Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote

Hi bolaji

I don't understand where you can get such absolute dates as to equiano's age or birthdate. From your posting you tell us to go to wiki. There it cites a baptismal record of 1759. If we accept it, then he was born in s Carolina that year. But I would stress "if" for any record that old, about most anything. if he was around 20 in 1765, as the wiki site indicates "Robert King set Equiano to work on his shipping routes and in his stores. In 1765, when Equiano was about 20 years old, King promised that for his purchase price of 40 pounds (equivalent to £4,900 in 2015) he could buy his freedom," then in 1754 he was around 9.. any if he served in the war at the age of 14-17 (did the description in the autobiography make him seem that old?), he was still a child. Teenagers are still children when it comes to "child-soldier" definitions. I agree a 17 yr old is old enough to be drafted.

But when I read the account, I was taken aback at the portrait of him serving as a child, and I came to learn that children served, were servants to officers, including in naval combat. What struck me, of course, was that it was no big deal in those days that child servitude extended to combat.

It is a recent notion that "child-soldiers" represents a violation of human rights, and we have huge campaigns. But in history, children were more like "children," that is, not defined as such as we nowadays think of them as children. Children labored in the work forces till much later, historically, so it would shock a modern sensibility that he served, not an 18^th c sensibility.

Anyway, as for the dates cited in wiki, or any other source, I accept it w a grain of salt. I would call them good guesses at best, and I note that in the wiki entry, his birthdate is given as "c. 1745" which means circa, i.e., somewhere around 1745.

ken

 

Kenneth Harrow

Dept of English and Film Studies

Michigan State University

619 Red Cedar Rd

East Lansing, MI 48824

517-803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

http://www.english.msu.edu/people/faculty/kenneth-harrow/

 

From: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Mobolaji Aluko <alukome@gmail.com>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Friday, 20 October 2017 at 05:03
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote

 

 

Kenneth Harrow:

 

On Thu, Oct 19, 2017 at 11:33 PM, Kenneth Harrow <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:

An addendum to cornelius's summary about Equiano serving in the royal navy. He was a child, a slave child of a naval officer, and in battle carried cannon balls.

No shock, in those days, about utilizing children at war! Much  less children slaves!

ken

 

Well, it appears that there is dispute as to whether Equiano was born in 1742 or 1745 or 1747, and what his age was when he was kidnapped - 7 or 8 or 11  !

 

Let us read:  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaudah_Equiano

 

"In Virginia, Equiano was bought in 1754 by Michael Pascal, a lieutenant in the Royal Navy. Pascal renamed the boy "Gustavus Vassa" ....He used this name for the rest of his life, including on all official records. He only used Equiano in his autobiography"

 

    - so he could have been 7, 9 or 13 here when he was bought and re-named by Pascal

 

"Pascal took Equiano with him when he returned to England and had him accompany him as a valet during the Seven Years' War with France. Also trained in seamanship, Equiano was expected to assist the ship's crew in times of battle; his duty was to haul gunpowder to the gun decks.   Pascal favoured Equiano and sent him to his sister-in-law in Great Britain so that he could attend school and learn to read and write.  At this time, Equiano converted to Christianity. He was baptised in St Margaret's, Westminster, in February 1759. His godparents were Mary Guerin and her brother, Maynard, who were cousins of his master Pascal. They had taken an interest in him and helped him to learn English. Later, when Equiano's origins were questioned after his book was published, the Guerins testified to his lack of English when he first came to London"

 

 

 

   - The Seven Years War  was between 17 May 1756 – 15 February 1763 .  So Equiano was born in 1742,  he            must have been between 14 and 21 during this War, a teenager/young adult.  But since he was baptized in           1759, he may not have been deployed as a valet to Pascal throughout the war, so he could have been 14-17,         a  teenager, not really a child.

 

 

"Pascal sold Equiano to Captain James Doran of the Charming Sally at Gravesend, from where he was transported back to the Caribbean, to Montserrat, in the Leeward Islands. There, he was sold to Robert King, an American Quaker merchant from Philadelphia who traded in the Caribbean..... King allowed Equiano to buy his freedom, which he achieved in 1767...By about 1767, Equiano had gained his freedom and went to England."

 

     - So at freedom, Equiano is now 20 or 22 or 25.

 

 

Entitled The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African (1789), the book rapidly went through nine editions in his lifetime. It is one of the earliest-known examples of published writing by an African writer to be widely read in England. By 1792, it was a best seller: it has been published in Russia, Germany, Holland, and the United States. It was the first influential slave narrative of what became a large literary genre. But Equiano's experience in slavery was quite different from that of most slaves; he did not participate in field work, he served his owners personally and went to sea, was taught to read and write, and worked in trading

 

 

And there you have it.

 

 

 

Bolaji Aluko

 

On Thu, Oct 19, 2017 at 11:33 PM, Kenneth Harrow <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:

An addendum to cornelius's summary about Equiano serving in the royal navy. He was a child, a slave child of a naval officer, and in battle carried cannon balls.

No shock, in those days, about utilizing children at war! Much  less children slaves!

ken

 

 

Kenneth Harrow

Dept of English and Film Studies

Michigan State University

619 Red Cedar Rd

East Lansing, MI 48824

517-803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

http://www.english.msu.edu/people/faculty/kenneth-harrow/

 

From: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Cornelius Hamelberg <corneliushamelberg@gmail.com>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Thursday, 19 October 2017 at 17:07
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote

 

Wofa Akwasi,

 

Many thanks and Congratulations for your I'm sure diligent work on Malcolm & Africa. One has to have reading feet that travel faster than Usain Bolt to catch up with the prolific, quality output of our own Wofa Akwasi and Chief Guru, Alagba Falola. If our main libraries don't have their copies, I'll make sure that they DO.  

 

As for Marable, may his marbles rest in perfect peace & tranquility. Maybe his "revelations" should be in inverted commas ?

 

Archie Shepp - Malcolm, Malcolm - Semper Malcolm

 

Nyboma : Malcolm X

 

I zapped through a whopping 1136 page monumental looking Guy Arnold  : Africa : A modern History : 1945-2015 ( R.I.P) - one of the books that I'm sure  that I'm not going to read cover to cover before I die.

 

Whilst still on this thread I had better make some amends, myself :  The Igbo  "Gustavus"  has been drummed in my ears " without abruption " to the extent  that there I went googling "Gustavus Vasa" when the name of the great Swedish King is GUSTAV VASA  - there is  a later King Gustavus Adolphus who we mostly associate with the thirty years war and then there was  Sweden , still a great power in Europe at least, kicking ass everywhere in the seven year war the war with which Gustavus Vassa , the liberated African was associated: ("He served on Royal Navy warships that fought crucial engagements in the Seven Years' War of 1756-63…"

Some more sad news Sir: Oxford accused of 'social apartheid' as colleges admit no black students

 

53 years ago : Malcolm X  @  Oxford Union debate

 

Mvh,

 

Cornelius

 

On Thursday, 19 October 2017 21:48:11 UTC+2, aassenso wrote:

SIR Cornelius:

 

This is interesting history! Thank you and V-C Aluko for your respective perspectives and elucidations!

 

You mentioned Brother Malcolm X in passing! Well, in our biography of Malcolm  -- MALCOLM X: A BIOGRAPHY (Greenwood Press, 2014) -- as well as our recently-published book, MALCOLM X & AFRICA (Cambria Press, 2106), we have researched and presented several aspects of Malcolm X's very long 1964 stay in Africa,  during which he received in East and West Africa several warm welcoming accolades and honors, including the giving to him of the Omowale (Yoruba) name at University of Ibadan. Hopefully, many of our people will delve into the two books, which are deemed by critics to be refreshing departures from publications that either rehash or harp on Malcolm's problems with his Black Muslim brothers and sisters! Of course, my former Ohio Sate University boss (the late Professor Manning Marable) did his own overkill with his 594-page tome, MALCOLM X: A LIFE OF REINVENTION (Viking 2011); his massive book did not sit well with several Malcolm scholars and admirers because of some unnecessary revelations!! 

 

A.B. Assensoh.   

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2017 9:02 AM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote

 

V-C Aluko,

 

Many thanks for elucidating what for me was the mystery of "Whidah"  which I had suspected was a code name, an ugly racist pseudonym/ code word for somewhere in "Niggerland"; you know that some racists think that Niger-ia is where Niggers spelt with one ge come from. Spelled with two esses, Gustavus Vassa  is available in Swedish translation as Jag, Slaven Gustavus Vassa av Olaudah Equiano ( I the slave Gustavus Vassa by Olaudah Equiano )

 

"What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" ?

 

Be of good cheer : In 1964, Malcolm X was given the name Omowale when he visited the University of Ibadan

 

But first of all, to set things right Sir: Like many a Nigerian politician, Gustavus Vasa  was greedy for wealth and power - he took a lot of money from the churches etc, but I don't believe there is any justification for anyone labelling him "a racist Swede".

 

Gustavus Vasa contemporaries in Europe

 

Gustavus Vasa  and his contemporaries in Europe

 

Which is not to deny that a few centuries later Racism is very much alive, here and that sometimes, you can see it in eyes staring daggers,  looking at you and saying with them there eyes, "You are in the wrong country"

 

Yesterday, I was at the Royal Library between 1400 hrs and 1700hrs checking out Equiano.(BTW, one of my Better Half's first cousins (Margareta), used to be head of that library after some time as the head of the University of Stockholm's library and you may - as we say in Nigeria, " rest assured" that I have read many a doctoral thesis , not least of all about South Africa and every once in awhile, some hot stuff by one Stefan Jonsson

 

Cut out the satire and we may compare Equiano's real life peregrinations to

Gulliver's Travels. On life's pilgrimage, wherever we may be now, I believe that we are surely in the same boat (planet earth) and hopefully, moving on.

 

I don't  pay attention to  whippersnappers behind the curtain. At the same time, in my view, in this people's planet we cannot be talking about a person - not even about Karl Marx who is buried in London or about Jesus of Nazareth who ascended to his Father in heaven or Nnamdi Kanu who ran away to Scotland instead of facing trial by Pontius Pilate and eventual crucifixion, rebirth and resurrection as the Messiah of Biafra  - we cannot talk about such flesh and blood and have them say we shall not "personalise" it. It is my fervent hope that some Jahmaican or Nigerian philosopher doesn't start braying that that's some unwarranted invective from somebody, anybody. As Marcus Garvey wrote about injustice

 

"Lying and stealing is the white man's game;

For rights of God nor man he has no shame

(A practice of his throughout the whole world)

At all, great thunderbolts he has hurled;

He has stolen everywhere-land and sea;

A buccaneer and pirate he must be,

Killing all, as he roams from place to place,

Leaving disease, mongrels-moral disgrace- "

 

When it comes to the problematics of miscegenation versus segregation we notice that unlike E. W. Blyden the first, Equiano also a product of his times and having only recently escaped the gallows ( lynching )  -  is all for the mixing of the races. I guess that Steve Biko also stood for that too. Otherwise , it's his sometimes very cringing tone  - the usual tone of the uncle tom, that riles me. Just as  the extremely servile tone of Kachikwu's letter to President Buhari  - riles me to the extent that I wasn't sure  whether or not there was a misspelling in this line from Skytte's book  and perhaps you could elucidate that too :

 

"The Negroes who come from the Ebo tribe in Benin are the weakest and the most disheartened" The slightest hard treatment reduces them to despair and suicide."

This is a slaver's perception but who pray could "the Ebo tribe" be? Surely, not our Brethren from Eastern Nigeria? I know that like the Jews,  they are always whining, but "the weakest and the most disheartened" The slightest hard treatment reduces them to despair and suicide." ???

 

Re- "Equiano must have known that there were powerful people out to discredit him"

In the preface to his book, there's the letter which begins, " An invidious falsehood…. with a view to hurt my  character and prevent the sale of my narrative"  

 

I half expected that at the conclusion of the story,  unlike Cornelius Adebayo, Brother Equiano returns home, sweet home in Africa, and in the land of the rising sun, he marries an Igbo woman and they live happily ever after…

 

Better Half ( in Sweden known as " The government" ) has been whining that she wants to use her computer  ( we have two computers but only one chair) so I'll vacate  the chair and end here…

MVH,

 

Cornelius

On Thursday, 19 October 2017 10:42:45 UTC+2, Bolaji Aluko wrote:

 

 

Cornelius Hammelberg:

 

I am consuming your contributions voraciously.... You have a way of teasing in information... 

 

By the way  I recognize WHIDAH is really the Kingdom of Whydah or Ouida

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Whydah

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouidah

 

Please continue our education ... I am intrigued about the extemporaneous nature of claims to Igbo heritage, as well as Obi's wonder about the power of recall of all the fine textural details of his people's indigenous culture by an 8- or 11-year old.   Was the adoption of a racist Swede's name the last laugh, what Sherlock Holmes would have exclaimed to Dr Watson  "How did we miss that, Watson?" 

 

I ordered two books on all of this today... I like mystery. 

 

And there you have it. 

 

 

Bolaji Aluko 

On Wednesday, October 18, 2017, Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com> wrote:

"The greatest miracle Christianity has achieved in America
is that the black man in white Christian hands has not grown
violent.  It is a miracle that 22 million black people have
not risen up against their oppressors--in which they would
have been justified by all moral criteria, and even by the
democratic tradition!  It is a miracle that a nation of
black people has so fervently continued to believe in a
turn-the-other-cheek and heaven-for-you-after-you-die
philosophy!  It is a miracle that the American Black people
have remained a peaceful people, while catching all the
centuries of hell that they have caught, here in white man's
heaven!  The miracle is that the white man's puppet Negro
'leaders,' his preachers and the educated Negroes laden with
degrees, and others who have been allowed to wax fat off
their black poor brothers, have been able to hold the black
masses quiet until now." ( from THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X ) …

 

In this our Pan- African forum, here's my last two kobos worth, please permit me to start here:

 

Gustavus Vasa being the name of the Swedish King popularly credited with being the founder of the nation known as Sweden, it's a good guess that there are many Swedes who are very curious about a slave, a very famous one at that, named after that Swedish King though with a slight difference in spelling, Equiano's rather non-Ogbo name bearing an extra ess to its cling : Gustavus Vassa.

 

Since Sweden's only possession in the "New World" during the slave-trading era was the tiny island of Saint Barthélemy and for only a very brief period, a major point of curiosity would be, was Equiano from that island and therefore fondly baptised or self-named after one of Sweden's great kings ? The short answer is no. My only knowledge about that former prized possession is a TV documentary I watched recently and a few decades before that, circa 1986 to be exact, reading Göran Skytte's Det kungliga svenska slaveriet ( "The Royal Swedish Slavery") which unlike Equiano's autobiography is unfortunately not yet available in an English translation, but as background to the times in which Equiano lived and some of the White World's prevalent attitudes to Africans in the period  and context in which Equiano's biography was written, here are some of the most memo

...

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