Reviewed by Mary Wolfe, Owner of The Village Bookshop, Bayfield.
Some books just seem to grab your attention and captivate you right from beginning to end. That’s how I found The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill. This novel is epic in scope and yet is told from a very intimate and personal perspective. The narrator is Aminata Diallo, who takes us on the journey of her life from when she was first stolen by slave traders from her village in Africa at the age of eleven until she is approximately 60 years old and living in England in the early nineteenth century. The story chronicles her life as a slave in America, until she eventually has the chance to register her name in “The Book of Negroes,” a historic British military ledger allowing 3,000 Black Loyalists passage on ships sailing from Manhattan to Nova Scotia.
The first scene of this book sets up Aminata’s delightful character. “I seem to have trouble dying. By all rights, I should not have lived this long. But I can still smell trouble riding on any wind, just as surely as I could tell you whether it is a stew of chicken necks or pigs’ feet bubbling in the iron pot on the fire. And my ears work just as good as a hound dog’s. People assume that just because you don’t stand as straight as a sapling, you’re deaf. Or that your mind is like pumpkin mush. The other day, when I was being led into a meeting with a bishop, one of the society ladies told another, ‘We must get this woman into Parliament soon. Who knows how much longer she’ll be with us?’ Half bent though I was, I dug my fingers into her ribs. She let out a shriek and spun around to face me. “Careful,” I told her, “I may outlast you!”
From this opening scene, we learn a great deal about Aminata Diallo. For one, she is feisty and not afraid to stand up to people regardless of their social stature. For another, she appears to have come from “lowly” beginnings, but seems poised to be presented into Parliament. Furthermore, the life she has lived should have killed her, but she is still here, and certainly has her faculties about her.
Aminata was raised in a Muslim community, where her father cherished the Qur’an and knew how to read and write. He taught Aminata to read and write in Arabic. Her mother was renowned as a mid-wife and Aminata began helping her mother catch babies – small hands were helpful.
Strangers from another village abducted Aminata and killed her parents. The captors took their clothes, so their nakedness marked them as captives. “We had no more clothing than goats.” Aminata endured horrific humiliation during her capture, but possessed great wisdom. During her capture she thought, “to gaze into another person’s face is to do two things: to recognize their humanity, and to assert your own,”
Aminata’s saving grace aboard the slaving ship sailing to America rested in her ability to speak several dialects and her facility with birthing babies. She persevered throughout the constant devastation imposed upon her life with her quick wittedness and strength of character. This powerful story will move you, anger you, and give you hope in the human spirit. |
The Book of Negroes