James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw (1710? -1775) was the grandson of the king of Bournou, in modern day Northern Eastern Nigeria. He grew dissatisfied with his life there and took an offer up from a merchant offering to take him to the Gold Coast for adventure.
Upon arrival a local king thought he was a spy and was going to kill him. Gronniosaw convinced the king to let him live and sell himself as a slave instead. He was enslaved and sold to a Dutch merchant.
He was sold in New York for fifty pounds to Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen, an evangelical minister in the Great Awakening. Alike Wheatley, Gronniosaw met George Whitefield (one of the founders of Methodism) and was moved by the Evangelical movement.
Quite understandably Gronniosaw grew depressed under enslavement missing his family and freedom. He attempted suicide in 1747. Gronniosaw survived the experience and said it prompted a religious rebirth.
Upon his master's death he was a free man. He worked as a privateer (privateers were sailors used in time of war up till the 19th century) in the Seven Years War to repay his debt.
After his debt was paid off, he moved to England in 1762. He fell in love with Betty an English widow. They were married and suffered from poverty for most of their adult life. His daughter died of a fever after having smallpox in Norwich.
Gronniosaw and Betty spent the rest of their lives in poverty in Kidderminster and he died in Chester in 1775.
This is all recorded in A Narrative of the most Remarkable Particulars in the Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, an African Prince, as Related by Himself, published in Bath in 1772. The books preface says, "This Account of the Life and spiritual Experience of James Albert was taken from his own Mouth and committed to Paper by the elegant Pen of a young Lady of the Town of Leominster, for her own private Satisfaction, and without any Intention at first that it should be made public".
This is one of the first slave autobiographies that were popular with abolitionists. The book is dedicated to Selina Hastings, who was the patron of Gronniosaw.
Dedication to Hastings is very similar to Wheatley's own dedication
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
The Countess of Huntingdon;
THIS
NARRATIVE
Of my LIFE, And of God's wonderful Dealings with me, is, (Through Her LADYSHIP'S Permission) Most Humbly Dedicated, By her LADYSHIP'S Most obliged And obedient Servant
JAMES ALBERT.
A Narrative of the Most Remarkable Particulars in the Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw is available on youtube read aloud for free after typing the title into the search bar.
A free online edition of the novel is available at https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/gronniosaw/gronnios.html
For a more detailed biography of Gronniosaw click here: https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/71634
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