ISP Blog Post #6

When examining The Book Of Negroes from a post colonial perspective it becomes clear that this theory reveals the most about the novel. The story revolves around two dominating colonies, America and Europe, which are the more powerful group, introducing their identity and values to the less dominant colony, in this case, Africa. This type of interaction includes cultural, national, ethnic, and social relations which are gender, class, and race based. Racism is inherent to the structures of a colonial society, and leads to oppression and brutality of the people in the lands being colonized.

An example of this when Amanita taken from her village in Bayo and has to adapt to the culture of the westernized world which is now her life. Amanita lives in the westernized world for most of her life and even when she returns to Africa she still lives under the rule of westernized people.

For all of Amanita’s life, she was rejected because of her skin colour. Most white people did not like the Negroes and they had no trouble hiding it. The whites only saw Negroes for what could be of use to them. Amanita had skills that white people exploited. For example Amanita helped write down Negroes names in a book that gave them passage to “free land”. The men that recruited Amanita, disappeared one day and did not keep their promise to her, to provide her passage to Nova Scotia. Clearly, these men thought less of her as a human being. They used Amanita, with no intention of honouring their word. Analyzing The Book Of Negroes from post colonial perspective reveals all of the struggles that Amanita had to go through in a westernized world.

ISP Blog Post #5

After finishing The Book Of Negroes, I decided to analyze the novel using an archetypal  perspective. Amanita is the hero of the story since she helps so many people throughout her travels, by teaching others to read and write which was not common. I think that Georgia or Amanita's mother are classified as 'The Great Mothers' since they were always the strong mother role in Amanita's life. Amanita's mother taught her how to catch babies and was always there for her when she was young. Georgia took on the motherly role when Amanita arrived at the plantation and taught her how things were done around there. The wise old man would be Daddy Moses because everyone listens to what he has to say and he can always calm the crowd and give them something to think about. Appleby being the fox because he was a mean man who thought he could do whatever he wanted with his slaves because he was their owner. Amanita learned a lot from these people and who she was a person. As a reader I can think of people in my life and classify them as a archetypal characters in a way.

Amanita is the obvious protagonist and you can really see that shift of innocence to an experienced woman. Amanita grows up in a familiar village called Bayo living under the shelter of her parents. Amanita pulled her own weight helping her parents but was protected from the dangers of outside her village. When she was taken she described herself as a free Muslim that these men could not take her away because she was free. Here she was innocent, she wasn't old or experienced enough to realize that being free born meant nothing for people who are getting paid. At the end of the book you can tell that she is older and has learned a lot from the Americans and British. Her experiences through slavery made her the person she is today.

Amanita has dealt with her fair share of danger being a negro. When she was first taken her mother and father rebelled against the slave trappers and they were killed. From there on Amanita had to be smart she knew she could not beat the men with weapons because she could not win. Amanita watched a young girl captured by a wild animal, she had to make sure that the danger would not happen to her. Dangerous situations occurred to Amanita quiet frequently and at the plantation she had to be careful not to cause mistakes or she would be punished. Amanita had to survive times with disease, no food, water, clothes, or shelter in harsh weather conditions. Danger was always around the corner for Amanita but she survived to tell her story.

The reunion home for Amanita is not the one she excepted. She was in her home country but still a far ways to get to her village which she could not get out of her mind. The archetypal characters make the story more relatable to readers such as myself because we have never lived through slavery. The hero, wise man, trickster, and mother roles show how everyone's life is not always easy but whenever we fall down we get back up. Everyone has troubles in life just like Amanita we just have to learn from how we dealt with the troubles in order to live life to the fullest.   



   



   

ISP Blog Post #4

As I analyze The Book Of Negroes from a post-colonial view, I see more of how the western world of classes is displayed in the novel. England is and still a developed nation when The Book Of Negroes was wrote, they included a rich white person that thought they were more superior to the blacks which is what is shown in The Book Of Negroes.

White people maintaining control over the black population displays how England is classified as being a "first-world" nation and Africa being a "third-world" nation. White people who owned her tossed Amanita from place to place. She was sold into slavery like many of the black population around her. Solomon Lindo says, "Exactly why I purchased you, I knew you would catch on fast. I saw intelligence in your eyes and I wanted to lift you up" (Hill 201). Against all odds Amanita became smart she learned to read and write which was not common for a black person because they were too busy working for their owners to learn that kind of stuff. Amanita is a woman and women had a lower social class then men and anyone who wasn't of European background was the lowest on the totem pole. Life wasn't easy for Amanita in a Westernized world considering she was treated badly by many whites. 

Personal and cultural identity is a huge part of Amanita's life that was changed. Her cultural identity that consisted of praying, her own African language, dances, food, clothing, and way of life was stripped from her own back. Amanita had to learn the ways of the westernized world, which included using money, which Amanita said, "Lindo explained that I could either barter for an object, or pay with copper, silver, or gold coins. This confused me. It made no sense to me that someone would prefer to be paid with a useless metal coin than with five chickens or a tierce of corn"(Hill 202). The white owners had no sympathy for personal identity of slaves. White owners almost never sat down to ask about there slaves past lives, because all the cared for was the work.

This text reveals how much the Africans that came to the westernized world have changed since being in Africa. The Africans that are in Sierra Leone question the new arrivals and cannot tell if Amanita was born in Africa or not. This is because Amanita had completely left her old life in order to be able to fit into the western world. Amanita had to change the clothes she wore, the food she ate, and how she talked. The cultural diffusion into the western world caused Amanita to be like a European. 

Amanita will never be completely free from white people now that she was in their culture and they will always be among her in Sierra Leone. The whites help the Negroes by sending food and supplies. The Negroes rely on the British to send them their supplies. Amanita is back in her homeland but she can still not escape her life with the whites. The British are the ones who govern them and will always be around. 

The dominant culture is always the one who will take over. In this case it is western culture. This is shown from Amanita, she is an Africa free born but was still taken and put in the westernized world were she became accustomed to their styles. When she is returned to Africa she is still assimilated in that culture and her homeland is affected by the westernized world. 

ISP Blog Post #3

  The main problem that is displayed in The Book Of Negroes is slavery. This problem leads to discrimination and racism for the entire black population. The white people treated Negroes very unfairly a long time ago. Amanita has gone through many struggles since she was captured in Bayo, Africa and forced into slavery.

Times were tough ever since Amanita was captured. As soon as a Negro was taken they were stripped of their clothes, shoes, and possessions. Following instructions and walking the pace that the men told them too was a Negroes way to avoid getting beaten. Amanita and others was forced to walk all day for several months to get to a large ship crossing to a new land. The ship was a very cruel place for the Negroes as the waters were dark; they were chained below deck, and sat in their own feces. Food was scarce and bathes where not usually given. A lot of Negroes didn't make it across the ‘big river’ and the uprising by the Negroes made the white men very angry which lead to consequences. The white men saw the Negroes as property that they had to deliver to make a profit. The black population was looked at with only dollar signs hanging over their heads.

Amanita was sold to a planation that harvests indigo the owner; Appleby abused her for seeing a different man because he claimed that he owned Amanita. Appleby publicly humiliated her in front of the other slaves stripped Amanita of her clothes, burned them, and cut all her hair off. Amanita saw herself as having lost her beauty and womanhood (179). Slaves were treated cruel and unfair all because white people thought that the colour of your skin measured how valuable you are.

Amanita's life brightened up a little after she was sold to Solomon Lindo. Lindo and his wife liked to called their two slaves as servants because they thought it to be more polite. Amanita and Dolly were well fed, clothed, and had a good back house for themselves. Amanita was treated better at the Lindo household but she was still owned and needed to work for them because she was no equal to white people.

White people thought that this was a normal way to live treating the black population like they had no freedom and equality rights did not exist. Slavery is inhumane and should have never been allowed. A white man did not own Amanita when the Brits control of America began to fall but still her and the other Negroes were the first to be left with no work, food, money, or clothes. Even as a free Negro with no owner, life was tough because Amanita describes that she will never truly be free unless she is at home in Africa.

   

ISP Blog Post #2

As I view the novel The Book Of Negroes through a feminist perspective I notice that women are very limited to what they can do. Back in the 18th century woman had no voice especially if you were a woman slave like Amanita.

Before Amanita was even captured and sold there village had certain gender roles that people followed. The women would help in the fields, catch babies, cook, and clean. While the men hunt, trade in other villages, do the heavy lifting, and work in the fields. In our society today this is a typical stereotypical case were the boys are stronger than the girls so they do all the manly jobs. While of course the women are taking care of everything in the home and cooking for their husbands when they come home from a long days work. 

Hill express women like Amanita and her mother as strong working woman who can hold there own but they still have certain roles to do. It is clear that Amanita and her mother have a strong voice, it just comes into question where and when they can use it. There are very few times where the can express their views to others. Like Amanita's mother she tries to carry herself as brave, although she represents it well because of what she has been through already in the novel.

As Amanita moves to the planation her life changes. A woman that is kind but also teaches her the way they do things there takes her in. The other slaves mind their own business when it comes to her. The women assume their usual roles but here they also have to work for a man, which means all 50 slaves have to work long hours harvesting indigo. Amanita unfortunately does get raped by the ‘Master’, which she then is classified as a sex object to him until he finds another girl. Most Negro women are classified as sex objects to the white men, because the white men think they own them and can do what they want with them.

As Amanita moves once more we see a new character introduced who is a white Jewish woman. This lady still has more voice then the Negro women slaves but her husband is definitely more dominant. Her husband takes care of all the income and always buys the slaves; he has the more dependent job that a women back then would never be allowed to have. Also the husband is always able to walk the streets alone, and not be questioned.

Woman's lives are definitely restricted in this novel they don't have any power and don't get their own way. If a woman acts out or doesn't want to do something there are consequences, which include a beating, burned belongings, and/or minimal food and water. Women are highly limited in this text because back then it was a man dominating world, the men made all the decisions and woman could not do anything about this. 

ISP Blog Post #1

The novel that I am currently reading for my ISP is The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill. My overall first impression of this book was that it was hard to understand and difficult to really get into. Hill uses tricky words that are from African culture so I am not accustomed to understanding them. The main character Amanita Diallo is a smart girl, but already goes through a lot of pain at the age of 11. I am getting deeper into the book and I am fascinated to see the outcome.

Amanita Diallo's life is just at the beginning, this young girl has a lot more to experience in her life. I predict that in this hard life that she will be forced to live, the young Amanita will encounter many bad and good experiences, which she will have to face with her bravery within. Once Amanita is off this boat I imagine that she will be sold to a rich family in England to be their slave or sold to a cotton planation. Then if Amanita has a chance to escape I bet that she will take it but if not, she will have stick it out there until she has another chance of freeing herself. By the end of the book I think that Diallo will make her way back to her homeland like she always said she wanted to do.

Amanita has met several unanticipated situations already in her life and I sense many of these events are connected in someway. Starting at Amanita's parents being killed in front of her trying to protect her, to a father and a daughter dying, and from many people killed on the deck of the boat at the time of the riot. Amanita has watched her family and friends die before her own eyes. Death a common theme with these certain events and they trying to make Amanita's life hell, no one cares about her well-being and she is on her own now. 

The impression this book is giving me about Hill as a person is that he grew up with racial problems just as Diallo.  His parents in their own racial issues might have influenced Hill since they would have grown up strongly with them. He seems like a person that could be sympathetic but also hard on the facts where he needs to be. With writing a novel like The Book of Negroes you need to express the information fully in order for the reader to really understand but also display it in a way that makes the readers atmosphere feel like you are really there experiencing these events for yourself.

Hill needs readers that know a little about these situations, he isn't trying to influence our views but trying to make us aware of these situations. I am not saying that he isn't trying to influence us at all but I think it is true that he wants us to feel for Amanita and her people, but that is not the only position he is coming from. Readers like older generations and myself are bringing are own values and worldviews into reading this book. I think this may complicate things because if our views are bad we are obviously prejudice against the book at the beginning and we don't come into reading it with a fresh mind. I think it is very important to read a book that has racial issues with a clear mind so that you get the best experience and knowledge while reading it. 

As I reflect on myself as a reader my perspective is that when I come to the boring bits, I don't pay as much attention as I really should, I read through it but not to my best ability. This is a bad thing to do because then perhaps I will miss something that may be important later in the book and I might have needed that knowledge to further understand what Hill is trying to say.

I am finally taking an interest in The Book of Negroes after a couple 'boring' chapters and am looking forward to seeing what is going to happen in the life of Amanita Diallo.