The Book of Negroes (novel)

Novel by Canadian writer Lawrence Hill

The Book of Negroes

Cover of the Canadian edition of The Book of Negroes

Author| Lawrence Hill
Language| English
Genre| Historical novel
Publisher| HarperCollins

Publication date

| January 18, 2007
Publication place| Canada
Media type| Print (hardback)
Pages| 511
ISBN| 978-0-00-225507-3
OCLC| 70507153

The Book of Negroes is a 2007 novel from Canadian writer Lawrence Hill. In the United States, Australia and New Zealand, the novel was published under the title Someone Knows My Name.

## Title

[edit]

See also: Negro

Part of a series on

Forced labour and slavery

Contemporary

* Child labour
* Child soldiers
* Conscription
* CSEC
* Debt bondage
* India
* Forced marriage
* Bride buying
* Child marriage
* Wife selling
* Forced prostitution
* Human trafficking
* Child
* China
* Cybersex
* Europe
* Fraud factory
* India
* United States
* Involuntary servitude
* ... in 21st-century jihadism
* ... in Africa
* Peonage
* Penal labour
* Sex trafficking
* China
* Europe
* United States
* Sexual slavery
* Wage slavery

Historical

Antiquity

* Babylonia
* Egypt
* Greece
* Rome

Medieval Europe

* Ancillae
* Black Sea slave trade
* Byzantine Empire
* Genoese slave trade
* Kholop
* Prague slave trade
* Serfs
* History
* In Russia
* Emancipation
* Thrall
* Venetian slave trade
* Balkan slave trade

Muslim world

* Baqt
* Barbary Coast
* slave trade
* pirates
* Sack of Baltimore
* Slave raid of Suðuroy
* Turkish Abductions
* Bukhara slave trade
* Concubinage
* history
* Ma malakat aymanukum
* Avret Pazarları
* Harem
* Abbasid harem
* Ottoman Imperial Harem
* Safavid imperial harem
* Qajar harem
* Jarya/Cariye
* Odalisque
* Qiyan
* Umm al-walad
* Circassian slave trade
* Contract of manumission
* Crimean slave trade
* Kafala system
* Khazar slave trade
* Khivan slave trade
* Ottoman Empire
* Avret Pazarları
* Saqaliba
* Slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate
* Slavery in al-Andalus
* Slavery in the Rashidun Caliphate
* Slavery in the Umayyad Caliphate
* Slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate
* Volga Bulgarian slave trade
* 21st century

Atlantic slave trade

* Brazil
* Bristol
* Database
* Dutch
* Middle Passage
* Nantes
* New France
* Panyarring
* Spanish Empire
* Slave Coast
* Thirteen colonies

Topics and practice

* Blackbirding
* Child soldiers
* Conscription
* Devshirme
* Ghilman
* Mamluk
* Coolie
* Corvée labour
* Drapetomania
* Dysaesthesia aethiopica
* Field slaves in the United States
* Treatment
* Gladiator
* Gladiatrix
* House slaves
* Planter class
* Proslavery thought
* Saqaliba
* Seasoning
* Slave market
* Slave Power
* Slave raiding
* Slavocracy
* Voluntary slavery
* White slavery

Naval

* Galley slave
* Impressment
* Pirates
* Shanghaiing
* Slave ship

By country or region

Sub-Saharan Africa

* Contemporary Africa
* Trans-Saharan slave trade
* Red Sea slave trade
* Indian Ocean slave trade
* Zanzibar slave trade
* Angola
* Chad
* Comoros
* Ethiopia
* Mali
* Mauritania
* Niger
* Nigeria
* Seychelles
* Somalia
* Somali slave trade
* South Africa
* Sudan
* Zanzibar

North and South America

* Pre-Columbian America
* Aztec
* Americas indigenous
* U.S. Natives
* United States
* field slaves
* female
* contemporary
* maps
* partus
* prison labour
* slave codes
* treatment
* interregional
* proslavery
* sexual slavery
* The Bahamas
* Canada
* Caribbean
* Barbados
* British Virgin Islands
* Trinidad
* Code Noir
* Latin America
* Brazil
* Lei Áurea
* Colombia
* Cuba
* Haiti
* revolt
* Restavek
* (Encomienda)
* Puerto Rico

East, Southeast, and South Asia

* Haruwa-charuwa
* Human trafficking in Southeast Asia
* Bhutan
* Brunei
* China
* Booi Aha
* Eunuchs
* Laogai
* penal system
* India
* Debt bondage
* Chukri System
* Bawi system
* Indonesia
* Japan
* comfort women
* Karayuki-san
* Korea
* Kwalliso
* Nobi
* Malaysia
* Maldives
* Slavery in the Mongol Empire
* Thailand
* Yankee princess
* Vietnam

Australia and Oceania

* Australia
* Human trafficking
* Blackbirding
* Slave raiding in Easter Island
* Human trafficking in Papua New Guinea
* Blackbirding in Polynesia

Europe and North Asia

* Sex trafficking in Europe
* United Kingdom
* Penal Labour
* Slavery
* Denmark
* Dutch Republic
* Finland
* France
* Germany in World War II
* Malta
* Norway
* Poland
* Portugal
* Romania
* Russia
* Spain
* Sweden

North Africa and West Asia

* Afghanistan
* Bacha bazi
* Algeria
* Bahrain
* Egypt
* Human trafficking in the Middle East
* Iran
* Iraq
* Jordan
* Kuwait
* Lebanon
* Libya
* Morocco
* Oman
* Palestine
* Saudi Arabia
* Syria
* Tunisia
* Qatar
* Yemen
* United Arab Emirates

Religion

* Bible
* Christianity
* Catholicism
* Mormonism
* Islam
* Judaism
* Baháʼí Faith

Opposition and resistance

* Abolitionism
* U.K.
* U.S.
* Brussels Anti-Slavery Conference 1889–90
* Temporary Slavery Commission
* 1926 Slavery Convention
* Committee of Experts on Slavery
* Advisory Committee of Experts on Slavery
* Ad Hoc Committee on Slavery
* Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery
* Abolitionists
* Anglo-Egyptian Slave Trade Convention
* Anti-Slavery International
* Blockade of Africa
* U.K.
* U.S.
* Colonization
* Liberia
* Sierra Leone
* Compensated emancipation
* Freedman
* Manumission
* Freedom suit
* Slave Power
* Underground Railroad
* songs
* Slave rebellion
* Slave Trade Acts
* International law
* Third Servile War
* 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution
* Timeline of abolition of slavery and serfdom
* Abolition of slave trade in Persian gulf [fa]

Related

* Common law
* Forced labour
* Fugitive slaves
* laws
* convention
* Great Dismal Swamp maroons
* Indentured servitude
* List of slaves
* owners
* last survivors of American slavery
* List of slavery-related memorials and museums
* Slave catcher
* Slave marriages in the United States
* Slave narrative
* films
* songs
* Slave name
* Slave patrol
* Slave Route Project
* breeding
* court cases
* Washington
* Jefferson
* J.Q. Adams
* Lincoln
* Emancipation Proclamation
* 40 acres
* Freedmen's Bureau
* Iron bit
* Emancipation Day

* v
* t
* e

The author has written about the title:

> "I used The Book of Negroes as the title for my novel, in Canada, because it derives from a historical document of the same name kept by British naval officers at the tail end of the American Revolutionary War. It documents the 3,000 blacks who had served the King in the war and were fleeing Manhattan for Canada in 1783. Unless you were in The Book of Negroes, you couldn't escape to Canada. My character, an African woman named Aminata Diallo whose story is based on this history, has to get into the book before she gets out. In my country, few people have complained to me about the title, and nobody continues to do so after I explain its historical origins. I think it's partly because the word 'Negro' resonates differently in Canada. If you use it in Toronto or Montreal, you are probably just indicating publicly that you are out of touch with how people speak these days. But if you use it in Brooklyn or Boston, you are speaking in a deeply offensive manner if you were to use such words. When I began touring with the novel in some of the major US cities, literary African-Americans kept approaching me and telling me it was a good thing indeed that the title had changed, because they would never have touched the book with its Canadian title."[1]

In June 2011, Hill received an email from a man in the Netherlands who said he and others planned to burn the book because they objected to the title (translated as Het negerboek in Dutch). On 22 June 2011, they burned copies of the book’s cover in Amsterdam in front of the National Slavery Monument (Dutch: Slavernijmonument).[2][3][4][5]

## Synopsis

[edit]

Aminata Diallo, the daughter of a jeweller and a midwife, is kidnapped at the age of 11 from her village Bayo, Niger[6] in West Africa and forced to walk for three months to the sea in a coffle, a line of prisoners chained together, with hundreds of strangers and a handful of people from her village. Even before she is placed on the ship, she vows that one day, she will return. A boy her age, Chekura, has been forced to assist the slave traders, but is later sent abroad just like the rest. He becomes Aminata's unlikely friend. After several horrific months [7] of voyage across the Atlantic Ocean, including a slave revolt, she arrives in South Carolina where she begins a new life as a slave. Her name is anglicized to Meena Dee. She is taken under the wing of a fellow slave named Georgia, who helps her learn English. Seeing her intelligence and potential, a fellow Muslim slave named Mamed secretly teaches her to read and write.

As a teenager Aminata manages to reunite with Chekura, and they sneak off to meet once a month. The plantation owner, Appleby, learns of the meetings and punishes Aminata by brutally raping her. Despite her owner's jealousy, the two slaves marry and conceive a baby boy, whom she named Mamadu. Appleby arranges for Aminata and her child to be sold to separately and so her son Mamadu is stolen from her. Aminata is handed over to a Jewish man named Solomon Lindo who moves her to Charles Town, unaware of where her child may be.

Aminata grows close to Lindo and his wife, who allow her to read and write openly. However Solomon also requires her to pay him a part of any money that she earns through midwifery. After a few years, a smallpox outbreak kills Lindo's wife and son. Shortly after, Aminata is once again reunited with Chekura, who has found out that Lindo helped arrange the selling of their son Mamadu who he has been told died. This ruins the relationship Aminata has had with Lindo. Attempting to win her over, Lindo takes Aminata to New York. During the rioting at the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, Aminata is able to escape from Lindo. During this time Aminata works as a midwife and teacher, helping other black people to learn how to read. Proving that she served the British during the war, her name is entered in the "Book of Negroes", a real document created to list the freed African American slaves who requested permission to leave the newly created United States of America. Because of her ability to read and write as well as her fluency in two African languages, Aminata is also hired to help record names in the book. While doing this work she is reunited for a few months with Chekura, who also served the British; they plan to resettle in Nova Scotia together and she becomes pregnant with their second child. However, just as they are boarding the ship, the two are separated and Aminata is arrested, as Appleby has put out a warrant for her as a run-away slave. The matter is resolved when Lindo appears in court, explaining the situation and simultaneously setting Aminata free. Aminata, once again trying to find her husband, finds another ship to Nova Scotia.

Aminata arrives in Shelburne and begins to work in the black community of Birchtown, where she meets Jason, a young fellow whom she listed in the "Book of Negroes", and Daddy Moses (the "Preacher"). Soon after arriving, she gives birth to a second child, her daughter May. Aminata finds work for white people in town, but after a few years relations between the black community and white community break down. The white couple leave Nova Scotia and take May while Aminita is in Birchtown. She tries to locate her husband many times and learns that the ship carrying him to Nova Scotia had swept away to Bermuda and sank, and her husband Chekura is presumed dead. A young British naval officer named Captain John Clarkson comes to the black Birchtown communities, promising a better land reserved for them in Sierra Leone. Aminata helps Clarkson to gather people from the community, and eventually they all leave for a better future.

On her way to Africa, Aminata observes ships carrying thousands of slaves bound for America. In Sierra Leone, the black communities attempt to establish Freetown despite the strict rules of the British. History is repeating itself - despite Clarkson's efforts, Freetown is not the safe haven it was meant to be. It is located just a few miles from a slave trading centre, the very same one from which Aminata was sent for America. Clarkson offers to take her to London, where a group of abolitionists need a spokesperson against slavery. However, longing to return to her village in the interior of Africa, Aminata negotiates with a slave trader to take her there. It takes many years before he agrees. It is a difficult journey, especially since Aminata is no longer young. She is slowing the group down, and overhears the traders talking about how they will sell her back into slavery to get rid of her. After escaping to a nearby village and telling them her story, Aminata finally realizes what is more important than returning to her home village of Bayo is helping to free other enslaved people. She takes Clarkson up on his offer. As an old woman, she finds herself taking a voyage one more time to England to present the account of her life, so it may help abolish the slave trade. She publishes her life story, speaks at schools and churches, and even meets the King and Queen. She is eventually reunited with her daughter May, and May cares for Aminata until her dying day.

## Awards and recognition

[edit]

The Book of Negroes won the 2007 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and the 2008 Commonwealth Writers' Prize. It was the winning selection for CBC Radio's Canada Reads 2009, in which journalist Avi Lewis championed the novel. Its French translation, titled Aminata, was championed by Thomas Hellman in the 2013 edition of Le Combat des livres, and won that competition as well, becoming the only title to date to have won both the English and French editions of the competition.

## Miniseries adaptation

[edit]

Main article: The Book of Negroes (miniseries)

In 2007, Canadian production company Conquering Lion Pictures announced it had acquired the film rights to the novel. In mid-2013 it was announced that the novel would be adapted into a miniseries of the same name, rather than the feature film originally planned.[8]

Clement Virgo and Hill collaborated on writing the miniseries, with Virgo also directing. It premiered on CBC Television in Canada in January 2015 and aired on BET in the United States in February 2015.[8][9]

The mini-series stars Aunjanue Ellis as Aminata, Lyriq Bent as Chekura, Cuba Gooding Jr, Louis Gossett Jr., Ben Chaplin, Allan Hawco, and Jane Alexander.[10]

The international co-production began shooting in February 2014 in Cape Town, South Africa. Filming also took place in various locations around Nova Scotia.[11]

## See also

[edit]

* Rough Crossings (subtitle: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution), a history book and television series by Simon Schama
* Lawrence Hill: "Dear Sir, I Intend to Burn Your Book". An Anatomy of a Book Burning. Henry Kreisel Memorial Lecture Series. University of Alberta Press, 2011[12]

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Hill, Lawrence, "Why I'm not allowed my book title", Books blog, The Guardian, May 20, 2008.
2. ^ de Bruijn, Enny (2011-07-28). ""Het negerboek" geeft slaven een stem". Reformatorisch Dagblad (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 2021-09-09. Retrieved 2021-09-09.
3. ^ "Bannings and Burnings in History".
4. ^ "Dutch group burns cover of Hill's Book of Negroes". CBC News. 2011-07-22. Archived from the original on 2011-06-23. Retrieved 2021-09-09.
5. ^ Hickman, Angela (2011-07-22). "Dutch group burns the cover of Lawrence Hill's novel The Book of Negroes". National Post. Archived from the original on 2021-09-09. Retrieved 2021-09-09.
6. ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-05-14. Retrieved 2016-10-27.`{{cite web}}`: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
7. ^ "The Book of Negroes", Lawrence Hill website.
8. ^ a b "Prize-winning novel The Book of Negroes to become TV miniseries". Retrieved February 18, 2014.
9. ^ Harris, Bill (January 6, 2015). "Cuba Gooding, Jr. says 'Book of Negroes' works better on TV". Toronto Sun. Retrieved January 8, 2015.
10. ^ "Lyriq Bent, Cuba Gooding Jr. to Star in Book of Negroes". BET. February 4, 2014.
11. ^ Francesca Bacardi (February 4, 2014). "Louis Gossett Jr., Cuba Gooding Jr. Star In 'Book of Negroes' Mini-Series for BET". Variety.
12. ^ Hill shares his experiences of how ignorance and the fear of ideas led a group in the Netherlands to burn the cover of his "The Book of Negroes" in 2011

## External links

[edit]

* CBC The Hour Interview, June 10, 2009.
* Quill & Quire Lawrence Hill Profile.

* v
* t
* e

Black Loyalists

* Slavery in the U.S.
* African Americans in the Revolutionary War
* Loyalists
* United Empire Loyalist
* Black Canadians

Proclamations|

* Dunmore's Proclamation (1775)
* Philipsburg Proclamation (1779)

American Revolutionary War|

* Black Loyalists
* Black Company of Pioneers
* Ethiopian Regiment

Post-war Emancipation|

* Treaty of Paris (1783)
* Book of Negroes
* Merikins
* Petition of Free Negroes (Niagara)

White Loyalists
involved in Emancipation|

* General Samuel Birch
* Stephen Skinner

Nova Scotia|

* Birchtown
* Halifax County
* Port Rosey (now Shelburne)
* Shelburne riots

Black Nova Scotians|

* Colonel Stephen Blucke
* Rose Fortune
* Rev. John Marrant
* Richard Pierpoint
* Deborah Squash
* See also Sierra Leone settlers below

Nova Scotian /
Sierra Leone Settlers (1792)|

* Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor
* Settler Town
* Sierra Leone Company

Sierra Leone people|

* Davis family
* David George
* Abraham Hazeley
* John Kizell
* Boston King
* Cato Perkins
* Thomas Peters
* Harry Washington
* Moses Wilkinson

In media|

* The Book of Negroes
* miniseries

* v
* t
* e

Slave narratives

* Slave Narrative Collection

Individuals
by continent
of enslavement|

| Africa|

* Robert Adams
* Marcus Berg
* Francis Bok
* Isaac Brassard
* Felice Caronni
* James Leander Cathcart
* Ólafur Egilsson
* Petro Kilekwa
* Elizabeth Marsh
* Mende Nazer
* Hark Olufs
* Thomas Pellow
* Joseph Pitts
* Antoine Qaurtier
* Guðríður Símonardóttir
* Maria ter Meetelen
* Andreas Matthäus Wolfgang
* Johann Georg Wolffgang

|

Asia|

* Brigitta Scherzenfeldt

Europe|

* Olaudah Equiano
* Nunzio Otello Francesco Gioacchino
* Ukawsaw Gronniosaw
* Macuncuzade Mustafa Efendi
* Jean Marteilhe
* Roustam Raza
* Lovisa von Burghausen

Ottoman Empire|

* George of Hungary
* Konstantin Mihailović
* Johann Schiltberger
* Václav Vratislav z Mitrovic [cs]

North America:
Canada|

* Marie-Joseph Angélique
* John R. Jewitt

North America:
Caribbean|

* Juan Francisco Manzano
* Esteban Montejo
* Mary Prince
* Pierre Toussaint
* Marcos Xiorro

North America:
United States|

* Sam Aleckson
* Jordan Anderson
* William J. Anderson
* Jared Maurice Arter
* Solomon Bayley
* Polly Berry
* Henry Bibb
* Leonard Black
* James Bradley
* Henry "Box" Brown
* John Brown
* William Wells Brown
* Peter Bruner
* Ellen and William Craft
* Hannah Crafts
* Lucinda Davis
* Noah Davis
* Lucy A. Delaney
* Ayuba Suleiman Diallo
* Frederick Douglass
* Kate Drumgoold
* Jordan Winston Early
* Sarah Jane Woodson Early
* Peter Fossett
* David George
* Moses Grandy
* Lear Green
* William Green
* William Grimes
* Josiah Henson
* Fountain Hughes
* John Andrew Jackson
* Harriet Jacobs
* Thomas James
* John Jea
* Paul Jennings
* Elizabeth Keckley
* Boston King
* Lunsford Lane
* J. Vance Lewis
* Jermain Wesley Loguen
* James Mars
* Solomon Northup
* Greensbury Washington Offley
* John Parker
* William Parker
* James Roberts
* Moses Roper
* Omar ibn Said
* William Henry Singleton
* James Lindsay Smith
* Venture Smith
* Austin Steward
* Pierre Toussaint
* Harriet Tubman
* Wallace Turnage
* Bethany Veney
* Booker T. Washington
* Wallace Willis
* Harriet E. Wilson
* Zamba Zembola

South America|

* Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua
* Miguel de Buría
* Osifekunde

Non-fiction books|

* The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789)
* The Narrative of Robert Adams (1816)
* American Slavery as It Is (1839)
* Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845)
* The Life of Josiah Henson (1849)
* Twelve Years a Slave (1853)
* My Bondage and My Freedom (1855)
* Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861)
* The Underground Railroad Records (1872)
* Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881)
* Up from Slavery (1901)
* Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States (1936–38)
* The Peculiar Institution (1956)
* The Slave Community (1972)
* Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" (2018)

Fiction/novels|

* Oroonoko (1688)
* Sab (1841)
* Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852)
* The Heroic Slave (1852)
* Clotel (1853)
* The Bondwoman's Narrative (c. 1853 – c. 1861)
* Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp (1856)
* Our Nig (1859)
* Jubilee (1966)
* The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967)
* Roots: The Saga of an American Family (1976)
* Underground to Canada (1977)
* Kindred (1979)
* Dessa Rose (1986)
* Beloved (1987)
* Middle Passage (1990)
* Queen: The Story of an American Family (1993)
* Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons (1996)
* Ama: A Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade (2001)
* Walk Through Darkness (2002)
* The Known World (2003)
* Unburnable (2006)
* The Book of Negroes (2007)
* The Underground Railroad (2016)

Young adult books|

* Amos Fortune, Free Man (1951)
* I, Juan de Pareja (1965)
* Copper Sun (2006)

Essays|

* "To a Southern Slaveholder" (1848)
* A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853)

Plays|

* The Escape; or, A Leap for Freedom (1858)
* The Octoroon (1859)
* Omar (2022)

Documentaries|

* Unchained Memories (2003)
* Frederick Douglass and the White Negro (2008)

Related|

* Abolitionism in the United States
* African-American literature
* Anti-Tom novels
* Atlantic slave trade
* Captivity narrative
* Caribbean literature
* Films featuring slavery
* Slavery in the United States
* Songs of the Underground Railroad
* Treatment of slaves in the United States
* List of last surviving American enslaved people
* Book of Negroes (1783)
* Cotton Plantation Record and Account Book (1847)
* Slave-Trading in the Old South (1931)
* Sarah Johnson's Mount Vernon (2008)
* Slave Songs of the United States (1867)
* Amazing Grace: An Anthology of Poems about Slavery (2002)
* The Hemingses of Monticello (2008)

*[OCLC]: Online Computer Library Center number
*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template
*[c.]: circa