Two Princes of Calabar: An Atlantic Odyssey from Slavery to Freedom

Abstract

N 1767, English traders captured and sold into slavery Little Ephraim Robin John and Ancona Robin Robin John, young members of one of the ruling families of Old Calabar, a major slave trading port in the Bight of Biafra. Parts of their remarkable story have been known since the eighteenth century and have been mentioned briefly by a few scholars in the field. What has been previously unknown to scholars is the existence of a series of letters written by the young princes themselves, tucked away in the papers of Charles Wesley. These rare documents are among the earliest records from enslaved Africans in their own hand and make it possible to document their story in almost every detail. In many ways the young men and their odyssey from slavery to freedom is so exceptional that it might appear to have little relevance to the larger history of the slave trade in the eighteenth century. Were it not for the letters and the wealth of detail they provide-details that can be fully documented through the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database-the truth of their picaresque tale might be called into question. Though clearly unusual, the young men's strange odyssey offers insight into a complex world that historians are only beginning to understand, the transracial community of the eighteenth century. As individuals they represent a group that historian Ira Berlin identified as Atlantic creoles, Africans who lived in a West African coastal community and who had acquired European languages and culture and a thorough understanding of the commercial links between