D is for Aminata Diallo, Heroine of The Book of Negroes

American readers may be saying, "Wait, I've never heard of this book." Well, that might be because the author is Canadian, but it's also because the American publishers were squeamish about the N word (despite the fact that the title refers to a real historical document) and opted instead for the (ironically) white-bread title Someone Knows My Name. Not exactly a title that screams, "read me," and they also ditched this gorgeous cover for one that, while competent, just doesn't have the visual impact of this very striking woman's face.

Anyway, you SHOULD read this book. It was a #1 bestseller in Canada, and won the Commonwealth Writers Prize, as well as being selected by CBC Radio's annual Canada Reads competition, where a panel reviews a selection of Canadian novels and selects the one book they think all Canadians should read that year. I've passed it around to many friends, all of whom loved it, even if they weren't big readers of historical fiction.

Aminata Diallo is a completely compelling heroine. She grows up in Mali in the 18th century, the only child of two loving parents. Her father is the village jeweller, and her mother is the village midwife. Her idyllic childhood comes to an abrupt end at age 11, when she is abducted by slavers who slaughter her parents in front of her, and force-march her and many others in chain-gang formation to the African coast, where they are loaded onto a slave ship bound for pre-Revolutionary South Carolina, a British colony at that time. The conditions on the ship are horrific. Upon arrival in South Carolina, Aminata is taken to an indigo plantation, where she is put to back-breaking labour. A clever girl, she also learns to read in secret from one of the other slaves. She marries a man from another plantation, and has a son by him.

Aminata is eventually purchased from her owner by Solomon Lindo, a Jewish indigo broker from New York who visits the plantation and notes her above-average intelligence. Bindo teaches her bookkeeping, a valuable skill, but does not free her (slavery was legal throughout the British Empire at this time). Though her conditions are less onerous, she is separated from her husband and son. Unhappy with Lindo's role in this, she escapes his house, and gains employment and protection from the British, who are preparing to fight the rebellious Americans in the American Revolution. They promise any blacks living in New York their freedom and some land in Nova Scotia, Canada, in exchange for black enlistment in the British forces. Aminata becomes their recorder, noting down the names of black Loyalists in The Book of Negroes, the document that will arrange for passage by ship for the fleeing blacks as the Revolution draws to a close.

Aminata is united with her husband for a time (he has fled to the north), but they end up on different ships to Nova Scotia, and she loses track of him. It will be years before she receives word of his fate. Aminata is still fated to travel widely, leaving Nova Scotia for Africa in an attempt to locate her home village, and eventually ending up in England as a powerful speaker in the abolitionist movement there.

Aminata's life is a hard one, with more heartbreak and loss than many have to bear, but not more than was usual for slaves during their centuries of oppression. Her story is inspired in part by historical slave narratives, and is authentic, moving, and beautiful. Perhaps because Aminata is not born a slave, she never accepts any of the premises that underlie her slavery, questioning her cruel treatment at every turn, and even defying her white abolitionist allies, who prefer to take "baby steps" towards the ending of slavery.