Abina and the Important Men: A Graphic History

In the early to mid-1870s, British colonists invade West Africa’s Gold Coast and depose the kings of the Asante Confederation to control their valuable resources and slave trade. In 1876, when the story begins, England has transitioned into abolishing slavery, but they continue to import children, particularly young girls, to work and are willing to ignore unpaid labor—especially labor related to harvesting their new gold: palm oil.

Abina Mansah was enslaved as a child during a war and taken to work for wealthy Quamina Eddoo in Salt Pond, a town in the greater Gold Coast. Abina decides to run away and makes it to Cape Coast, a port city. She seeks help, and a local woman tells her that she needs to find the magistrate, Judge William Melton, to get papers to establish her freedom. To do this, she needs to get a job and a place to stay. The British, who have a large castle in the town, oversee the work of struggling classes. Per the woman’s guidance, Abina goes to attorney James Davis and shares her story. He is sympathetic to her and notes the law against slavery, but tells her that it’s impossible to enforce everywhere. He recommends that she stay in Cape Coast, so she can be free of her enslaver. Abina stays, finds work, and makes friends, but then her enslaver Quamina Eddoo arrives. Davis says there’s nothing they can do since Eddoo is an important man, but Abina pleads with him. He warns her that she’ll need to go to court to secure her freedom, and agrees to send her papers to the magistrate, Judge Melton. He pleads Abina’s case to Judge Melton, who acknowledges that it puts them in a tough position between the Queen’s abolition of slavery and tensions with enslavers like Eddoo, who is involved with the palm oil industry, which pays their salaries.

Constable Moosa brings Quamina Eddoo in on the charges of having an enslaved person, but tells him that it isn’t serious. Eddoo defends himself by saying he treated Abina well, and orders Tando (a man whom he wanted to marry Abina) to come with him and sister Eccoah Coom to watch the household’s enslaved girls to prevent their escape. He hires James Hutton Brew to be his lawyer. Eddoo expresses his grievances with the acceptance of British laws, like making slavery illegal. Brew asks him a series of questions to determine how easy it’ll be to win their case; he already thinks it’ll be easy since Abina is uneducated.

In court, Abina is called to the stand and tells her story: While originally from a big family, there was a war, and she was taken from her home to be enslaved. Another war broke out, and a merchant named Yaw Awoah (Yowahwah) married Abina. She was relatively happy until one day, Yaw Awoah left, taking the beads he’d given her (which symbolize their marriage). Quamina Eddoo said Yaw Awoah wasn’t her husband anymore and that she had to marry his choice for her, Tando. It was then when Abina realized she was enslaved again, and that her husband wasn’t coming back.

Abina is questioned in court and answers as truthfully as she can. She discusses how she works for Quamina Eddoo’s sister, Eccoah Coom, by doing laundry and making meals. She shares how hard she worked and yet was always forced to eat last, meaning there was sometimes no food left for her. The language barrier makes translating certain concepts, like “master,” difficult for Abina, but she presses on. Judge Melton assumes she‘s not intelligent enough to understand philosophical concepts like free will. Eddoo and his lawyer, James Hutton Brew, discuss the case, and Brew explains how they can win—by claiming Abina was an apprentice or a wife, rather than an enslaved person. Brew questions Abina and tries to trick her with semantics by posing the question of how she could be enslaved when slavery is illegal. He also asks her about the other girls in the Eddoo household. Abina stands up for herself, but the court is appalled by her forcefulness and orders her lawyer, James Davis, to calm her down.