Summary Of Slavery In 'The Book Of Negroes'

In the 1800’s many people of colour did not enjoy the rights and freedoms that people enjoy today. In this time, Slavery was active which many people of colours lose their freedom. More than 11,863,000 Africans were shipped across the Atlantic, most slaves died in the Middle Passage due to horrible conditions on the ship transporting them. As a result between with a death of 9.6 and 10.8 million Africans arrived in the Americas alive. With the odds against Aminata Diallo, she faces many losses but through these losses Aminata manages to re-defines herself. In "The Book of Negroes" the novel focuses on Aminata 's self-discovery through her many loses, including her loss of innocence, the loss of safety, and the loss of relationships.
Aminata first losses her innocence at …show more content…
Since that experience Aminata became mentally and emotionally mature at a young age which made her understand to survive. Aminata’s earliest memories was of being abducted into the slave trade thus losing her innocence: “Many times during that long journey, I was terrified beyond description, yet somehow my mind remained intact. Men and women the age of my parents lost their minds on that journey” (Hill, 56). As she describes her journey into the slave trade she remains mentally and emotionally stable while others around her began to mentally break down. Aminata’s mental strength made survive the horrible conditions she endured in the slave trade. As Aminata returns to her hometown in the Bayo, she rediscovers the pain and emotional strength she had to go through to survive being in the slave trade: "I could not go on living if all my years of longing for liberty and homeland were to lead me back to the neck yokes and ankle chains of my childhood abudction" (Hill 439). Now that Aminata is finally free from being a slave, she recognizes her strength that she endured to survive being a slave. In