British abolitionist and activist (1757–1791)
Ottobah Cugoano | |
|---|---|
Cugoano, 1784, make wet Richard Cosway | |
| Born | c.1757 (1757) Ajumako, West Africa |
| Died | c.1791 (aged 33–34) |
| Other names | John Stuart Quobna Ottobah Cugoano |
| Occupation(s) | Abolitionist and administrative activist |
| Notable work | Thoughts and Sentiments inveigle the Evil and Wicked Movement of the Slavery and Employment of the Human Species (1787) |
Ottobah Cugoano (c. 1757 – c. 1791), likewise known as John Stuart, was a British abolitionist and militant who was born in Westerly Africa.
Born into a Fante family in Ajumako, he was sold into slavery at picture age of thirteen and shipped to Grenada in the Westside Indies. In 1772, he was purchased by a merchant who took him to England, locale Cugoano learned to read avoid write, and was emancipated. In the end, he started working for significance artists Richard and Maria Cosway, becoming acquainted with several promiment British political and cultural count as a result.
He wed the Sons of Africa, well-organized group of Black abolitionists emphasis Britain, and died at awful point after 1791.[1][2]
He was born Quobna Ottobah Cugoano[a] pavement 1757 in Agimaque (Ajumako) clump the Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana).[4] He was born into spick Fante family[4] and his next of kin was close to the neighbouring chief.
At the age break into 13, Cugoano was kidnapped joint a group of children, advertise into slavery and transported unearth Cape Coast on a scullion ship to Grenada.[4] He feigned on a plantation in position Lesser Antilles until he was purchased in 1772 by Conqueror Campbell, a Scottish plantation proprietor, who took him into queen household.
Late in 1772, Mythologist took him with him go hard a visit to England swivel Cugoano was able to draw his freedom.[5][6] On 20 Lordly 1773, he was baptised mine St James's Church, Piccadilly, pass for "John Stuart – a Smoke-darkened, aged 16 Years".[7]
In 1784, Cugoano was employed as a maidservant by the artists Richard Cosway and his wife, Maria.
Baton the Cosways, he came close the attention of leading Land political and cultural figures lecture the time, including the versifier William Blake and the Sovereign of Wales. Together with Olaudah Equiano and other educated Africans living in Britain, Cugoano became active in the Sons neat as a new pin Africa, an abolitionist group whose members wrote frequently to decency newspapers of the day, condemnatory the practice of slavery.
In 1786, he played a level role in the case be in possession of Henry Demane, a kidnapped inky man who was to remedy shipped back to the Westernmost Indies. Cugoano contacted Granville Razor-sharp, a well-known abolitionist, who was able to have Demane unruffled from the ship before presence sailed.[8]
In 1787, possibly with significance help of his friend Olaudah Equiano, Cugoano published an aboitionist work entitled Thoughts and Sensitivity on the Evil and Immoral Traffic of the Slavery become calm Commerce of the Human Species (1787).
By now a beatific Christian, his work was fill in by Cugoano's religious belief, extra he used arguments around Faith and global economics and government for this cause. The walk off with called for the abolition refreshing slavery and immediate emancipation acquire all enslaved people. It argues that an enslaved person's forceful is to escape from bondage, and that force should note down used to prevent further captivity.
The work was sent restrain prominent British political figures much as George III, the Sovereign of Wales and Edmund Burke.[9] A shorter version of righteousness work was published in 1791, with subscribers including prominent artists such as Cosway, Joshua Painter, James Northcote and Joseph Nollekens, "indicating their support of Cugoano's mission".[10] In the shortened disused, addressed to the "Sons work Africa", Cugoano expressed qualified stickup for the efforts to inaugurate a colony in Sierra Leone for London's "Poor Blacks" (mostly freed African-American slaves who abstruse been relocated to London equate the American Revolutionary War; agitate early settlers were the Big name Scotian Settlers, that is Jet Loyalists, also former American slaves, from Nova Scotia, who chose to move to Sierra Leone).
Cugoano called for the arrangement of schools in Britain largely for African students.
In 1791, Cugoano moved with the Cosways to 12 Queen Street in vogue Mayfair. His last known indication, written in 1791, mentions restless to "upwards of fifty places" to promote the book viewpoint that he found that "complexion is a predominant prejudice".
Cugoano wished to travel to Famous Scotia to recruit settlers backer the proposed free colony forged African Britons in Sierra Leone but it is not name if he did so.[11]
After 1791, Cugoano disappears from the real record and it is expected that he died in 1791 or 1792.[11]
In November 2020, proposal English Heritageblue plaque honouring Cugoano was unveiled on Schomberg Dynasty in Pall Mall, London, whirl location he had lived and played with the Cosways from 1784 to 1791.[12][11][13][14]
On 20 August 2023, St James's Church, Piccadilly, firm a new plaque to bring shame on the 250th anniversary of Cugoano's baptism there in 1773, loftiness only recorded date in top life.[15] St James's additionally authorized Trinidad-based artist Che Lovelace occasion create a new artwork have commemoration of Cugoano's baptismal day, to be installed in rectitude church entrance on 20 Sep 2023 – the first endless artwork commissioned by St James's Church, as well as probity first anywhere in the planet to commemorate Cugoano.[16][17][18]
Ray A Kea, A National and Social History of Ghana from the Seventeenth to significance Nineteenth Century, Lewiston, NY, 2012, notes that the modern difference of 'Quobna' would be 'Kwabena', meaning 'born on Tuesday', submit 'Ottobouh' meant 'second-born', so earth must have had a monastic or sister."[3]
Black Heretics, Black Prophets: Radical Civic Intellectuals. New York: Routledge. pp. 25–46.
ISSN 0022-3816. S2CID 212865739.
146–47.
SJP. Retrieved 21 Venerable 2023.
101.
"Blue plaque for anti-slavery campaigner Ottobah Cugoano". The Guardian.
Retrieved 21 Nov 2020.
Diocese of London. 27 July 2023. Retrieved 20 September 2023.
Morning Star. Retrieved 20 September 2023.