Book of the Month: The Book of Negroes

Abducted from Africa as a child and enslaved in South Carolina, Aminata Diallo thinks only of freedom—and of the knowledge she needs to get home. Sold to an indigo trader who recognizes her intelligence, Aminata is torn from her husband and child and thrown into the chaos of the Revolutionary War.

In Manhattan, Aminata helps pen the Book of Negroes, a list of blacks rewarded for service to the king with safe passage to Nova Scotia. There Aminata finds a life of hardship and stinging prejudice. When the British abolitionists come looking for "adventurers" to create a new colony in Sierra Leone, Aminata assists in moving 1,200 Nova Scotians to Africa and aiding the abolitionist cause by revealing the realities of slavery to the British public. 

This captivating story of one woman's remarkable experience spans six decades and three continents and brings to life a crucial chapter in world history.

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Aminata Diallo's life is punctuated by large bodies of water. As a young girl a the beginning of The Book of Negroes (also known internationally as Someone Knows My Name) by Lawrence Hill, her world is clearly bordered by the Joliba River. Aminata is torn away from her land by slave traders, taught to read maps and forced to cross the countless oceans, rivers and streams whose names are printed in the language of her abductors.

It is impossible to simply dip your toes in this book. The first few pages are a promise - an elderly African woman writes from London, working with the abolitionist movement to end the slave trade - like the glimmer of sunlight on water. By the time time you enter Aminata's childhood, you are fully submerged. This book is a headfirst plunge through history that will leave you inspired and informed and completely gutted.

When I posted this picture on Instagram, a friend commented: Be prepared to cry. I think some books deserve warning labels. This book is heavy. This book will shape the way you see the world. I didn't cry.  But I did hold on to The Book of Negroes with clenched fists, willing everything to be alright.

Aminata is both deeply intelligent and deeply emotional. She is practical, capable and adaptable, using her skill as a midwife and knowledge of languages to navigate a new world that is often cruel and raw. Aminata is logical and observant, recording her story with a calculated empathy. Hers are eyes that have seen so much that, as an old woman looking back on her life, she gives the history of the African slave trade a profound human element.

This book taught me about history but it taught me so much more about humanity. About what it means to be a bystander. About how often we don't question social norms if they don't directly affect us. 

"Honey, I said, my life is a ghost story," Aminata tells a girl who questions her about her past. She may be haunted by the ghosts of her former lives, but Aminata the storyteller - the djeli - is a powerful source of hope. She is like sunlight, glimmering on the horizon no matter how foreign a shore.