Review Two: The Book of Negroes

          

 The Book of Negroes (2007) by Lawrence Hill follows Aminato Diallo, a young female taken from her village in Africa and forced to board a ship that would take her to South Carolina as a slave. This novel follows Aminato through her life that takes her all across America, Nova Scotia, back to Africa and finally to England. Aminato is able to experience many things in her life most slaves never had a chance to experience. After being a slave in South Carolina Aminato serves the British in the American Revolutionary War and becomes a free person, where her name is then written into the “Book of Negroes” before she leaves for Nova Scotia. It gave me goose bumps realizing that 200 years ago someone named Aminato Diallo was here in Nova Scotia. Although black freed slaves were welcomed into Nova Scotia they were not treated as equals and their lives were even threatened on numerous occasions.

More heartache came Aminato’s way when her husband and child (who were on another boat to Nova Scotia) never showed up to meet her, you can almost feel her heart ache when you read the pages. She is finally free but her whole life is again torn upside down by no longer being with her family. Through out Aminato’s life she tells her story in hopes to abolish slavery. Even though this is not a true story Aminato Diallo was a real woman with a real story somewhere. I personally believe that the black loyalists that settled into Nova Scotia played a big part into helping colonize our province. Black loyalists came at the same times at the white loyalists but we only ever hear one side of the story. Hill brought to life another side which showed how even though some black slaves were freed were they emotionally free? I think the emotional scares left on a person who is taken from their home as a young child and forced to do hard labour, was raped, had to give up her child then lose her family can never be free. This reminds me of Michael Yellowbird in his article Cowboys and Indians: Toys of Genocide, Icons of American Colonialism were his class “learned that we did not know anything of value, nor did we have anything important to contribute from our culture unless it supported the myths of white supremacy” (p. 39). I find that it can be in relation to this novel because unless we remember that black loyalists helped build Nova Scotia then we will not have learned the truth of our culture and again it will all be about white supremacy.