Ottobah Cugoano
British abolitionist and activist (1757–1791)
Ottobah Cugoano (c. 1757 – c. 1791), also known as John Stuart, was a British abolitionist and activist who was born in the Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana). He was sold into slavery at the age of thirteen and shipped to Grenada in the West Indies. In 1772, he was purchased by a merchant who took him to England, where Cugoano learned to read and write, and was emancipated. Eventually, he started working for the artists Richard and Maria Cosway, becoming acquainted with several prominent British political and cultural figures as a result. He joined the Sons of Africa, a group of Black abolitionists in Britain, and died at some point after 1791.
Early life
He was born Quobna Ottobah Cugoano in 1757 in Agimaque (Ajumako) in the Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana). He was born into a Fante family and his family was close to the local chief.
At the age of 13, Cugoano was kidnapped with a group of children, sold into slavery and transported from Cape Coast on a slave ship to Grenada. He worked on a plantation in the Lesser Antilles until he was purchased in 1772 by Alexander Campbell, a Scottish plantation owner, who took him into his household.
Late in 1772, Campbell took Cugoano with him on a visit to England, where Cugoano was able to secure his freedom.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ottobah Cugoano” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.