This book highlights the significant role played by Ignatius Sancho (c. 1729-80), the first black man to vote in England, in the British abolitionist movement. Examining the letters of Sancho, and especially his correspondence with the influential novelist and preacher, Laurence Sterne, the author analyses the relationship between sensibility and antislavery in eighteenth-century Britain. The book demonstrates how Sancho navigated the bawdy, riotous conditions of commercial London, which was the headquarters of a growing and war-torn Empire. It shows how Sancho mastered the fashionable and gendered language of the culture of sensibility, navigating the contemporary issues of race, slavery, and politics. The book also touches on the White metropolitan and colonial preoccupation with Black men’s sexuality, which was intensified by the Somerset decision of 1772. Sancho’s was a unique and influential voice in eighteenth-century Britain, making this book an insightful read for scholars of anti-slavery as well as gender, race and imperialism in British history.

Insight into the life of an ex-slave writer in England.

Born on a slave ship( enroute to the West Indies, orphaned by the age of two and taken to England by his owner, Ignatius Sancho rose from servitude to include among his friends noted artists, writers, actors, and prominent politicians. The literary quality and historical importance of his letters reveal a man of sensitivity, intellect, and charm, while also presenting an unusual chronicle of the times.

Ignatius Sancho, 1729-1780 Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, An African. In Two Volumes. To Which Are Prefixed, Memoirs of His Life. Vol. II

"Shawna Herzog explores the ways sex and gender complicated the enforcement of colonial anti-slavery policies, the challenges local officials faced in identifying slave populations, and how European reclassification of slave labor to systems of indenture, or 'free,' labor created a new illicit trade for women and girls to the Strait Settlements of Southeast Asia. This book provides an important new perspective for scholars of slavery interested in Southeast Asia, British imperialism in the Indian Ocean world and Asia, the East India Company in the Straits, and gender and sexuality in the context of empire"--