LET US HONOUR QUOBNA OTTOBAH CUGUANO

Every year, in August, the Emancipation Day is celebrated in Ghana. This yearly ritual commemorates the Slave Trade, the worse thing that ever happened to the continent and its people, when the sons and daughters of Africa were forcefully taken away in chains to foreign lands to work without pay for strange white!faced" people. As we prepare to celebrate Emancipation Day, # feel the need to comment on the life of one African man who contributed so much to the abolition of the slave trade, whilst himself a free slave in foreign lands, and to ask the nation to honour him for his works. All these years, we have been made to believe that the people, who started the fight for the emancipation of the $lackman from this heinous trade, were the English. This assertion has to be refuted vehemently, because that would mean that the slaves never ob%ected to their enslavement in the &new world' and that they did en%oy their &stay' in those foreign lands where their freedom was trampled upon. The history that we are taught in schools only mention how the slaves were packed in the slave ships like sardines( how they were scarified for ease of identification by the slave owners should their &human property' run away and how they worked on the sugar plantations in the new world. A little is also said about Toussaint )"*uverture, who &caused havoc to the +rench in ,aiti', and is remembered as the only $lackman to have resisted white domination in the new world. +urther research into slavery will reveal that most slave revolts, which # would term the struggle for freedom, happened and most of the leaders of most of the revolts were of Ghanaian origin. -ost of them, however, were unsuccessful, and had to pay dearly with their lives for their roles during the revolts. There were yet others who wrote to reveal the e.tent of man"s cruelty to man and called for the abolition of the slave trade. Among this group and the first $lack African e.!slave to have written against the trade was a &Ghanaian' called /uobna *ttobah 0uguano 12obina *tobua 2weenu34. #t was the writings of /uobna and others, and the several uprisings and the loss of lives 1both black and white, during the revolts4, and property that compelled some white people to start advocating for the cessation of the slave trade. Samori and $abatu are known in history as the most notorious slave raiders especially in the savanna regions of Ghana. ,owever, nobody has yet been credited" with the infamous slave raiding activities in the forest and coastal regions of Ghana where the Akan, the Ga and the Ewe speaking peoples live. Since there is no historical evidence of Samori and $abatu descending on the south, it falls on us to find out who were those people that sold the southern Ghanaian into slavery. 5ere they both perpetrators and victims of this heinous trade3 6erhaps this e.cerpt from Thoughts and Sentiments', the chilling autobiography 1or call it treatise4 of /uobna *ttobah 0uguano can enlighten us on how he and possibly the greater ma%ority of southern 5est Africans ended up as slaves in the Americas, the 0aribbean islands and Europe. $elow # submit three very significant paragraphs from 2obina"s book to let readers see the horror of 2obina"s capture into slavery. &# was born in the city of Agima7ue, on the coast of +antyn, my father was a companion to the chief in that part of the country of +antee, and when the old king died, # was left in his house with his family, soon after # was sent for by his nephew, Ambro Accassa, who

succeeded the old king in the chiefdom of that part of +antee known by the name of Agima7ue and Assinee. # lived with his children, en%oying peace and tran7uility, about twenty moons which, according to their reckoning time, is two years. # was sent for to visit an uncle, who lived at a considerable distance from Agima7ue. The first day after we set out we arrived at Assinee, and the third day at my uncle"s habitation, where # lived about three months, and was then thinking of returning to my father and young companion at Agima7ue( but by this time # had got well ac7uainted with some of the children of my uncle"s hundreds of relations, and we were some days too venturesome in going into the woods to gather fruit and catch birds, and such amusements as pleased us. *ne day # refused to go with the rest, being rather apprehensive that something might happen to us( till one of my play!fellows said to me, because you belong to the great men, you are afraid to venture your carcase, or else of the bounsam, which is the devil. This enraged me so much, that # set a resolution to %oin the rest, and we went into the woods as usual( but we had not been above two hours before our troubles began, when several great ruffians came upon us suddenly, and said we must go and answer for it ourselves before him. &Soon some of us attempted in vain to run away, but pistols and cutlasses were soon introduced, threatening, that if we offered to stir we should all lie dead on the spot. *ne of them pretended to be more friendly than the rest, and said, that he would speak to their lord to get us clear( and desired that we should follow him, we were then immediately divided into different parties, and drove after him. 5e were soon led out of the way which we knew, and towards the evening 89..: we came in sight of a town, they told us that this great man of theirs lived there.89.: # was kept about si. days at that man"s house, and in the evening there was another man came and talked with him a good while, and # heard the one say to the other he must go, and the other said the sooner the better. 89: ;e.t day we traveled on, and in the evening came to a town, where we saw several white people, which made me afraid that they would eat me, according to our notion as children in the inland parts of the country. This made me rest uneasy all the night. 89.: After # was ordered out, the horrors # soon saw and felt, cannot be well described( # saw many of my miserable countrymen chained two and two, some handcuffed, and some with their hands tied behind. 5e were conducted along by a guard, and when we arrived at the castle, # asked my guard what # was brought there for, he told me to learn the ways of the brow-sow, that is the white faced people. 89.: $ut when a vessel arrived to conduct us away to the ship, it was a most horrible scene( there was nothing to be heard but rattling of chains, smacking of whips, and the groans and cries of our fellow!men. Some would stir from the ground, when they were lashed and beat in the most horrible manner. # have forgot the name of this infernal fort, but we were taken in ships that came for us, to another that was ready to sail from 0ape 0oast. 5hen we were put into the ship, we saw several black merchants coming on board, but we all drove to our holes, and not suffered to speak to any of them. #n this situation we continued several days in sight of our native land, but # could find no good person to give any information of my situation to Accassa at Agima7ue. And when we found ourselves at last taken away, death was more preferable than life, and a plan was concerted amongst us, that we might burn and blow up the ship, and perish all together in the flames, but we were betrayed by one of our countrywomen, who slept with some of the head men of the ship, for it was

common for the dirty filthy sailors to take African women and lie on their bodies( but the men were chained and pent up in holes. #t was the women and boys which were to burn the ship, with the approbation and groans of the rest( though that was prevented, the discovery was like!wise a cruel bloody scene. &$ut it would be needless to give a description of all the horrible scenes which we saw, and the base treatment which we met with in this dreadful captive situation, as the similar cases of thousands, which suffer by this infernal traffic, are well known. )et it suffice to say, that # was thus lost to my dear indulgent parents and relations, and they to me. All my help was cries and tears, and these could not avail( nor suffered long, till one succeeding woe, and dread, swelled up another. $rought from a state of innocence and freedom, and, in a barbarous and cruel manner, conveyed to a state of horror and slavery, this abandoned situation may be easier conceived than described. +rom the time that # was kid!napped and conducted to a factory, and thence in the brutish, base but fashionable way of traffic, consigned to Granada, the grievous thoughts which # then felt, still pant in my heart( though my fears and tears have long since subsided. And yet it is still grievous to think that thousands more have suffered in similar and grater distress, under the hands of barbarous robbers, and merciless taskmasters( and that many even now are suffering in all the e.treme bitterness of grief and woe, that no language can describe. The cries of some, and the sight of their misery, may be seen and heard afar, but the deep sounding groans of thousands, and the great sadness of their misery and woe, under the heavy load of oppression and calamities inflicted upon them, are such as can be distinctly known to the ears of <ehovah Sabaoth' +rom the above account, it could be understood that the coastal regions were not only points where slaves were camped and then transported to destinations in Europe and the Americas= they were also points where our kith and kin were captured and sold into slavery. To discount the argument that the coastal people served only as clerks, house cleaners, etc, for the slave traders, we could draw on *ttobah"s narrative which indicates that he understood everything both his immediate captors and their big man to whose village he was sent, said. This means that his captors spoke his native language ! +ante. Even on the ship that finally to took them to Granada, African e.ecutives came up to discuss businesses with the ship owners, and /uobna intimates that he would have sent a message to his uncle Ambro Accassa 1-bro Akesse34, had they 1captives4 not been driven into their holes 1cabins4 and thus prevented from speaking to these African businessmen. This implies that most of the slave raiders, kidnappers and buyers were local Akan people, a further indication that the coastal people never en%oyed any form of freedom from the slave raiders. The fact that about >?@ of forts and castle used as slave posts are on the Ghanaian coast should make us ask ourselves could all these posts be there without the local people being casualties. Definitely, the coastal people got involved, both as captors and as captives. # am not proud to say that my people participated in slavery, in whatever way. # am rather sad about what happened to the black race generally, hundreds of years ago and e7ually ashamed that the black man also was a ma%or player in this heinous trade. #s it any wonder that two centuries after the so!called official $ritish abolition of the

obno.ious trade, the black race continues to waddle in disease, s7ualor, poverty and underdevelopment. That many people of southern 5est African stock were taken away, could be seen from the traces of the culture that still e.ist in the Americas and the 0aribbean #slands. )et us consider the voodoo religion practiced in some parts of South America and the 0aribbean islands, particularly, in ,aiti. #n this nation, which unfortunately happens to be the poorest and most troubled in that region, voodoo is recogniAed on the same footing as 0atholicism, ! a national religion. 1note that the ,aitians call their country Ayiti, and Ayiti 1angliciAed to Ayittey or Aryeetey in some instances in Ghana4 is a surname used by the Ga and Ewe speaking regions of Ghana, and in the Ewe speaking areas of Togo and $enin, where voodoo is widely practiced. #ncidentally, the voodoo religion is given the same prominence in $enin as it is in ,aitiB The Shango god of the Corubas 1Coruba is a southern ;igerian and $eninois ethnic group4 is widely worshipped in $raAil, a possible indication that most $raAilian blacks may have originated from those parts of southern 5est Africa inhabited by the Coruba. #n the southern Dnited States of America, the black people tell tales woven around ;ancy, the spider" and his wisdom. Every Ghanaian knows about the ananse" stories or anansesem" told in southern Ghanaian homes. 5e do recogniAe similarities between Ananse the Spider around whom the Akans of southern Ghana tell so many incredulous stories as the same ;ancy, the Spider, in the southern Dnited States. ;ancy is therefore, only a corruption of the Akan ananse" 1the spider4, so it is not by a mere co!incidence that the Akans and southern American blacks both tell tales woven around the spider who always played heroic roles. #n <amaica, there are Ananse" stories, where the original African name Ananse" is retained. Also in <amaica, the chicken is called asense", witchcraft is obeah", the black owl is patu" etc, which are Akan derivations. There are many e.amples of <amaican words, which have their roots in the Akan language that space will not permit us to catalogue. #n $arbados, for e.ample, the local name for marriage in &aware'B #n Surinam 1formerly Dutch Guiana4, in South America, one meets the Ghanaian in his raw state. Akan names like 2wasi, 2ofi, 2wame, 2wamena, Ad%ua, Akuba etc, which they refer to call as &soul names', are used by the Surinamese blacks who speak a language called Sranam Tongo 1tongue4 which is a mi.ture of African, Dutch, 6ortuguese, English and 0hinese languages. 5hen a delegation of Surinamese traditional rulers visited Ghana in the late eighties, we saw on GTE their visit to the then Asantehene, *tumfuo *poku 5are"s palace where they poured libation with schnapps, and boy they were a replica of the Akan peoples of Ghana. Then -rs $outerse 1wife of the then president of Surinam4 and ;ana 2onadu Agyeman Fawlings, the then +irst )ady of Ghana, visited the -akola -arket in Accra, where the visiting first lady picked up some palm fruits and when asked their Surinamese name she said obe" 1pronounced orb! eh4, which is similar to the Akan abe" 1pronounced ab!eh4. The Sranam Tongo word for the Almighty God is *twedeampon", witchcraft is obya" and vulture opete", etc. which are all derived from Akan.

The maroons of the highlands of <amaica are another group of diasporan Akans. They are said to have a fascinating and turbulent history, which includes the intermittent wars waged against the $ritish slave owners on that island, and at other times turned round, strangely though, to work with the $ritish to 7uell slave revolts elsewhere. #t is known that there are two distinct -aroon communities living in <amaica"s mountainous hinterlands i.e. the Accompong and 5indward -aroons. Accompong is a pure Akan surname. The history of the -aroons is filled with the e.ploit of /ueen ;ana 1also called ;anny, a corruption of the Akan 7ueenly title nana"4, who fought the $ritish until a peace treaty was signed with the -aroons, after the +irst -aroon 5ar 1GHI?!GJKK4 which guaranteed the -aroons both land and freedom. /ueen ;anny or ;ana" was the Caa Asantewa on the other side of the Atlantic. Some older -aroons still speak 0oromante 1also called 0oromantyne4 which is said to be a language of 5est African origin whose survival is threatened by the pervasive influence of radio and television. -utabaruka, a <amaican noted for his biting commentary as a dub poet who visited Ghana in GIIJ with Cellowman, a fellow <amaican reggae star, had this to say about 0oromante, to his audience at a concert in Accra, &we came to spoil our hearts to the people of Ghana. $ecause its L?? years they took us and carry on that slave plantation island called <amaica. And its L?? years that we yearn to come to Ashanti land, to 0oromante land. L?? years, our ancestors under the belly of the Atlantic ocean crying to black people to wake up from your sleep and your slumber. 0oromante is an angliciAed form or should # say a corruption of 2romantse, a fishing town near Saltpond in the central region of Ghana, where a slave fort of a similar name still stands. The 0oromante spoken by the -aroons could therefore, be a form of Akan. #n GIIJ, former president <erry <ohn Fawlings of Ghana visited the 0aribbean islands of <amaica and Trinidad and Tobago. At a meeting with Ghanaian residents of 6ort of Spain the capital of Trinidad and Tobago, the president and his delegation were told by the head of the Ghanaian community there 1GTE feature on the president"s visit on august MM, GIIJ4 that the people of the islands have Ghanaian names such as 2ofi, 2o%o, 2wame, etc. Tried as the slave masters did to obliterate 5est African culture from the slaves 1de! culturalisation34, they could not. 5est African names are still used in the 0aribbean #slands, even though most spellings have been angliciAed, for e.ample, 0uffee 12ofi4, AlsindorNAlcindor 1Assandor4 and 0ud%oe 12o%oN0ud%oe4. #n /uobna *ttobah 0uguano"s 12obina *tubua 2weenu34 narrative, we learn that the captured children were taken to Assinee 1Assin4 upon their capture. This is a confirmation of the e.istence of a slave market at Assin -anso. This slave market was reputed to be the largest of its kind in the southern part of Ghana. The people of Ad%umako 1Agima7ue in *ttobah"s narrative4 share a common border with the Assins, so if a slave market was situated at Assin -anso, it was obvious that captives would be taken there and sold to buyers who would then transport them to the slave posts and castles along the coast for onward transshipment to the Americas. #t is, therefore, gratifying that the government through the 6A;A+EST and the Emancipation Day celebrations, has instituted a Femembrance Day held yearly at Assin -anso to commemorate the brave people like /uobna 12obina4, who were lost to their parents and

loved ones through une.plainable circumstances. Cou can imagine the hell uncle Accassa 1Akesse4 went through when his GK year!old nephew failed to return home that evening and the problems that the boy"s disappearance created for the family, i.e. Dncle Accassa and /uobna"s biological parents. -y only worry is why the government has not done anything to honour 2obina through whose writing we can see glaringly how our kith and kin were snatched away from us. 2obina was born in present day Ghana in the GJK?s. 2idnapped and taken into slavery( he worked on plantations in Granada, before being brought to England where he bought his freedom. ,e was baptised as <ohn Stuart in GJJK. 5hile working as an assistant to Fichard 0osway, the official artist to the 6rince of 5ales, he wrote his MMO!page book, &The Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Commerce of the Human Species Humbly Submitted to the Inhabitants of the reat !ritain"# This was the first directly abolitionist publication in English to be written by an African and a victim for that matter and was published in GJ>J. The book attacked slavery and stirred public opinion against the trade the world over. # am e.tremely happy about the fact that /uobna did not forget his +ante language after having been taken away at the age of thirteen and that having been away from his country of origin for over forty years, he still remembered vividly how he was taken away, the names of towns and relatives as well as some +anti e.pressions. #n the e.cerpt from his book 7uoted earlier, /uobna mentions bounsam" 1abonsam4 the devil, though he slips when he says that browsow" means white people. *bviously, he had confused browsow" 1pawpaw4 with bronyi" 1white manNwoman4. ;evertheless, he has to be given the credit for being able to remember some aspects of the +anti language as English slave owners forbade their &property' to speak their mother tongues on the plantation. )ike some schools in present day Ghana forbid their pupils to speak Ghanaian languages on school premises, the slave was deprived of hisNher freedom to speak even hisNher own language on the plantations. The practice in those strange lands was to separate people of the same language groups from each other for fear they would be planning a revoltB *f the three Africans who wrote and vehemently attacked the obno.ious trade, /uobna was the first followed by *lauda E7uiano 1renamed Gastavus Eassa4.The other, #gnatius Sancho, was born on a slave ship and might have been christened after the ship owner, captain, or someone on the ship or elsewhere as his origin or that of his name is unclear. E7uiano, an #gbo, was born in GJLO in an area under the kingdom of $enin in present day ;igeria. At the age of ten, he was kidnapped by slave hunters who also took his sister. ,e was more fortunate than most other slaves were. After serving in America, the 5est #ndies and England he was able to save for and buy his freedom in GJOH at the very youthful age of twenty!one. *ttobah 0uguano had no doubt about the shared responsibility of Africans for the horrid business of trading in human beings. Feferring to his own capture, 0uguano wrote on regaining his freedom, P# must own, to the shame of my own countrymen, that # was first kidnapped and betrayed by some of my own comple.ion, who were the first cause of my e.ile and slavery.P ,owever, he added, P#f there were no buyers there would be no

sellers.P $ut would there have been sellers, if there were no buyers to sell to3 The chicken and egg story3 The government of the ;D0 did tremendously well in letting Ghanaians know more about the slave trade to the e.tent of instituting Emancipation Day and honouring the victims by bringing the skeletal remains of two former slaves from the Americas to be buried at Assin -anso. # believe, however, that /uobna 1whose origins are known as opposed to the unknown ones who have been reburied in Ghana4, deserves a greater honour. 5hereas in ;igeria, *lauda E7uiano is very well known and a society has even been formed in his honour, virtually nothing is known about /uobna in Ghana. #t would not be improper if a library on Slavery were built in the town of Ad%umako in remembrance of this illustrious son of Ghana 1and all Africans who were sold into slavery4. #t is through /uobna"s 12obina4 writing that a first hand, eye witness victim account of the modus operandi of the slave raiders in southern Ghana is known This library could be stocked with books on slavery, and such books are legion. Dntil this nation honours /uobna *ttobah 0uguano 12obina *tubua 2weenu34 of Agima7ue, all the 6A;A+EST and Emancipations Days will be incomplete, for he 1a Ghanaian4 was the first African and a victim himself to speak openly against the slave trade through his book and made representations to the 2ing and parliament of the Dnited 2ingdom, to stop the trade in human beings. Elsewhere, people are reading /uobna *ttobah 0uguano"s book and researching into his writings( is it not proper, therefore, that they come to know the town he originated from Q &Agima7ue in +antyn country' in present! day Ghana3 5hat # want to advocate is to give a human face to the honour already instituted, by recogniAing the work of /uobna, 1and the others4 so that it would not be like honouring faceless unidentified people, African slave they were any way, but by associating /uobna"s name with the honour we would, at least, identify people whose names and background we know, and who we can claim to be &our very own', without any 7ualms, because as far back GJ>G, /uobna had published a book decrying the practice and asked the $ritish parliament to stop the trade, long before 5illiam 5ilberforce and Granville Sharp stepped in. 5hen the so!called M??th anniversary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade was celebrated in $ritain last year and the Dniversity of )iverpool used the occasion to honour 5ilberforce, our own 6resident 2uffour was invited to give a keynote address. -any were the black $ritish people who misconstrued 6resident 2uffour"s role in that celebration and castigated him in the $ritish newspapers and on Ghana5eb, because he had helped the white people to honour their own without giving any thought to the role African slaves played in creating awareness of the wrong, brutish and immoral trade, thus prompting the 5ilberforces to step in. 6robably, if the black $ritish public was aware of the 6A;A+EST and Emancipation Day celebrated in Ghana in August each year and what they mean, most of those who wrote and spoke vehemently against 6resident 2uffour, would have taught twice before doing so. #t is now time for 6resident 2uffour to do honour to the black people who struggled to death in the new world so that their children and children" children would be free today.

These include all black people who led revolts on the plantations and who paid dearly with their lives, men like Tacky in GJH? in <amaica( /uamina 12wamena34 and Telemacus who led an unsuccessful revolt in $ritish Guiana in G>MK and were e.ecuted and their bullet ridden bodies impaled for public view, after O> of their men had fallen during the revolt, and 0uffee 12ofi 34 who with five others were burnt alive in $arbados in GHJO for planning a revolt which was revealed by a slave woman to her master. *ne of the slaves called Tony retorted, &#f you roast me today, you can"t roast me tomorrow.' 5riting in the twentieth century about the G>MK $ritish Guiana revolt and its repression, <ames Fodway whose sympathy with the official line on the rebellion was otherwise undisguised, said, &a severe lesson was perhaps wanted, but everyone must regret the necessity for so many e.ecutions, the hanging in chains and the head stuck on poles at the fort and along the public roads.' Those who succeeded in their revolts e.ploit included 2ing Adoe 1Addo or Adu34 in Dutch Guiana in GJK?!GJLI and 0hief 0offy 12ofi4 and 0hief Atta in Surinam in GJHK and the -aroons under 0ud%oe, /uao and the *beah 1*bayie in Akan Q sorceress4 ;anny 1also called ;ana4 between GJG> and GJK> . 5e must accept the fact that if we do not honour our own people no white man would do that for honour. A Quobna Ottobah Cuguano Day could be instituted and celebrated all over Ghana as a ;ational Day of Femembrance of our kith and kin who were stolen from us and never returned to see their motherland again. The day could be declared a public holiday, during which Ghana would mourn the loss of its sons and daughters to slavery. 0ould the current Emancipation Day be renamed Quobna Ottobah Cuguano Day3 )et us take the first step then, by honouring /uobna *ttobah 0uguano of Agima7ue in +antyn country", the first real abolitionist of the slave trade, and not 5illiam 5ilberforce. The white man will never accept that it was the black man who fought for his liberation from slavery. The history departments of our various universities could also team up with people of the Ad%umako area to search for 2obina"s people. Dnfortunately not much is known about 2obina"s other life in England, e.cept that after writing the book he made representations to the English parliament and the 2ing of England with other opposers of the slave trade. ,e was reported to have married a white woman and had children, but nothing is known about his family, and where he lived, died and was buried in )ondon is not known. #ronically, not even a portrait of 2obina *tubua 2weenu" is available to enable us see how he looked like, for a man who worked as an assistant to the 6rince of 5ales" official artist. 5hat people claim to be /uobna"s portrait is a black man in a painting 1almost a silhouette4 serving Fichard 0osway and his wife in a garden. There is talk of some form of a conspiracy to obliterate 2obina"s memory from the face of the earth, but for his writings. ;evertheless, the evidence of his working life as assistant to the official artist to the 6rince of 5ales, heir to the $ritish throne, prevails. The -inistry of +oreign and Diasporan Affairs needs to do more to encourage black people the world over to visit the homeland". Such visits will enable them know more about and e.plore Ghana in particular and Africa in general so that they will build some sort of confidence in themselves, identify with Africa and see themselves as Africans first and Americans or Europeans second. There are times when this writer has met some people of African descent who know nothing about Africa e.cept the horrible pictures of

hungry people in some war torn countries pro%ected on the screens of the western media, and stories on African A#DS patients and orphaned children. 5ho would care to come to Africa or associate themselves with Africa when this is all they see or hear about the continent3 5e need to sell Africa in a more positive way. 5e need to hour our own. As the old 0hinese adage goes, a %ourney of a thousands miles starts from the doorstep, we must begin from somewhere, and that somewhere is Ghana. 5ell done /uobna for your writings have given us the insight into this horrible trade in human beings. Ghanaians are proud of you. 25A-E $EDD!A;D*F $eduandorRaol.com 2asbandMGRyahoo.com African Dniversity 0ollege of 0ommunications 6.*.$o. )G OG? Accra! Ghana