ISP Blog Post #5

Bog Post #5 – Post-Colonial Literary Criticism

I am going to apply the post-colonial literary criticism to my novel, The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill. There are two examples of a dominant culture oppressing another in this novel. The first one is American white men, the “toubab” forcing African people to come to America and work as slaves. The second example is America’s colonization by Britain and their fight to be free from British rule.

This novel explicitly represents colonial oppression of African’s by white American’s. African’s were stripped of all personal freedoms and rights. Aminata was forcibly removed from her home village, family and culture. She lost her right to practice her Muslim faith because she was not allowed to pray. She was not permitted to marry the man that she loved (Chekura) and her baby was treated like property by her ‘toubab owner’. Back in Africa, family was the main source of Aminata’s identity but she did not have the right to have a family as an African slave.

A couple examples in the novel of post-colonial cultural identity are the maps of Africa that Aminata found in the library and the description of different African’s by the slave trade overseer, Mr. King. The map of Africa drawn by white American’s had pictures of a monkey on it and a child lying with a lion. Aminata didn’t even know what a monkey was and said an African child would be foolish to lie down with a lion. “This ‘Mapp of Africa’ was not my homeland. It was a white man’s fantasy.” (Hill 216) Aminata also took offence to Mr. King’s description of a ‘lazy’ type of African who she knew to be a very hard-working tribe. These misrepresentations of her culture made her feel even more oppressed. This reminded her once again that her white owners really didn’t care about who she really was or where she came from.

The second example of post-colonialism in this novel is the oppression of American’s by the British. The United States at that time (1700’s) was a colony of Britain. The colonies had a lot of freedoms from Britain but they wanted more freedom. Aminata eventually moved to New York and it is here that she first hears of the American’s dislike of the British. “It’s war now and we shall have freedom.” “Freedom? For the slaves?” “Niggers, nothing. I’m talking about us. Rebels. Patriots. We shall be free of the British and their taxes. Never again shall we be slaves” (Hill, 254). This was an American speaking to Aminata about freedom. As Aminata spoke with this young man, she thought it was ludicrous that the white people who were her ‘owners’ could consider themselves ‘slaves’ of the British. The anti-colonialist resistance of the Americans eventually lead to war with the British.

The way the Americans were treated by the British doesn’t really compare to the way the African’s were treated by the Americans. Africans were stripped of their basic identity and culture, while the American’s were free to develop their own identity and culture. 

ISP Blog #4 Feminist Literary Criticism

Applying the feminist literary criticism to my novel, the Book of Negroes, is challenging because my novel is about the slave trade in America and it is difficult to separate the treatment of slaves from the way women are treated in the book.

In general, women are represented as weaker than men in this novel. They are valued more for their bodies than their minds. In this text men often view women as a sex object more than anything else. “I held my words. When Master Appleby looked at me, his eyes roamed all over my body. Mamed was staring at me, but straight into my eyes, as if he sought to evaluate and understand me”. It was strange for Aminata to have a man value her as a person more then just a body to use.

Common roles for men in this book are drivers, overseers, government workers, slave traders, and hard labourers. Women were expected to cook meals, clean, take care of children, shop in the market and make cloths.

The strong women were expected to work alongside the men. “She explained while I was working with Mamed, she and the men were hauling stumps from a patch of land. “ Snake biting, bee-stinging, bug crawling no-good dirty work,” Georgia said.’’ Georgia was a physically strong woman so she often had to do the same jobs as the male slaves.

Aminata and Georgia, the woman who cared for her when she first came to America, both ‘caught babies’ for women in labour. They exercised their power by bartering for things they wanted and needed in exchange for their services. Some women in Charles Town were allowed to “self-hire”. This means they could go out and look for work for themselves but some of their profit had to be given to their owner. The consequence of this is that some women were able to earn some money and buy things for themselves.

One big difference in this novel than it was normal for that time, is that Aminata was taught to read by two different men other than her father. It was not common for women to learn to read in that day. However because Aminata was smart and ‘sensible’, her second owner, Mr. Lindo, taught her to read plus some basic math skills.

I believe, from what I have read so far, that the women in this novel have been given more opportunities than most women in that day would have been given. For instance, Georgia bartering when she was asked to catch babies and Aminata learning to read and do math. Though when we hear about how poorly woman were treated back in the day, in this novel I would say they are being treated better then most women were not considering the slavery factor.