The Book of Negroes has a clear message about racism and slavery against Africans. The main character called Aminata Diallo was abducted from Africa at the age of eleven and sold into slavery, where she spends the majority of her life. Age is such an important fact in the message of this book, due to the fact that she was a carefree girl until she was caught and as a consequence, she had to grow up faster and had to deal with slavery for the majority of her life, dealing with racism against black people on a regular basis. The purpose of this presentation is to illustrate and analyze the main causes that make the different ages of Aminata throughout the book as one of the most important factors for its development and also the evolution of her as a character.
At the beginning
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I jumped away and ripped leaved from the nearest branch. In a frenzy, I wiped a mass of writing white worms from my ankle. I was shaking and wheezing. Fanta took the leaves and wiped my foot and held me and told me not to be afraid. But my hysteria escalated, even though Fanta barked at me to calm down, and I could not stop screaming (41)
This passage shows just a little insight on what the slave could see when they walked. The long trip that the slaves had to walk is one of the main factor that changed Aminata permanently and also it is the beginning of her early adulthood.
Moreover, another factor of her earliest enter into adulthood is the abuses that she suffered at the hands of the slave traders, because slaves were treated as animals. In the following passage, slaves were marked with a hot metal as if they were animals of a herd: They dragged me to the branding corner. Their wounding metal was curved like a giant insect. As they brought it toward me, I defecated. They aimed a finger’s length above my right nipple, and pressed it into my flesh. I could smell it burning. The pain ran through me like hot waves of lava