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Abina and the Important Men

Winner of the James Harvey Robinson Prize from the American Historical Association--and widely acclaimed by educators and students--Abina and the Important Men, Second Edition, is a compelling and powerfully illustrated 'graphic history' based on an 1876 court transcript of a West African woman named Abina, who was wrongfully enslaved and took her case to court. The book is a microhistory that does much more than simply depict an event in the past; it uses the power of illustration to convey important themes in world history and to reveal the processes by which history is made. The story of Abina Mansah--a woman 'without history' who was wrongfully enslaved, escaped to British-controlled territory, and then took her former master to court--takes place in the complex world of the Gold Coast at the onset of late nineteenth-century colonialism. Slavery becomes a contested ground, as cultural practices collide with an emerging wage economy and British officials turn a blind eye to the presence of underpaid domestic workers in the households of African merchants. The main scenes of the story take place in the courtroom, where Abina strives to convince a series of 'important men'--a British judge, two Euro-African attorneys, and a jury of local leaders--that her experiences and perceptions matter. 'Am I free?' Abina inquires. Throughout both the court case and the flashbacks that dramatically depict her life in servitude, both the defendants and members of the court strive to 'silence' Abina and to impose their own understandings and meanings upon her. The story seems to conclude with the short-term success of the 'important men,' as Abina loses her case. But it doesn't end there: Abina is eventually redeemed. Her testimony is uncovered in the dusty archives by Trevor Getz and, through Liz Clarke's illustrations, becomes a graphic history read by people around the world. In this way, the reader takes an active part in the story along with the illustrator, the author, and Abina herself. Following the graphic history in Part I, Parts II-V provide detailed historical context for the story, a reading guide that reconstructs and deconstructs the methods used to interpret the story, and strategies for using Abina in various classroom settings. This second edition features a new gender-rich section, Part V: Engaging Abina, which explores Abina's life and narrative as a woman. Focusing on such important themes as the relationship between slavery and gender in pre-colonial Akan society, the role of marriage in Abina's experience, colonial paternalism, and the meaning of cloth and beads in her story, this section also includes a debate on whether or not Abina was a slave, with contributions by three award-winning scholars--Antoinette Burton, Sandra Greene, and Kwasi Konadu--each working from different perspectives. The second edition includes new, additional testimony that was rediscovered in the National Archives of Ghana, which is also reflected in the graphic history section.

Abina's case is difficult to handle in that slavery has been completely outlawed, and Melton does believe in justice. However, Eddo is a prime supplier of palm oil, and upsetting him, as well as his fellow suppliers, would cause a major downfall in the economy. 'Abina and the Important Men: Engaging students in reversing the silences of history.' Professor Trevor Getz, History, San Francisco State University. In 1876 a young slave girl named Abina Mansah escaped her captivity near the town of Saltpond in what is today the country of Ghana. She was born in Asante/Ashanti.

The History of Africa

There is a paradox about Africa: it remains a subject that attracts considerable attention yet rarely is there a full appreciation of its complexity. African historiography has typically consisted of writing Africa for Europe—instead of writing Africa for itself, as itself, from its own perspectives. The History of Africa redresses this by letting the perspectives of Africans themselves take center stage. Authoritative and comprehensive, this book provides a wide-ranging history of Africa from earliest prehistory to the present day—using the cultural, social, political, and economic lenses of Africa as instruments to illuminate the ordinary lives of Africans. The result is a fresh survey that includes a wealth of indigenous ideas, African concepts, and traditional outlooks that have escaped the writing of African history in the West. The new edition includes information on the Arab Spring, the rise of FrancAfrica, the presence of the Chinese in Africa, and the birth of South Sudan. The chapters go up to the present day, addressing US President Barack Obama's policies toward Africa. A new companion website provides students and scholars of Africa with access to a wealth of supporting resources for each chapter, including images, video and audio clips, and links to sites for further research. This straightforward, illustrated, and factual text allows the reader to access the major developments, personalities, and events on the African continent. This groundbreaking survey is an indispensable guide to African history.

The Information Literate Historian

The Information-Literate Historian is the only book specifically designed to teach today's history students how to successfully select and use sources--primary, secondary, and electronic--to carry out and present their research. Expanded and updated, the third edition of The Information-Literate Historian continues to be an indispensable reference for historians, students, and other readers doing history research.

Mendoza the Jew

Mendoza the Jew combines a graphic history with primary documentation and contextual information to explore issues of nationalism, identity, culture, and historical methodology through the life story of Daniel Mendoza. Mendoza was a poor Sephardic Jew from East London who became the boxing champion of Britain in 1789. As a Jew with limited means and a foreign-sounding name, Mendoza was an unlikely symbol of what many Britons considered to be their very own 'national' sport.

A Primer for Teaching African History

A Primer for Teaching African History is a guide for college and high school teachers who are teaching African history for the first time, for experienced teachers who want to reinvigorate their courses, for those who are training future teachers to prepare their own syllabi, and for teachers who want to incorporate African history into their world history courses. Trevor R. Getz offers design principles aimed at facilitating a classroom experience that will help students navigate new knowledge, historical skills, ethical development, and worldviews. He foregrounds the importance of acknowledging and addressing student preconceptions about Africa, challenging chronological approaches to history, exploring identity and geography as ways to access historical African perspectives, and investigating the potential to engage in questions of ethics that studying African history provides. In his discussions of setting goals, pedagogy, assessment, and syllabus design, Getz draws readers into the process of thinking consciously and strategically about designing courses on African history that will challenge students to think critically about Africa and the discipline of history.

African Voices of the Global Past

Global historical events are too often recounted exclusively through European and American voices. African Voices of the Global Past explores six major historical developments of global significance - the Atlantic slave trade, industrialization, colonialism, the World Wars, decolonization, and the development of modern feminism - from an African perspective. Voices emerge throughout the text in the form of primary sources that explore the personal accounts of individuals. These enable students to look beyond the indistinct figures of Africans in European and American accounts to see the people directly involved and affected by the major global changes they experienced. Featuring contributed chapters from renowned scholars, many from the continent of Africa or the African diaspora, African Voices of the Global Past offers a unique view of global history from a traditionally overlooked perspective. This book is a perfect supplement for world history and African history instructors seeking to relate a compelling narrative of major world events.

Abina and the Important Men

Based on an award-winning graphic novel, this is the powerful yet little-known story of story of Abina Mansah. Enslaved by a wealthy planter in Africa's Gold Coast (modern day Ghana), she successfully fought for justice and freedom in the region's colonial legal system.. Winner of Best Feature at the Montreal International Animation Film Festival ANIMAZE.

Nat Turner

The story of Nat Turner and his slave rebellion—which began on August 21, 1831, in Southampton County, Virginia—is known among school children and adults. To some he is a hero, a symbol of Black resistance and a precursor to the civil rights movement; to others he is monster—a murderer whose name is never uttered. In Nat Turner, acclaimed author and illustrator Kyle Baker depicts the evils of slavery in this moving and historically accurate story of Nat Turner’s slave rebellion. Told nearly wordlessly, every image resonates with the reader as the brutal story unfolds. Find teaching guides for Nat Turner and other titles at abramsbooks.com/resources. This graphic novel collects all four issues of Kyle Baker’s critically acclaimed miniseries together for the first time in hardcover and paperback. The book also includes a new afterword by Baker. “A hauntingly beautiful historical spotlight. A-” —Entertainment Weekly “Baker’s storytelling is magnificent.” —Variety “Intricately expressive faces and trenchant dramatic pacing evoke the diabolic slave trade’s real horrors.” —The Washington Post “Baker’s drawings are worthy of a critic’s attention.”—Los Angeles Times “Baker’s suspenseful and violent work documents the slave trade’s atrocities as no textbook can, with an emotional power approaching that of Maus.”—Library Journal, starred review

World in the Making

'A World in the Making is a kind of anthropological journey taken by four historians that assumes all societies are 'hot,' and all people make history and always have. We argue in our emphasis on lives and livelihoods for a world constructed, altered, renovated, remade by ordinary people even as we acknowledge the genius of individual innovators, disruptors who broke the mold or struck out in some new direction.'--Provided by publisher.

The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt

'Tells the darkly humorous story of the French colonial state's failed efforts to impose its vision of modernity upon the colonial city of Hanoi, Vietnam. This book offers a case study in the history of imperialism, highlighting the racialized economic inequalities of empire, colonization as a form of modernization, and industrial capitalism's creation of a radical power differential between 'the West and the rest.' On a deeper level, The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt will engage the contradictions unique to the French Third Republic's colonial 'civilizing mission,' the development of Vietnamese resistance to French rule, the history of disease, and aspects of environmental history'--

The Rise of the West

The Rise of the West, winner of the National Book Award for history in 1964, is famous for its ambitious scope and intellectual rigor. In it, McNeill challenges the Spengler-Toynbee view that a number of separate civilizations pursued essentially independent careers, and argues instead that human cultures interacted at every stage of their history. The author suggests that from the Neolithic beginnings of grain agriculture to the present major social changes in all parts of the world were triggered by new or newly important foreign stimuli, and he presents a persuasive narrative of world history to support this claim. In a retrospective essay titled 'The Rise of the West after Twenty-five Years,' McNeill shows how his book was shaped by the time and place in which it was written (1954-63). He discusses how historiography subsequently developed and suggests how his portrait of the world's past in The Rise of the West should be revised to reflect these changes. 'This is not only the most learned and the most intelligent, it is also the most stimulating and fascinating book that has ever set out to recount and explain the whole history of mankind. . . . To read it is a great experience. It leaves echoes to reverberate, and seeds to germinate in the mind.'—H. R. Trevor-Roper, New York Times Book Review

Sara Baartman and the Hottentot Venus

'In reconstructing Sara Baartman's life, the book traverses the South African frontier, the Industrial Revolution, London and Parisian high society, and the rise of racial science. The authors also explore Baartman's rich afterlife, including the enduring impact of the Hottentot Venus on ideas about women, race, and sexuality.'--BOOK JACKET.

Cosmopolitan Africa 1700 1875

Cosmopolitan Africa, 1700-1875, offers an alternative interpretation of the 175 years leading up to the formal colonization of Africa by Europeans. In this brief and affordable text, author and series editor Trevor R. Getz demonstrates how Africans pursued lives, constructed social settings, forged trading links, and imagined worlds that were sophisticated, flexible, and well adapted to the increasingly global and fast-paced interactions of this period. Getz's interpretation of a 'cosmopolitan Africa' is based on careful reading of Africans' oral histories and traditions, written documents, and images of or from the eighteenth century. Examining this time period from both social and cultural perspectives, Cosmopolitan Africa, 1700-1875, helps students to re-envision African societies in the time before colonization.

Slavery and Reform in West Africa

A series of transformations, reforms, and attempted abolitions of slavery form a core narrative of nineteenth-century coastal West Africa. As the region's role in Atlantic commercial networks underwent a gradual transition from principally that of slave exporter to producer of “legitimate goods” and dependent markets, institutions of slavery became battlegrounds in which European abolitionism, pragmatic colonialism, and indigenous agency clashed. In Slavery and Reform in West Africa, Trevor Getz demonstrates that it was largely on the anvil of this issue that French and British policy in West Africa was forged. With distant metropoles unable to intervene in daily affairs, local European administrators, striving to balance abolitionist pressures against the resistance of politically and economically powerful local slave owners, sought ways to satisfy the latter while placating or duping the former. The result was an alliance between colonial officials, company agents, and slave-owning elites that effectively slowed, sidetracked, or undermined serious attempts to reform slave holding. Although slavery was outlawed in both regions, in only a few isolated instances did large-scale emancipations occur. Under the surface, however, slaves used the threat of self-liberation to reach accommodations that transformed the master-slave relationship. By comparing the strategies of colonial administrators, slave-owners, and slaves across these two regions and throughout the nineteenth century, Slavery and Reform in West Africa reveals not only the causes of the astounding success of slave owners, but also the factors that could, and in some cases did, lead to slave liberations. These findings have serious implications for the wider study of slavery and emancipation and for the history of Africa generally.

The Dead Eye and the Deep Blue Sea

Too poor to pay his pregnant wife's hospital bill, Vannak Anan Prum left his village in Cambodia to seek work in Thailand. Men who appeared to be employers on a fishing vessel promised to return him home after a few months at sea, but instead Vannak was hostaged on the vessel for four years of hard labor. Amid violence and cruelty, including frequent beheadings, Vannak survived in large part by honing his ability to tattoo his shipmates--a skill he possessed despite never having been trained in art or having had access to art supplies while growing up. As a means of escape, Vannak and a friend jumped into the water and, hugging empty fish-sauce containers because they could not swim, reached Malaysia in the dark of night. At the harbor, they were taken into a police station . . . then sold by their rescuers to work on a plantation. Vannak was kept as a laborer for over a year before an NGO could secure his return to Cambodia. After five years away, Vannak was finally reunited with his family. Vannak documented his ordeal in raw, colorful, detailed illustrations, first created because he believed that without them no one would believe his story. Indeed, very little is known about what happens to the men and boys who end up working on fishing boats in Asia, and these images are some of the first records. In regional Cambodia, many families still wait for men who have disappeared across the Thai border, and out to sea. The Dead Eye and the Deep Blue Sea is a testament to the lives of these many fishermen who are trapped on boats in the Indian Ocean.

The Long Nineteenth Century 1750 1914

The Long Nineteenth Century, 1750-1914 is a global history textbook with a difference. It is a guide for students to the actions and experiences by which communities and individuals in different parts of the world constructed, contested, and were affected by major trends and events in the global past. The book explores the global history of the 19th century holistically. Its content is framed in chapters that tackle themes rather than geographic regions or chronological sub-divisions. Moreover, in order to connect human experiences and perspectives with global trends and events, each chapter – whether it focuses on politics or religion, economics or environment – is underpinned by an approach emphasizes social and cultural history. Through its pages, students critically encounter important global trends and key events from the Industrial Revolution to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The book ends with an epilogue on the First World War that brings all of the themes of the volume together in one place and also provides a segue into the mid-20th century.

Churchill

During the Second World War, Winston Churchill won two resounding victories. The first was a victory over Nazi Germany, the second a victory over the legion of sceptics who had derided his judgement, denied his claims to greatness, and excluded him from high office on the grounds that he was sure to be a danger to King and Country. In this incisive new biography, Paul Addison examines both the life of the most iconic figure in twentieth-century British history, and also the battle over his reputation, which continues to this day.

Twentieth Century South Africa

An innovative examination of the forces - both destructive and dynamic - which have shaped twentieth-century South Africa. This book provides a stimulating introduction to the history of South Africa in the twentieth century. It draws on the rich and lively tradition of radical history writing on that country and, to a greater extent than previous accounts, weaves economic and cultural history into the political narrative. Apartheid and industrialization, especially mining, are central theme, as is the rise of nationalism in the Afrikaner and African communities. But the author also emphasizes the neglected significance of rural experiences and local identities in shaping political consciousness. The roles played by such key figure as Smuts, Verwoerd, de Klerk, Plaatje, and Mandela are explored, while recent historiographical trends are reflected in analyses of rural protest, white cultural politics, the vitality of black urban life, and environmental decay. The book assesses the analysis of black reactions to apartheid, the rise of the ANC. The concluding chapter brings this seminal history up-to-date, tackling the issues and events from 1994-1999 - in particular the success of Mandela and the ANC in seeing through the end of apartheid rule. It also looks at the chances of a stable future for the new-found democracy in South Africa.

Shaka Rising

A charismatic young warrior prince emerges from exile to usurp the old order and forge a new, mighty Zulu kingdom.

African Voices on Slavery and the Slave Trade Volume 1 The Sources

Though the history of slavery is a central topic for African, Atlantic world and world history, most of the sources presenting research in this area are European in origin. To cast light on African perspectives, and on the point of view of enslaved men and women, this group of top Africanist scholars has examined both conventional historical sources (such as European travel accounts, colonial documents, court cases, and missionary records) and less-explored sources of information (such as folklore, oral traditions, songs and proverbs, life histories collected by missionaries and colonial officials, correspondence in Arabic, and consular and admiralty interviews with runaway slaves). Each source has a short introduction highlighting its significance and orienting the reader. This first of two volumes provides students and scholars with a trove of African sources for studying African slavery and slave trade.

Abina and the Important Men: a Graphical History was written by Trevor R. Getz and Liz Clarke. The story of Abina Mansah is somewhat an inspiring graphical history based on an 1876 court transcript. Abina, a woman of West Africa, was wrongfully enslaved and as a consequence, she took her former master, Quamina Eddoo, to court. The overall setting took place on the Gold Coast during the 19th century. The main scenes take place in the court room, which is filled with many “important men. ” The men included a British judge, two Euro African attorneys, countrymen, and an entire jury of wealthy, high class local town leaders.

This book is broken down into several parts; the graphical history, transcript, historical context, reading guide, and classroom version. All of these parts combined help to reconstruct and create a better interpretation of the story of Abina Mansah. The Gold Coast at this time was under English rule as the British began to abolish slavery. Abina was born into one of the protectorates, Asante, and enslaved in her youth. She was formerly the wife of Yaw Awoah and sold to her former master, Quamina Eddoo, to begin working in his sister Eccoah’s household.

While staying at Eddoo’s plantation, Abina was told she had to marry, against her will, Tando. Tando was a man of Eddoo and because Abina didn’t want to marry him, she was told if she didn’t she would be flogged. “They say that in Cape Coast all are free. ”(Chapter 1 page 7) Knowing this, Abina decided to escape her master to find freedom at a local market. At the market, she met a lady who offered to help her. Abina found out that she needed a paper saying that she was free, but in order to get that piece of paper, she needed a job and a place to stay so she’d belong.

The lady then directed her to an “important man”, James Davis. “Well, it’s true that there is no legal slavery here in Cape Coast, or throughout the colony and protectorate. But look, the government doesn’t have the money or the ability to enforce the laws everywhere,” Davis told Abina. (Chapter 1, page 10) Davis agreed to present Abina’s case to a magistrate, but the only problem was that Quamina Eddoo was an important man who grew palm oil. Davis reminded Abina that even though all were free, Eddoo was an important man and the British didn’t like to alienate important men.

Following, the magistrate, William Melton, agreed to hear the case and sent at Quamina Eddoo on the charge of slavery. The trial started and Abina was questioned as to why she believed she was a slave. Abina responded saying, “They held me down, and cut my beads, and I was told that I was to be their amperley-their slave. ” (Chapter 2, page 24) Throughout the court case and Abina’s flashback to the court, the men of the court strived to somehow imposed their own meanings and understandings of slavery upon Abina and silence her.

As mentioned earlier, Abina wanted to punish her master, Eddoo for wrongly enslaving her. Abina wasn’t as educated as the important men hearing her case, but she truly believed she was a slave. She expressed herself in her own language which wasn’t clearly understood by the important men of the court. Because she lacked education causing her to contradict, become confused or inaccurately answer the questions, Eddoo’s lawyer and the men began to create a difference between being a slave and acting upon free will like a slave.

Abina And The Important Men Wiki

The magistrate, Mr. Melton, asked Abina if during her stay with Eccoah and Quamina Eddoo, was she “compelled to work against her will. ” (Chapter 3, page 30) Confused, Abina responded by asking what was meant by the phrase “against her will. ” Mr. Davis reworded the question to ask if she had been forced to do work or if she had chosen to do the work. “In some instances, she told me to do so and I did it. Other times, I acted of my own accord. ”(Chapter 3, page 30) Abina was then asked if all other workers and servants were slaves.

Abina didn’t respond in the likings of the important men. “Are you aware that everybody in the protectorate is freed and that those people you saw in the defendant’s house are as free as the defendant, or Mr. Davis, or I,” said Eddoo’s lawyer. (Chapter 3, page 35) Infuriated, Abina claimed that most of the workers in the house were children of slaves and had no say in the situation at hand. Slaves were unpaid and Abina received no monetary funds, but only cloth and food. The defendants claimed, “In fact, it’s pretty obvious that you were paid, in cloth and in food.” (Chapter 5, page 61) Abina still believed she was a slave because she could no longer do as she pleased, maintain health, take care of herself independently, or marry who she pleased. “When a free person is sitting down at ease the slave is working. ” (Page 119) Abina may have been an empowering, fearless woman, but over all she lacked legal understanding of slavery causing her to look uneducated and supporting the belief that women aren’t equal to men. From the examples provided so far, the readers also can see how language and words used play an important role in the minds of the important men.

For this reason, Abina lost her case against Quamina Eddoo; however, Abina’s ultimate goal was to be heard and to finally overcome the historical silencing for herself and her class. “All day, all over the Gold Coast colony and protectorate, people go about their business. They do so with the help of numerous enslaved children. Every day, more and more are brought in from outside the protectorate. English justice was supposed to eliminate slavery but instead it has just shifted it onto the backs of children, who have become safer slaves to own than adults.” (Chapter 6, page 67) Abina grew to believe this. She knew she was wrongfully enslaved in her youth. She knew she wanted her own freedom. But most importantly she knew that she wanted her voice to be heard! Abina shared with Davis that this entire case was never about being safe or winning, it was about being heard. “I went to court so that I could say what needed to be said. So that they would hear how my life was. But now I know that nobody heard me. Now I know that I might as well have kept silent. ” (Chapter 6, page 74) Abina felt defeated.

Abina And The Important Men Movie

She had lost the case and believe her voice wasn’t heard. But according to the stages proposed by philosopher and historian Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Abina’s voice was heard. According to Trouillot, history is an act of silencing in which those without power are silenced and those with power aren’t. (Chapter 6, page 75) He proposed that silencing occurs in four stages, which support the evidence that Abina was heard. The first stage of silencing according to Trouillot is as followed, “Some people’s perspectives never get recorded.” (Page 120) However, Abina’s perspective was heard and recorded as a transcript of the court. Secondly, “not all records that are put into archived are saved; some documents get thrown away, others deteriorate, often because they are considered to have little value. ” (Page 120) However, the transcript of Abina’s voice wasn’t destroyed. Thirdly, “historians choose to feature some sources and voices and to ignore others when they write about the past. ”(Page 120) However, Getz didn’t ignore Abina’s story and with the help of Clarke’s illustrations, recreated her past.

Finally, the last stage according to Trouillot, was “some accounts of the past come to be seen as “classics” or “important,” while others are discounted. ” (Page 120) However, Abina’s perspective may have seemed unimportant to the important men in court but her will to testify in court reversed her silence. Abina may have been silenced during the first stages of the process, however she has been redeemed. We all can hear her story! In closing, Abina’s story was never meant to be told but the author’s gave life to Abina Mansah.

Abina And The Important Man

Abina was wrongfully slaved, but she fought for her freedom and she was able to overcome the historical silencing of young, enslaved women. Abina’s story shows how important enforcing slavery abolitionism affects the social structure of the world. However, providing the transcript, sifting through the information, and recreating the story graphically through context and guides really allowed me to identify with Abina and her struggle. Despite all the odds against her, Abina became more educated about slavery and in turn, allowed her voice to be heard. Abina and the Important Men was awesome!