Ellen Levine. Lawrence Hill. New York.
Ellen Levine. Lawrence Hill. New York. Trident Media Group. 2006-2009. October 25, 2012. Lawrence Hill is the son of a black father and a white mother. Hill speaks three different languages English, French, and Spanish. He was born in Ontario in 1957 and has worked all over Canada. Hill’s parents moved to Canada in 1953, the day after in which they were married. Hill’s grandfather and great grandfather both were ministers of an African Church. His mother became a civil rights activist in D. C, when she finished college. Hill was influenced by his mother and his father by them working in the human rights movement.
Hill joined a movement like his parents, it wasn’t the same as his parents but it had the same purpose, he is a member of the Black Loyalist Heritage Society. He was a volunteer in West Africa countries Niger, Cameroon, and Mali. Hill started doing most of his writing in the 1990’s. Most of his writing is wrapped around the fact of people losing their rights and their identity. In 2012 Hill was represented with The Medal of Distinction from Huron University Collage, and the Freedom to Read Award from the Writers Union of Canada.
In 2005 Hill also won the American Wilbur Award for best national television documentary. Lawrence hills life style ties into my novel by the way he was raised. Coming from a black father and a white mother made life harder for Hill because interracial couples were frowned upon back then. Coming from that Hill has a bit of insight on the lifestyle his mother and father had once they married. In “The Book of Negroes” a black women and men are taken from their cultural home and sold as slaves. He tells the life of a girl stolen from her family, and she had to see her mother being killed.
Everyone in Hill’s family history has had something to do with standing up from equal rights, and in the book not every society member is being treated the same. Whites have a higher society power because all the blacks are coming over seas to be slaves for them. Hill’s parents weren’t slaves but through his family history he has heard the horrible stories of how the slave trade has affected everybody today. That is why Hill’s books have all the same theme to them, representing someone else’s life, exactly how it was, no detail is left out. Slavery In America. A&E Television Networks, LLC, 1996-2012.
October 25, 2012 Slavery first began when America brought African slaves into North America in 1619. Slaves mainly worked in tobacco and rice. In the 17th and 18th centuries the slaves started to build the economic foundations of the “new” nation. The slaves were the new source of labor. Instead of people paying for a white servant they went and bought a black slave, these slaves were not paid to work. Slavery spread fast through American colonies. Historians estimated 6-7 million slaves were brought over just in the 18th century. By now slaves weren’t being considered to be a whole person, they were classified as three-fifths of a person.
Most slaves lived on large farms or small plantations. Slaves were not allowed to learn to read and write. Owners of slaves took having slaves as a sexual liberty. Slaves who were obedient could (if chosen by their owner) get favors, any rebellious slaves were beat and punished. Anyone who bought a slave didn’t just by one slave; they owned less than 50 each. Between 1774 and 1804 all northern states abolished slavery, but still remained in the south. The U. S congress outlawed African slave trade in 1808, with that done, the slave trade nearly tripped over the next 50 years.
By 1860 the slavery population was almost at 4 million, with more than half of them working in cotton fields. Slavery is carried out through the whole novel study by the main character Aminata Diallo who lives in a village called Bayo in West Africa. Aminata has been taken from her homeland and sold as a slave overseas in South Carolina. Many people died from the long trip over the sea. The while the long trip overseas Aminta has been brought to attention by the men who have captured her because she is able to speak different languages. The men use her to their advantage by getting her to translate to the soon to be slaves.
Aminata was treated nicely because she had helped them, but other slaves were just chained together and stuck down into the bottom of the ship, where Aminta eventually fines herself. Aminata is sold to an indgo producer, and eventually bought by a family who takes her to New York. Aminata still sees it as she as a slave so she is continuing to try and find a way to escape. Owen Sounds Black History. Ontario. The Department of Public Works. City of Owen Sound. 2004. October 25, 2012. Anyone can make their own definition; to some people freedom is what limits they have and what they can do.
In a free society freedom is self-controlled and having self-ownership. To some in less fortunate countries freedom is not being a sold as a slave. Freedom includes the legal right to defend oneself from others who attempt to harm a free person. In Canada us as a citizens are protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The charter guarantees citizens certain political rights from the actions of all levels of government. The charter also guarantees the rights to freedom, fundamental freedoms, democratic rights, mobility rights, legal rights, and equality rights.
Some Canadians over use the charter as a way to get out of doing something. The charter was passed in 1982. Slavery was abolished in 1834 in Canada, but that year Canada was still part of Britain, so it was abolished there as well. Freedom is included in to The Book of Negroes by the main character Aminata being taken as a slave from her country, and having all of her rights and freedoms taken away from her. Back then people probably didn’t have any idea that they even had rights and that’s why so many people became slaves. Blacks weren’t even being considered people during that time.
Aminata was given more rights than other slaves on the ship, she develops advantages that the others did not have. After years of being a slave Aminata finds a little sense of freedom when she is serving the British during the American Revolutionary War. Eventually Aminata gets to return home because she is guaranteed freedom, but on her way home, she sees ships carrying slaves going to America. Aminate never thought she would go back to America, but she did. She returned to present her life to world in hopes of abolishing slave trade.
