Ottobah Cugoano

Quobna Ottobah Cugoano (* 1757; ? † 1801) was a vehement opponent of slavery, whose activities were directed primarily from England against this human rights violation.

Life

Cugoano was born in a family of the people of the Fante on the territory of modern Ghana. Cugoano was deported to Ghana and sold as a slave in 1770. First, he was shipped to the West Indies, however, came from an unknown reason to England, where he arrived in 1772. He was baptized as John Stuart in a Baptist church.

In 1784, he came as a servant to the artist Richard Cosway and his wife Mary. In the house of Cosway 's the Journey Cugoanos changed decisively. He was given the Cosway 's on British politics of the time and attention to the cultural figures of his time ( William Blake ) familiar. Together with another educated Africans in the Kingdom of Great Britain, Olaudah Equiano, and others, he was with the group Sons of Africa, a group with the goal of the abolition of slavery, actively and regularly published in newspapers articles against slavery.

His work was characterized by deeply religious and distinct charges against the British people, that allowed slavery. Again and again he called upon the slaves to rise up and rebel. Influenced by this mood he wrote in 1787 his main work on Thoughts Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery and Commerce of Human Species.

Four years later (1791 ) a revised version of his work was published that explicitly addressed to slaves. In this version, he advocated the failure of Britain to establish a colony in Sierra Leone and called for the establishment of an educational path for African students in the UK.