The novel, The Book of Negroes, by Lawrence Hill is a sad rendition of the abomination of slavery. It starts in Africa recalling the story of families shattered and brutally murdered; it is a history of a stolen people. Love, bravery, strength, hope, and optimism run throughout the stories of ancestors and decendants allowing the reader to relive experiences, reconfirm human rights activism, and gain strength for the future.
The novel chronicles the actions of those humans who capture slaves and use them to create a world of material wealth. The stories of rape strip away any desire to see imperalist actions as human; it exposes man's inhumanity to man and woman.
Aminata’s life is continuously challenged as children are sold away permanently; husbands and wifes are permanently separated and women are impregnated by the unwanted seeds of white men.
Yet, woven into Aminata’s story are the many ways that humans find to share love and create futures; woven into the story is kinship and healing built on the very culture from which Africans were so roughly torn. As we run the gamutt with Aminata, we experience the length of a life that was born in freedom and eventually ended in freedom. Along the way Hill shows us the meaning of determination and survival.
Lawrence Hill tells a woman’s story. It is a story of resistance.
by Bacchus
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