Question 1: Abina's story is, considering its context in time as completely new since it represents voices of those who people who suffered from slavery and especially the enslaved women. Abina's story tells us about a woman, that I will consider as having been enslaved, who breaks the rules of society at that time by denouncing her master, and claiming that she was actually a slave considering the fact that in 1876 slavery was actually abolished by the British Empire in the gold coast. Of course, trying to draw the graphic novel was a bit challenging for the author since Abina's story occurred in 1876 in the Gold Coast of West Africa. According to part IV of Abina and the important men, the author has mainly used and relied on primary sources such as documents and oral histories collected within the archives and communities of Ghana, for the secondary sources he used scholarly works from experts in the region's history (Getz and Clark). Moreover, by turning Abina's testimony into a graphic history Getz has become the main voice of Abina. In other words, we can consider that Abina has been marginalized in the transcript that contains her story because we cannot evaluate the reliability of the transcript's writer. By choosing a graphic model as a support, Getz was able to make Abina's story known all over the world so that people including children can feel and understand her pain ,her struggle, and all the oppression that she has been through during all the years that she has been silenced and almost inexistent in the historical field . In addition, the author claims that he cannot prove that his interpretation of Abina's testimony is entirely correct (Getz ). It is pretty obvious that it is almost impossible to get the real facts and how the actions really occurred during the trial process, and that even before she escaped from her master. I consider that the author did a excellent work since he collected as much information as he could, and put the pieces all together so that we can have a clear vision of Abina's situation in 1876. Even though there is a lack of information, the author compensated that by using his sense of creativity, in fact, by seeing the characters' facial expressions we can understand sadness, madness and incomprehension. I believe that the concept of creating a graphic novel was a very bright idea since there is a doubt about the accuracy of the details, as long as the characters are not modified. There are many different reasons that lie behind all this questioning, and one of them is the language barrier. During that time, the clerk was the person who was held responsible for writing down the transcripts where he has to describe and note everything that happens or is said during the trial. As we can notice in the graphic novel, there are a lot of syntax and grammatical issues. We can consider that the main reason behind it was the bas translation from the local language of Asante to English, or we can consider that the English spoken in the past was very different from now." Most of clerks at the time, whether trained or not, had difficulty following rapid conversations and frequently made errors or omissions" ( Getz, Clark). Abina's story is also full of complex concepts that are part of the local traditions. The author, in order to better understand the transcript and its chronological context had to ask around for information from Ghanaian scholars and actual residents. Thus, the graphic novel gave an importance to Abina's story thanks to Liz Clarke. The graphic novel was relatively short but nonetheless very valuable, touching and clear. The graphic novel helps people all of all ages, especially the young ones to get a clear image of the actions that had occurred during that time. The drawing shows the emotions and facial expressions of Abina and all the other characters that had been part of the story which makes it easier to for people to understand it. Actually, young people are more likely to read a graphic novel that tells her story rather than read a book. When the author was asked during an interview about what is so unusual and special about the story of Abina, he simply replied Abina was a poor and young, woman and a former slave in the 19th century British colonial system. Historically, it is rare to hear slaves' voices, and here she was, in the courtroom, forcing people to hear the truth of her experience, but we could get her testimony and learn about her experience today, 137 years later. To conclude, the author gave us a clear explanation of Abina's situation back in 1876 with passion, and a lot of sympathy for her.
Question 2: The term of slave is pretty hard to be defined since this concept can be seen from different viewpoints and perspectives. The characters that qualify and label a person as a slave may differ from a place to another. For instance, the way Africans define a slave is very different from the perspective of the westerns. But still as far as I am concerned, a slave is a person who is considered by his/her master as a merchandise, meaning that it can be bought or sold and does not get any income or wage for his/her work. Even though the scholars do not really present the slavery as it is, especially the western scholars. As it is mentioned in the journal article written by Miers and Kopytoff, the western scholars tend to give a gentle image about the slavery because they feel a sense of guilt toward the Africans and their ancestors".( Miers and Kopytoff). We can consider Abina's slave experience as typical at that time even if it is morally wrong. She was forced to do work at the house like cleaning up, preparing food and sometimes she had to do work on the plantations. Abina's experience can be considered typical at that time, since there were cases worse than that. In fact, slaves were abused morally and physically, but not in Abina's case. According to her testimony on the transcript, Abina was forced to marry a man who was a complete stranger to her. She didn't want to marry the man against her will, which is the motif that pushed her to stand up and run away from her master. As it is clearly stated on the graphic story, she wanted to be free; she was tired of being told what to do, she wanted to live her life as a normal person. She obviously was a slave, since she was brought to Edoo by her old master; she was forced to do hard work both at the house and the plantation. Also, the cutting of the beads and clothes are very significant regarding the fact whether she was a slave or not." The cutting of the beads and the giving clothes is a tradition in Asante, the giving of clothes signifies belonging" (Getz). In other words, when Abina had her beads cut off and clothes given, she automatically became his slave, she belonged to him. "She also had been called a slave more than once even by the sister of Edoo when she used to live with her" (Getz). Even though, there wasn't enough evidence to prove that Abina was a slave, she clearly was enslaved and morally abused. In fact, Abina was aware that she was enslaved at the period of time when slavery was abolished by the British. She had the courage to stand up against her master to tell the truth in front of the court.
Question 3: The decision of the magistrate William Melton that Edoo is not guilty of enslaving Abina at the time where slavery is abolished was not surprising to me at all. During the simulation of the trial that we did in class, I was a member of the jury and my decision based on the defense arguments and on the historical context was exactly the same as the magistrate's decision. Thus, I believe that the decision of the magistrate William Melton was strongly influenced by external considerations. During that time, slavery has already been abolished by the colonial British power; on the other hand, the country still had many children working in plantations. These children could be labeled as slaves since they are not paid and do the same type of work that the slaves do."In fact, to the westerners and especially Anglo Americans slavery was mostly practiced in plantations, the slave to westerns is a person possessed by a master who uses him for personal needs, he can be sold or bought,inherited, and has no control over his destiny, no choice of occupation, no choice over who he or she can be married to, no control over the fate over his children, assuming that all slaves must be unhappy. Furthermore, the antithesis of slavery is freedom, which eventually signifies that a free man cannot be bought, sold, inherited or physically abused" (Miers and Kopytoff). All these facts and statements show that the magistrate made a paradoxical decision; his decision was against all the values that the British stand for. Personally, I presume that the magistrate didn't have enough evidence against Edoo to prove that he is guilty, and the representative of Edoo was a very smart, well-educated man who knows well how the system works. In fact, he was biracial and understood very well the two different perspectives about slavery, the African and the British. He took advantage of it and hewas being very tricky in the court with both the magistrate and Abina which eventually led to the confusion of Abina, and even was able to convince the magistrate that his client was not guilty of what he has been accused of.I truly believe that his decision was influenced by external considerations such as honor and respect, economic reasons and so on. It is clear that after the abolition of slavery in the gold coast, they partially gavethe work that the slaves used to do on the plantations to the kids; this can be considered as a new mode of slavery and exploitation. The economy of the region was mainly focused on palm oil, so eventually they needed these children to work on plantations in order to keep the economy stable. Moreover, the magistrate cannot go against the system, he might have been completely aware of the fact that there were still enslaved children and women working on the plantations. Also, the fact that Edoo is a powerful man in the region of Asante made hard for the judge to be on the side of Abina which I think it is understandable but not fair at all. The magistrate had claimed:" Moreover, men like QuaminaEdoo grow palm oil, and palm oil is taxed and those taxes pay our salary,and in the long run mine as well. This is simply too big" (Getz, 14).
Question 4: During the period of colonialism, most of the European countries kept expanding their powers throughout the world, especially in Africa and South America, but this time they were colonizing people under the excuse of the civilizing mission. As far as I am concerned, I always considered the colonialism as a new form of slavery, because what European countries concretely did was legalizing slavery and forcing those slaves to work in plantations, to get enough resources for the European industrial revolution. But, those European countries considered that their mission was to bring civilization to Africa, spread Christianity and help the natives to learn about god and religion. The British civilizing mission consisted on spreading religion, introducing civilization, and more importantly abolishing slavery. The Arab slave trade which was still ongoing affected somehow the British economy.On the other hand, the civilizing mission of the British was mainly behind economical reason, on purpose to expand their power. The gold coast is known for their resources, especially palm oil which is one of the main products of the country. The British had largely exploited the country by making children work on the palm oil plantations, and then exporting it to other countries. One of the standards of the British civilizing mission and legal system is the freedom of speech, meaning that anyone has the right to speak up in the court. Abina challenged the british civilizing mission by asking for a fair trial and pressing charges against her master who was a rich and well-respected man in the region of Asante. The challenge wasn't successful since the decision of the magistrate was not fair, he was clearly on Eboo's side, the rich man which shows us that there is no real transparency. The magistrate maybe tried to hide the fact that slavery still existed in that region even after its abolition by the British Empire itself. But at the same time, the biggest users of slaves were certainly the British themselves by forcing people to work in their plantations without getting any income, but maybe that the majority of those slaves were just looking for someone to feed them so they accepted food as an income instead of real wage.