Ariela

Aminata Diallo was a survivor. As I read through this book, I could not help notice how similar in character and circumstance the survivors of the slave trade had with the survivors of the holocaust. Being the daughter of holocaust survivors and hearing one horror story after the next, the story of Aminata had a familiar ring to it. Her abduction from her African village as a child, enduring the tortures of her march to the ship, the panic of the unknown, the branding, the living conditions these people were forced to endure, the loss of dignity, of family, dehumanizing of spirit and soul, and the strong instinct to survive. Aminata had the qualities, circumstance and luck needed to get through each step of her calamitous life. She was a woman of strength and intelligence with incredible hope who would do whatever she had to in order to move on. Through her journey of being sold as a slave to a detestable owner on an indigo plantation, to her reselling to another man, Solomon Lindo. Her journey takes her from Africa to South Carolina to New York (Canvas town) where she took part in the documentation of The Book of Negroes, writing down names and descriptions of black loyalists who served the British. She eventually journeys to Nova Scotia, then Sierra Leone (Freetown) and finally ends her journey in England where the abolitionists ask her to write her story and that is where the story starts and ends. Lawrence Hill writes a fiction tale rich in historical facts. This book was a real education and eye opener. It really made me think how far we have come to have an African-American president today, and how far we still have to go in the name of freedom and respect for all mankind.