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Ottobah Cugoano: the radical Abolitionist & first African to publicly call for the end of slavery
Ottobah Cugoano (c. 1757 – c. 1791), also known as John Stuart, was a Fante abolitionist and activist who was born in Mfantseman (The Fante Country). Born into a Fante family in Ajumako, he was sold into slavery at the age of thirteen and shipped to Grenada in the West Indies. In 1772, he was purchased by a merchant who took him to England, where Cugoano learned to read and write, and was emancipated. Eventually, he started working for the artists Richard and Maria Cosway, becoming acquainted with several promiment British political and cultural figures as a result. He joined the Sons of Africa, a group of Black abolitionists in Britain, and died at some point after 1791.
The British Library has a copy of the 1791 edition [of Cugoano’s book] in which the author’s name is printed at the end as ‘Quobna Ottobouh Cugoano’. The actual Fante version of ‘Quobna’ would be ‘Kobena‘, meaning ‘born on Tuesday’, and ‘Ottobouh’ meant ‘second-born’, so he must have had a senior brother or sister.
Early life
He was born Quobna Ottobah Cugoano in 1757 in Edwumako (Ajumako) in the Fante Nation (modern-day Ghana). He was born into a Fante family and his family was close to the local chief.
At the age of 13, Cugoano was kidnapped with a group of children, sold into slavery and transported from Cape Coast on a slave ship to Grenada. He worked on a plantation in the Lesser Antilles until he was purchased in 1772 by Alexander Campbell, a Scottish plantation owner, who took him into his household. Late in 1772, Campbell took him with him on a visit to England where Cugoano was able to secure his freedom. On 20 August 1773, he was baptised at St James’s Church, Piccadilly, as “John Stuart – a Black, aged 16 Years”.
As a child he was kidnapped by slave-traders. He later recalled: “I was early snatched away from my native country, with about eighteen or twenty more boys and girls, as we were playing in a field. We lived but a few days’ journey from the coast where we were kidnapped… Some of us attempted, in vain, to run away, but pistols and cutlasses were soon introduced, threatening, that if we offered to stir, we should all lie dead on the spot.”
Cugoano was placed on a slave-ship bound for the West Indies. “We were taken in the ship that came for us, to another that was ready to sail from Cape Coast. When we were put into the ship, we saw several black merchants coming on board, but we were all drove into our holes, and not suffered to speak to any of them. In this situation we continued several days in sight of our native land. And when we found ourselves at last taken away, death was more preferable than life; and a plan was concerted amongst us, that we might burn and blow up the ship, and to perish all together in the flames: but we were betrayed by one of our own countrywomen (Africans), who slept with some of the headmen of the ship, for it was common for the dirty filthy sailors to take the African women and lie upon their bodies; but the men were chained and pent up in holes. It was the women and boys which were to burn the ship, with the approbation and groans of the rest; though that was prevented, the discovery was likewise a cruel bloody scene.”
On his arrival he was sold as a slave to plantation owners in Grenada. According to Cugoano he was treated very badly: “Being in this dreadful captivity and horrible slavery, without any hope of deliverance, for about eight or nine months, beholding the most dreadful scenes of misery and cruelty, and seeing my miserable companions often cruelly lashed, and, as it were, cut to pieces, for the most trifling faults; this made me often tremble and weep, but I escaped better than many of them. For eating a piece of sugar-cane, some were cruelly lashed, or struck over the face, to knock their teeth out. Some of the stouter ones, I suppose, often reproved, and grown hardened and stupid with many cruel beatings and lashings, or perhaps faint and pressed with hunger and hard labour, were often committing trespasses of this kind, and when detected, they met with exemplary punishment. Some told me they had their teeth pulled out, to deter others, and to prevent them from eating any cane in future. Thus seeing my miserable companions and countrymen (Africans) in this pitiful, distressed, and horrible situation, with all the brutish baseness and barbarity attending it, could not but fill my little mind horror and indignation.”
Ottobah Cugoano remained in the Caribbean until purchased by an English merchant. He was taken to England in 1772 where he was set free and was baptized “John Stuart” at St James’s Church, Piccadilly on 20 August 1773. Later he entered the service of the royal artist, Richard Cosway.
Cugoano became one of the leaders of London’s black community. In 1786 he played an important role in the case of Henry Demane, a black man who had been kidnapped and was about to be shipped to the West Indies as a slave.
Abolitionist
In 1784, Cugoano was employed as a servant by the artists Richard Cosway and his wife, Maria. Through the Cosways, he came to the attention of leading British political and cultural figures of the time, including the poet William Blake and the Prince of Wales. Together with Olaudah Equiano and other educated Africans living in Britain, Cugoano became active in the Sons of Africa, an abolitionist group whose members wrote frequently to the newspapers of the day, condemning the practice of slavery.
He was baptized the following year under the name “John Stuart.” Cugoano—or Stuart—began to embrace and express a radical abolitionist attitude. While others (including his friend Olaudah Equiano) argued for the need to end the transatlantic slave trade, few suggested ending slavery as a whole.
Cugoano was taught to read and write. In 1787, with the help of his friend, Olaudah Equiano, he published an account of his experiences, Narrative of the Enslavement of a Native of Africa. Copies of his book was sent to George III, Edmund Burke and other leading politicians. He failed to persuade the king to change his opinions and like other members of the royal family remained against abolition of the slave trade. In his book Cugoano was the first African to demand publicly the total abolition of the slave trade and the freeing of all slaves.
In Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species (1787) he criticised religious and secular pro-slavery arguments and demanded the immediate abolition of the slave trade and emancipation of all slaves. He also called for punishments for slave owners, including enslavement by their former slaves.
In 1793 Cugoano upset William Wilberforce by describing him as a hypocrite when he refused to support the campaign to end slavery in the British Empire. Vincent Carretta has pointed out: “No record has been found of Cugoano’s either having opened a school or having participated in settling Sierra Leone…. The cause, date, and place of Cugoano’s death, and the date and place of his burial are unknown.”
Cugoano, however, did just that, demanding that Britain cleanse its empire of slavery. He published several pieces about his thoughts on and experiences in slavery, most notably the 1787 piece, Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery. Cugoano argued that slavery was morally wrong and incompatible with British culture. He also suggested that enslaved Africans were morally justified in rebellion or resistance to their captors and owners. Cugoano promoted his own abolitionist work and that of Equiano and became active in the cause of helping London’s Black Poor. Little is known about Ottobah Cugoano’s life or fate after 1787.
In 1786, he played a key role in the case of Henry Demane, a kidnapped black man who was to be shipped back to the West Indies. Cugoano contacted Granville Sharp, a well-known abolitionist, who was able to have Demane removed from the ship before it sailed.
In 1787, Cugoano published an aboitionist work entitled Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species (1787). By now a devout Christian, his work was informed by Cugoano’s religious belief, and he used arguments around Christianity and global economics and politics for this cause. The work called for the abolition of slavery and immediate emancipation of all enslaved people. It argues that an enslaved person’s duty is to escape from slavery, and that force should be used to prevent further enslavement. The work was sent to prominent British political figures such as George III, the Prince of Wales and Edmund Burke. A shorter version of the work was published in 1791, with subscribers including prominent artists such as Cosway, Joshua Reynolds, James Northcote and Joseph Nollekens, “indicating their support of Cugoano’s mission”. In the shortened work, addressed to the “Sons of Africa”, Cugoano expressed qualified support for the efforts to establish a colony in Sierra Leone for London’s “Poor Blacks” (mostly freed African-American slaves who had been relocated to London after the American Revolutionary War; other early settlers were the Nova Scotian Settlers, that is Black Loyalists, also former American slaves, from Nova Scotia, who chose to move to Sierra Leone). Cugoano called for the establishment of schools in Britain especially for African students.
In 1791, Cugoano moved with the Cosways to 12 Queen Street in Mayfair. His last known letter, written in 1791, mentions travelling to “upwards of fifty places” to promote the book and that he found that “complexion is a predominant prejudice”. Cugoano wished to travel to Nova Scotia to recruit settlers for the proposed free colony of African Britons in Sierra Leone but it is not known if he did so.
After 1791, Cugoano disappears from the historical record and it is likely that he died in 1791 or 1792.
Commemoration
In November 2020, an English Heritage blue plaque honouring Cugoano was unveiled on Schomberg House in Pall Mall, London, where he had lived and worked with the Cosways from 1784 to 1791.
On 20 August 2023, St James’s Church, Piccadilly, dedicated a new plaque to honour the 250th anniversary of Cugoano’s baptism there in 1773, the only recorded date in his life. St James’s additionally commissioned Trinidad-based artist Che Lovelace to create a new artwork in commemoration of Cugoano’s baptismal anniversary, to be installed in the church entrance on 20 September 2023 – the first permanent artwork commissioned by St James’s Church, as well as the first anywhere in the world to commemorate Cugoano.
