In 1772, a groundbreaking publication quietly emerged in England: A Narrative of the Most Remarkable Particulars in the Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, An African Prince, as Related by Himself. It was the first known autobiography published by a formerly enslaved African, predating more famous works like those of Olaudah Equiano. Gronniosaw’s narrative offered British readers a firsthand account of the horrors of slavery, told in the author’s own voice. And it all began with a lie.
Gronniosaw was born in Bornu (present-day northeastern Nigeria or Chad), into a royal family. As a child, he was raised in comfort and surrounded by tradition, but his young mind brimmed with curiosity. It was that curiosity that a cunning Gold Coast trader exploited when he lured the boy away from his home with stories of far-off wonders. The man promised to show him a place where “houses with wings to them walk upon the water” and people with skin as white as snow. To a child unfamiliar with ships or Europeans, this description was more magical than suspicious.
“He told me,” Gronniosaw later recalled, “that if I would go with him I should see houses with wings to them walk upon the water, and should also see the white folks.” But what he would soon discover was that these “houses” were slave ships, and he had just stepped into the machinery of the Atlantic slave trade.
Gronniosaw followed, unaware that he was being kidnapped and sold into slavery. That “house with wings” turned out to be a slave ship. In exchange for just two yards of check cloth, Gronniosaw was sold to a Dutch captain and shipped to Barbados, and later purchased by an American who took him to New York.
In New York, Gronniosaw was sold again, this time to Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen, a Dutch Reformed Church minister in New Jersey. It was here that Gronniosaw was introduced to Christianity, taught to read, and immersed in religious life. Under Frelinghuysen’s guidance, he developed a deep and sincere devotion to the Christian faith, though it came with internal torment.
Struggling with feelings of spiritual unworthiness, Gronniosaw once attempted to take his own life, believing that he could never be saved. His religious worldview was further shaped by Old Ned, a Black servant who frightened him with stories about the devil’s punishments in Hell, warning him to avoid profanity and sin. These early moments reveal a man being reshaped from the inside out, not just socially, but spiritually.
When Frelinghuysen died, Gronniosaw was freed according to his master’s will. However, his life did not become easier. He continued working for Frelinghuysen’s widow and children, but they all died within four years. Still seeking purpose, he joined the British army as a cook and later as a soldier, hoping to earn enough money to reach England.
Once in England, Gronniosaw faced poverty and exploitation. Swindled out of his savings in Portsmouth, he moved to London, where he married Betty, a young English widow. Their life was hard. One of their children died and was denied a Christian burial by the local clergy. They relied on the kindness of strangers, to survive.
Eventually, with the help of an anonymous “young lady” from Leominster and Reverend Walter Shirley, Gronniosaw published his autobiography.
The Narrative tells a story not only of slavery and hardship but also of spiritual transformation and cultural assimilation. Gronniosaw thanked God for his journey into slavery, not because he glorified the system, but because he believed it was part of a divine plan to bring him to Christianity.
While later Black writers like Olaudah Equiano and Frederick Douglass would use their autobiographies to denounce slavery as an evil institution, Gronniosaw did not. Instead, he framed his life through the lens of Christian salvation. His suffering, in his view, was necessary for his spiritual growth.
His gratitude for slavery must be read in context though. It wasn’t born of freedom, but of indoctrination, introduced to religion in bondage, molded by Christian theology, and stripped of his homeland, family, and traditions. Christianity gave him a way to make sense of his pain, even if that meant framing his captivity as God’s will.
Gronniosaw died on September 28, 1775, in Chester, England, at the age of 70. He had spent his final years in Kidderminster, worshiping among his fellow Christians. His obituary in the Chester Chronicle noted his African origin and his devout Christianity, describing his passing with “cheerful serenity.”
Nearly 250 years after its publication, A Narrative of the Most Remarkable Particulars remains a compelling and often uncomfortable read. It tells of a boy tricked into slavery, a man transformed by religion, and a life lived between two worlds, Africa and Europe, bondage and belief.
Source:
https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/gronniosaw/gronnios.html
