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.
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