"Something Else Ought Yet to be Done": Ottobah Cugoano's Critical Abolitionism

Abstract:This essay argues that Ottobah Cugoano's 1787 abolitionist treatise, Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, advances a critique of two political and literary tropes often associated with the abolitionist movement: humanitarian narrative and appeals to the law. Understanding these critiques allows us to recognize not only greater variety in abolitionist politics, but also abolitionism's general reluctance to treat slavery as an injustice requiring not amelioration, but rather remedy, restitution, and reparation. Cugoano's theory of slavery as a wrong highlights the international and intergenerational character of slavery's injustice. He argues that the historical and ongoing legal justification for slavery has effectively delegitimized the political authorities that sanctioned and supported the institution for centuries. Further, he imagines a revolutionary remedy for this injustice that would begin from a political recognition of slavery's impact on the globe.