Two princes enslaved--4/29/25
Today's selection-- from The Two Princes of Mpfumo by Lindsay O'Neill. In the early 1700s, an African prince, William Unsah Sessarakoo, was sent by his father to Britain for an education and to gain favor with the British, but instead was sold into slavery in the West Indies by the captain of the ship transporting him. After enduring that unspeakable hardship, the error was rectified and he was brought to London. There, among his many experiences, he saw a play written based on his plight:
“Some twenty years later, in 1749, a troupe performed a play for a wronged African prince, and this time the stories of the visitor and the play intertwined. William Unsah Sessarakoo, who, in a chilling echo of the princes' story, had been sold into slavery by a captain who had promised to take him to Britain for his education, also went to the theater. The crowd was buzzing because this prince and his African companion, who had shared his fate, had not come to see a comedy: they had arrived to watch Oroonoko. The spectators knew the parallels between the two stories and were on the edge of their seats to witness the reactions of these wronged men. Upon the arrival of the prince and his companion the crowd applauded, which the prince ‘acknowledged with a very genteel bow.’ During the performance, the story, which so echoed his own, overwhelmed the prince, and he left after the fourth act. His companion stayed and ‘wept the whole time; a circumstance which affected the audience yet more than the play, and doubled the tears which were shed for Oroonoko and Imoinda.’ The observers greatly admired the Africans' emotional outpouring, which, for them, was a sign that ‘art had not yet taught them to suppress’ their natural feelings. These men were better at being a ‘noble savage’ than even Oroonoko was—and they were real. Gentleman's Magazine reported the incident. Sessarakoo's public persona was different from that of the princes of Mpfumo. Interest in Sessarakoo lay in the fact that he had been wronged. That element of the princes' story is rarely mentioned once the Royal African Company became their patron. For the company their worth lay in their elite status, not in the actions taken against them.
“Their elite status both highlighted and hid their blackness. The strict racial divide between Black and white and between freeman and enslaved did not exist in Britain to the same extent that it did in the colonies; however, those with black faces were seen as different and lesser than those with white skin. By the sixteenth century, as European colonial expansion grew, literature began to highlight the polarity between dark and light and to tie whiteness to Europeans and darkness to the ‘other.’ The medical and scientific communities discussed skin color and difference as well. It was the heat near the equator that caused blackness, said some. But even here judgment lurked, for they also thought that the heat of the ‘torrid zone’ made those living there lazy and lascivious and thus less open to a ‘civilizing’ impetus. The idea of fetal impression, that dark skin resulted when women thought dark thoughts when pregnant, gained traction. By the late seventeenth century, the idea that blackness was an ‘accidental monstrosity’ had taken hold. Humoral theory too argued that one's complexion was a reflection of the state of one's humoral balance, and that this was a state that was difficult, if not impossible, to change. Different ideas peppered European thought, but all believed that God created man white and that some kind of aberration or degeneration caused blackness and that the difference was probably permanent.
“Furthermore, Europeans tied darker complexions to those of lower social standing. Since the medieval period, people had created links, visible in literature, between blackness and servitude. Some of these links came from the Bible, especially the story of the curse of Ham.47 In the Bible, Noah's son Ham uncovers his father's nakedness and Noah declares that Ham's son, Canaan, would be a ‘servant of servants.’The Bible says nothing, however, about Canaan's descendants having darker skin. Europeans constructed this connection as their involvement in the slave trade became increasingly common. The sin of the act would obviously have darkened the skin of the sinner's descendants, they thought. Thus, African princes presented a conundrum—their color suggested servitude, but their status implied otherwise. This made them curiosities, not their color alone.
“Londoners were used to seeing Black faces on the streets of the capital. Scholars have found references to more than seven hundred people of color between 1600 and 1710 in London's parish registers of births, baptisms, and deaths. By the late seventeenth century, many aristocrats, members of the gentry, merchants, army officers, naval captains, and absentee planters in London had Black servants and enslaved Africans. Possessing a Black servant had become a symbol of status. Paintings from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries often depict Black pages or servants floating around the edges of paintings. In some, like that painted by Bartholomew Dandridge around 1725, the enslaved youth is meant to contrast with the white child, upon whom he gazes adorningly. In others, like that showing Elihu Yale and his sons-in-law, painted in 1708, the enslaved (and collared) youth appears as an afterthought, a sign of the ubiquity of enslaved Africans in Britain. Even scandalous events could reveal the mundane presence of African servants. While the Mpfuman princes lived at the Spread Eagle, a woman attempted to elope with her lover. Upon hearing the news her family sent ‘a faithful Negro in pursuit,’ and ‘the diligent dog, with the help of some watermen, overtook the lady with her lover,' and she agreed to go back with ‘the Negro.’ To see Black faces in London was common by the early eighteenth century. In fact, there were probably a few thousand residing in England during the eighteenth century, and most lived in London.
“The princes may have met or seen others of African descent during their time in London. Only a few blocks away from the Spread Eagle Inn lived nineteen-year-old 'Agnes,’ or as he liked to be called, John. He could have run an errand for his master to the Spread Eagle wearing his blue livery, hat, and gray stockings. He seems to have had a unique presence, being described as ‘of a large size for his age, and pretty fat’ and having ‘a long foot, and his legs almost all bones and sinews, and a long nose for that sort of people.' This image of him comes from the advertisement printed when he escaped his enslaver; the phrasing of the ad and the description of him as a ‘Negro Man, or rather great Boy,' who is called Agnes but ‘pretends to be Christned by the name of John’' hints at some of the many reasons he might have left. Or perhaps the princes met Nanny, who lived in Mark Lane, a six-minute walk away. Even closer to home was Peggy, a ‘Negro Woman-Servant.' described as ‘tall, slender, and well shaped' who often wore red and white calico, a ‘round-eard Cap,' and a ‘white short jacket.’ It is possible that any of these men and women could have encountered the two princes, although their lives were different in many ways.
“The status of these Black men and women in England was ambiguous. The word ‘slave’ only slowly worked its way into the London record books, first used in 1662. In fact, in the seventeenth century the English used the term more to refer to themselves when discussing resistance to tyranny than they did in relation to the enslaved people around them. The metropole was also, however, a crucial site for the establishment of racial slavery. The fact that many people had Black servants, who were probably enslaved, normalized it, and even the running of advertisements for enslaved Africans who had absconded advanced the acceptance of slavery and racial difference. The courts were busy as well. Charles II and James II were keen to see enslaved Africans defined as permanent property by law. In 1677, the case Butts v. Penny actually defined enslaved people as property. The tables turned in 1696 after the Glorious Revolution when the case Chamberlayne v. Harvey found that people could not be property. Thus, when the princes arrived in Britain the question was legally muddled.
“Even with a law in place declaring that people could not be property, men and women found it necessary to seek their freedom, and others thought they had the right to advertise for their return. While the princes were in London, newspapers ran advertisements seeking the return of at least eight African servants or enslaved laborers who had reached for their liberty. The advertisements provide a vivid picture of these individuals. There was twenty-year-old Dick, who was five foot six inches and of a ‘yellow complexion.’ He had ‘Wool Hair’ and the word ‘HARE’ burnt into his right breast. There was also Pompey, a ‘well set fellow’ who played the trumpet and had two jackets, ‘one a sailor's Pee-Jacket, the other a white cloth,' and ‘a coloured shirt.’ He also sported ‘a cross cut in his forehead, and several small scars in his face, and a Cut of one side his neck.’ These could be marks of white violence, but some of them could be scarification marks made in Africa. Aaron, ‘a lusty Negro man,’' absconded from a ship on its way to Jamaica, probably hoping to find a better life in London. He was described as ‘a sour looked fellow, of a surly dogged Disposition, wearing a Silver laced hat, a black horse hair wig, a grey cloth coat and breeches trimm'd with the same colour, and white block tin buttons.’ Women too sought their freedom. Kitty, ‘a negro maid’ of twenty-two years, left her mistress. The advertisement for her return described her as ‘pretty short, inclining to Fat, of a yellowish complexion’ and possessing a ‘down look,’ which probably had more to do with her situation than her natural disposition. Ann Moor also escaped, until the advertisement posted for her led to her capture. The lives of these men and women were different from those of white servants. Their probable experience of enslavement had marked them, often literally. Furthermore, owners of enslaved Africans in London often sent them to the West Indies, and its even harsher forms of enslavement, if they proved ‘troublesome.’ This would haunt them.”
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