Explore Collections
You are here:
CollectionsOnline
/
Thoughts and sentiments on the evil of slavery; or, the nature of servitude as admitted by the law of God, compared to the modern slavery of the Africans in the West-Indies in answer to the advocates for slavery and oppression. Addressed to the sons of Africa, by a native.
Browse
CUGOANO, Ottobah
Thoughts and sentiments on the evil of slavery; or, the nature of servitude as admitted by the law of God, compared to the modern slavery of the Africans in the West-Indies in answer to the advocates for slavery and oppression. Addressed to the sons of Africa, by a native.
London (Place), printed for, and sold by, the author. Sold also by Mr. Kirby; Mr. Bell; Mr. Simonds; Mr. Steel; and Mr. Taylor,, 1791.
46, [8] p. ; 20.6 cm. (8º)
Anonymous. Signed on p. 46: Quobna Ottobouh Cugoano Ottobah Cugoano (b.1757) was kidnapped by fellow Africans aged around 13 from his home in present-day Ghana. He was enslaved and taken by Europeans to Grenada, but in 1772 he was purchased by an English merchant, Alexander Campbell (who testified in favour of the slave trade in the House of Commons in 1790), who took him to England where he was educated and freed following the Somersett Case of 1772. He was baptised ‘John Stuart’ in 1773, aged 16, at St James’s Church, Piccadilly, and a year later came into the employ of the artists Richard and Maria Cosway. There is a print made by Richard Cosway in 1784 showing a triple portrait of Cugoano and the Cosways: the Cosways are dressed in Flemish costume à la Rubens, and Cugoano in the elaborate attire of a footman at the Vatican. This is preserved at the Yale Centre for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut. Within the Cosway household, Cugoano became acquainted with all manner of politerati, and joined the African abolitionists, Sons of Africa. He was an active abolitionist, corresponding with Granville Sharp, writing numerous letters to London newspapers and advocating a second attempt at settling free Afro-Britons in Sierra Leone. (DNB) There is no evidence that he went to Sierra Leone, but the date and cause of his death are unknown, so it is possible that he travelled to Freetown, Sierra Leone, sometime following its foundation in 1792. That Cugoano signed Soane’s copy of Thoughts and sentiments on the evil of slavery… suggests that Soane might have met him. Soane had known Maria Cosway in Italy, prior to her marriage in 1781, with entries in Soane’s notebooks referring to the couple from 1801, and corresponded with them from 1806. Naturally, this speculation is dependent on Cugoano’s lifespan and residence in England The present work is a shorter version of Cugoano's longer work published in 1787 as Thoughts and sentiments on the evil and wicked traffic of the slavery and commerce of the human species, humbly submitted to the inhabitants of Great-Britain, by Ottobah Cugoano, A Native of Africa. With a list of subscribers at the end, including Cosway, Reynolds, Nollekens. ESTC t50178.
Copy Notes Bound (3) in a collection of tracts on religious subjects.
Binding Later C19th half calf, blind double-ruled borders, brown morocco-grained binder's cloth boards, blind-ruled and gilt-dotted spine, black spine-label, gilt-lettered 'Pamphlets Theology. 1656. 1792.'. Numbered '78' in a series of pamphlet volumes.
Reference Number 5516
Thoughts and sentiments on the evil of slavery; or, the nature of servitude as admitted by the law of God, compared to the modern slavery of the Africans in the West-Indies in answer to the advocates for slavery and oppression. Addressed to the sons of Africa, by a native.
London (Place), printed for, and sold by, the author. Sold also by Mr. Kirby; Mr. Bell; Mr. Simonds; Mr. Steel; and Mr. Taylor,, 1791.
46, [8] p. ; 20.6 cm. (8º)
Anonymous. Signed on p. 46: Quobna Ottobouh Cugoano Ottobah Cugoano (b.1757) was kidnapped by fellow Africans aged around 13 from his home in present-day Ghana. He was enslaved and taken by Europeans to Grenada, but in 1772 he was purchased by an English merchant, Alexander Campbell (who testified in favour of the slave trade in the House of Commons in 1790), who took him to England where he was educated and freed following the Somersett Case of 1772. He was baptised ‘John Stuart’ in 1773, aged 16, at St James’s Church, Piccadilly, and a year later came into the employ of the artists Richard and Maria Cosway. There is a print made by Richard Cosway in 1784 showing a triple portrait of Cugoano and the Cosways: the Cosways are dressed in Flemish costume à la Rubens, and Cugoano in the elaborate attire of a footman at the Vatican. This is preserved at the Yale Centre for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut. Within the Cosway household, Cugoano became acquainted with all manner of politerati, and joined the African abolitionists, Sons of Africa. He was an active abolitionist, corresponding with Granville Sharp, writing numerous letters to London newspapers and advocating a second attempt at settling free Afro-Britons in Sierra Leone. (DNB) There is no evidence that he went to Sierra Leone, but the date and cause of his death are unknown, so it is possible that he travelled to Freetown, Sierra Leone, sometime following its foundation in 1792. That Cugoano signed Soane’s copy of Thoughts and sentiments on the evil of slavery… suggests that Soane might have met him. Soane had known Maria Cosway in Italy, prior to her marriage in 1781, with entries in Soane’s notebooks referring to the couple from 1801, and corresponded with them from 1806. Naturally, this speculation is dependent on Cugoano’s lifespan and residence in England The present work is a shorter version of Cugoano's longer work published in 1787 as Thoughts and sentiments on the evil and wicked traffic of the slavery and commerce of the human species, humbly submitted to the inhabitants of Great-Britain, by Ottobah Cugoano, A Native of Africa. With a list of subscribers at the end, including Cosway, Reynolds, Nollekens. ESTC t50178.
Copy Notes Bound (3) in a collection of tracts on religious subjects.
Binding Later C19th half calf, blind double-ruled borders, brown morocco-grained binder's cloth boards, blind-ruled and gilt-dotted spine, black spine-label, gilt-lettered 'Pamphlets Theology. 1656. 1792.'. Numbered '78' in a series of pamphlet volumes.
Reference Number 5516