that was happening. I am very excited to read the rest, even though I know what happens because I say the mini-series it has been very interesting to read. I get to see a more in depth version of the story now, which I am very excited about.