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A review by april_does_feral_sometimes
Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill
5.0
'Someone Knows my Name' by Lawrence Hill is a book about slavery in the historical context of the American Revolution as experienced by a fictional heroine, Aminata Diallo. The story is without any flourishes or overwrought politics. It is written in plain language with heartbreaking clarity.
In order to examine the "peculiar institution" of slavery, the author developed her character Aminata as someone of extraordinary abilities and very lucky in possessing skills which improved her chances of survival. She moves to several key locations in Africa and North America. Some readers might find Aminata's spunk unusual for someone who suffers so much so early, but I have known spunky survivors who lived through horrible wars as children, such as kids from Yugoslavia. I found Aminata believable and of a strong personality easy to love. I learned much I did not know about the capture and transportation of Africans destined to be slaves.
I, too, have all of the usual repugnance and horror people feel today about slavery. I'm aware slavery existed all over the world in the millennia before America became a country. The ancient Greeks often were Roman slaves, and I've read stories about ancient Mesopotamian, Indian and Asian slavery. Slavery continues today as well, but fortunately it is officially illegal everywhere. I think slavery had and has many faces.
We use different, less incendiary words to describe working conditions from the past and now to describe slavery conditions because slavery clearly describes an immoral condition. Until workers have complete situational freedom of choice where to work, and earn a fair wage for their labor, and have recourse to pursue punishment for mistreatment by employers in courts of law all over the world, slavery can be said to exist no matter what words economists and politicians try to hide worker abuse under.
I wonder if the extraordinarily horrendous and obscene lethal conditions onboard the ships used in the transportation of African slaves in the 18th century came from the distance of the transportation and not because it was unusual to transport slaves by ship in that sardine-packaged manner. Slave transportation must have been a normal logistical problem all over the world in all cultures. In thinking about it, slave ship transport must have been institutionalized by all commercial businesses on every continent. However African slaves had to be delivered to North and South America across oceans that took two months to cross, not a few days or weeks as would have been the case in most other lands. It's disgusting, but I think it might have been only stupidity in using a customary and traditional methodology of transportation that caused the excessive agony of African slaves.
No wonder the British abolitionists were successful first in stopping transportation of kidnapped Africans because of the sardine-style of transporting people for slavery, which was obviously cruel and killed, before outlawing slavery itself. If transport technology of the day had been better, or the speed of innovation faster, would we still have legal slavery today? We know people generally suck at doing the moral thing before giving up profits, right?
In order to examine the "peculiar institution" of slavery, the author developed her character Aminata as someone of extraordinary abilities and very lucky in possessing skills which improved her chances of survival. She moves to several key locations in Africa and North America. Some readers might find Aminata's spunk unusual for someone who suffers so much so early, but I have known spunky survivors who lived through horrible wars as children, such as kids from Yugoslavia. I found Aminata believable and of a strong personality easy to love. I learned much I did not know about the capture and transportation of Africans destined to be slaves.
I, too, have all of the usual repugnance and horror people feel today about slavery. I'm aware slavery existed all over the world in the millennia before America became a country. The ancient Greeks often were Roman slaves, and I've read stories about ancient Mesopotamian, Indian and Asian slavery. Slavery continues today as well, but fortunately it is officially illegal everywhere. I think slavery had and has many faces.
We use different, less incendiary words to describe working conditions from the past and now to describe slavery conditions because slavery clearly describes an immoral condition. Until workers have complete situational freedom of choice where to work, and earn a fair wage for their labor, and have recourse to pursue punishment for mistreatment by employers in courts of law all over the world, slavery can be said to exist no matter what words economists and politicians try to hide worker abuse under.
I wonder if the extraordinarily horrendous and obscene lethal conditions onboard the ships used in the transportation of African slaves in the 18th century came from the distance of the transportation and not because it was unusual to transport slaves by ship in that sardine-packaged manner. Slave transportation must have been a normal logistical problem all over the world in all cultures. In thinking about it, slave ship transport must have been institutionalized by all commercial businesses on every continent. However African slaves had to be delivered to North and South America across oceans that took two months to cross, not a few days or weeks as would have been the case in most other lands. It's disgusting, but I think it might have been only stupidity in using a customary and traditional methodology of transportation that caused the excessive agony of African slaves.
No wonder the British abolitionists were successful first in stopping transportation of kidnapped Africans because of the sardine-style of transporting people for slavery, which was obviously cruel and killed, before outlawing slavery itself. If transport technology of the day had been better, or the speed of innovation faster, would we still have legal slavery today? We know people generally suck at doing the moral thing before giving up profits, right?