Ottobah Cugoano, also known as John Stuart (c.1757 – after 1791), was the first African Abolitionist who was active in England in the latter half of the eighteenth century. Captured and sold into slavery at the age of 13 in present-day Ghana, he was shipped to Grenada. In 1772 he was purchased by an English merchant who took him to England, where he was freed. Later working for the Cosways, he became acquainted with British political and cultural figures, and joined the SONS OF AFRICA abolitionists who were Africans.
He was born Qobna Ottobah Cugoano in 1757 near Ajumako, modern day Ghana. He was an Fanti. His family was friends with the local chief. At the age of 13 Cuguano In 1770, he was kidnapped and taken to the West Indies where he spent nearly a year enslaved on Grenada was sold into slavery and transported to Grenada to work on a plantation. He remained in the West Indies until he was purchased by an English merchant in 1772 who took him to England. He was baptized that year with the name John Stuart and obtained his freedom in England following the decision in the Somersett Case.
In 1784, Ottabah Cugoano (John Stuart) was employed as a servant by the artists Richard Cosway and his wife. Through the Cosways, he came to the attention of leading British political and cultural figures of the time, including the poet William Blake and the Prince of Wales at the time. Together withOludah Equiano and other educated Africans living in Britain, he became active in the SONS OF AFRICA, An abolitionist group whose members wrote frequently to the newspapers of the day, condemning the practice of slavery.
In 1786 he played a key role in the case of Henry Demane, A kidnapped black man who was to be shipped back to the West Indies. Cugoano contacted Granville Sharp, a well known Abolitionist who was able to have Demane removed from the ship before it sailed.
In 1787, possibly with the help of his friend Olaudah Equiano, Cugoano published an attack on slavery entitled Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species (1787). By now a devout Christian, he wrote work informed by that religion. His writing called for the abolition of slavery and immediate emancipation of all slaves. It argues that the slave’s duty is to escape from slavery, and that force should be used to prevent further enslavement. The narrative was sent to King George III, the Prince of Wales and to Edmund Burke a leading politicianGeorge III, along with much of the royal family remained opposed to abolition of the SLAVE TRADE.
Four years later, in 1791, Cugoano released a shorter version of his book, addressed to the “Sons of Africa”. In it, he expressed qualified support for the failed British efforts to establish a colony for London’s black poor in Sierra leone He called for the establishment of schools in Britain especially for African students.
A 1784 engraving by Richard Cosway showing the artist with his wife, Maria, and Ottobah Cugoano, who was then their servant at Schomberg House © Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Nothing is known of Cugoano after the release of his book.
I strongly feel because he was leading such a powerfull movement and was able to have distribution going regarding the damaging of slavery to humans that the powers of goverment at the time silenced him.
Excerpts from his book From his book: Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery
Taken – Ottobah Cugoano, Wicked Traffic of Slavery (1787)
With some of the children of my uncle’s relations, I was too bold in going into the woods to gather fruit and catch birds… One day several ruffians came upon us suddenly, saying we had wronged their lord, and we must go and answer it before him… Some of us tried in vain to run away, but pistols and cutlasses were soon introduced, threatening, that if we tried to move, we should all lie dead on the spot. One 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 driven after him. We were soon led out of the way which we knew… into slavery.
I was kidnapped by one of my own countrymen at the age of thirteen and taken to the coast by an African slave dealer. At the castle I saw him take a gun, a piece of cloth, and some lead for me, and then he told me that he must now leave me there, and went off. I was soon conducted to a prison, for three days, where I heard the groans and cries of many, and saw some of my fellow-captives. But 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, whips, and the cries of our fellow-men. We were taken in the ship that came for us, to another that was ready to sail from Cape Coast. I was enslaved for two years in the West Indies until I was brought to England in 1772 by my master.
“Every day I saw the most dreadful scenes of misery and cruelty. My miserable companions were often cruelly lashed, and as it were cut to pieces. I saw a slave receive twenty four lashes of the whip for being seen in church on a Sunday instead of going to work.”
“Is it not strange to think, that they who ought to be considered as the most learned and civilized people in the world, that they should carry on a traffic of the most barbarous cruelty and injustice, and that many think slavery, robbery and murder no crime?”
He was the first educated black writer in English to argue that enslaved Africans had not only the moral right but also the moral duty to resist slavery.
He leaves behind the legacy of freedom and not to cease from being free in every whch way. I am so happy and inspired that I have found and learned about him.
