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Biography of Ottobah CugoanoName: Ottobah CugoanoBirth Date: c. 1757 Death Date: c. 1803 Place of Birth: Ajumako, Ghana Nationality: Ghanaian Gender: Male Occupations: writer, abolitionist Ottobah Cugoano Ottobah Cugoano (ca. 1757-ca. 1803) was an African of Fanti origin from the Gold Coast in present-day Ghana. He became a prominent figure among the free Africans of late-18th-century London and in 1787 published an attack on slavery and the slave trade.Ottobah Cugoano was born near Ajumako and grew up in the household of the Fanti chief Ambro Accasa, ruler of Ajumako and Assinie. Cugoano was enslaved as a youth, taken to Grenada in the West Indies, and from there brought to England, where he was freed.Educated while a slave and converted to Christianity, Cugoano soon emerged as a leader of opinion among the free Africans of London, where he corresponded under the adopted name of John Stewart, or Stuart, and became familiar with the abolitionist leaders Granville Sharp and Thomas Clarkson. Cugoano was a friend of Olaudah Equiano, with whom he collaborated in representing African interests.Cugoano's book, …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…Further Reading Cugoano's work, Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species (1787), was reissued in a second edition by Paul Edwards, entitled Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery (1969). Edwards added an informative introduction and appended five previously unpublished manuscript letters by Cugoano that are helpful in determining the authorship of Thoughts and Sentiments. The most useful and informative modern treatment of Cugoano is by Robert July, The Origins of Modern African Thought: Its Development in West Africa during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (1967), who considers Cugoano an important precursor of 19th- and 20th-century African thought. Prince Hoare, Memoirs of Granville Sharp, Esq. (1820), contains some letters from Cugoano and references to his relationship with Sharp. Christopher Fyfe, in A History of Sierra Leone (1962), agrees with Paul Edwards and doubts that Cugoano is the sole author of Thoughts and Sentiments. |