The Book Of Negroes Character Analysis

The Glorious Gifts

The skills that one learns while young will become precious survival tools in the place that one lives. The Book of Negroes is a novel written by Lawrence Hill, who introduces his protagonist, Aminata, an eleven-year-old girl who becomes a slave. Different from some other slaves, Aminata knows two different languages and is a skilled midwife. After she travels to North America, she learns how to read and write in English. All of these skills help her survive through the ocean crossing, life in South Carolina, and in Nova Scotia. Finally, she finds freedom and her way back to her homeland. Hill creates the multiple settings in North America to demonstrate that Aminata’s baby catching skill, the understanding of multiple languages and literacy skills, learns while young, are essential for surviving.

Hill creates scenes on the boat to reveal that the protagonist’s baby catching skill is necessary for her survival. In Bayo, Aminata learns the baby catching skills from her mother. Hill creates a scene of Aminata is captured and arrives on the slave ship, an inspector asks her, “ Are you the one who caught that woman’s baby?” (60). She is famous because

On the boat, Aminata gains those privileges because of her baby catching and language skills. And these two skills help her survive through her life in North America. Also, the literacy skill helps gives her opportunities to make in living in her hardest time and she is able to write down her story. Hill creates those conflicts and challenges through the protagonist's life to highlight how influential the skills are. These experiences and skills that Hill creates become her precious surviving tools. Hill emphasizes that people need to cherish what they learn today, as the knowledge will be the prize