The Royal African

This popular pamphlet purported to give an account of the life of Prince William Ansah Sessarakoo, a noble from present day Ghana, sold into slavery between 1744 and 1748. The anonymous account is not considered accurate, but rather reflects the celebrity potential of Sessarakoo to sell products after he arrived in Britain in 1748. The story draws on a number of popular tropes of the period found in novels, newspapers and similar writings. As can be seen in the account below, Sessarakoo is located as a youthful victim of an unscrupulous sea captain, exploiting the desires of a family to promote the well-being of their child and success of their family. If the text explicitly notes Sessarakoo’s father’s polygamous household, his ambition and tenderness for his children is that of a middling British patriarch. In this respect, it is not dissimilar to the moral tales of the period that cautioned parents about the dangers of city life for unsuspecting youth. Rather than the tale warning the reader of the dangers of urban life however, the account reflects on whether Africa’s interest is better served by England or France, with England eventually securing the safety of both the African monarch’s sons. As a text for the history of emotions, it provides insight into the idealised and expected emotions of the parent–child relationship, as well as that of Sessarakoo in response to his enslaved condition. The bombast and patriotism that frames the account is also useful evidence of political emotions. If this is a text that provides a history of race and the British empire, that the author chose to universalise (elite) African and British feeling was a significant authorial choice, designed to undermine discourses of racial difference during the period

Ancient history · Art history · Genealogy · Memoir · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · History

• Exhuming and highlighting the nearly forgotten Gold Coast intelligentsia

  Open Access•James Gibbs•Legon Journal of the Humanities•2021

  Add to list