Abina And The Important Men Summary

Trevor R. Getz and Liz Clarke had a unique way of giving an educational storytelling and a historical research of Abina and the Important Men. These authors give Abina a voice throughout the entire book. Getz and Clarke had ways of breaking down the life of Abina into a pictorial translation, a transcript of her trial, and many more documents that make it easier to comprehend and teach the history behind the story.
Abina Mansah was a young, enslaved woman who was wrongfully enslaved and escaped to a British controlled territory in 1876, called Cape Coast. She then took her former slave master, Quamina Eddoo, to court because she felt like she was held against her will and she was unlawfully enslaved. The main purpose of Abina taking her case
The purpose is to make the reader feel sympathetic for Abina. Unfortunately, Abina did not win her case due to the lack of power and there was a very low chance that she could win. Throughout the transcript, Abina speaks but she was not heard. She was seen as an uneducated young girl just responding to questions. Abina tried hard to prove that she was a slave but her words meant nothing to those important men. Aja Melton says “Then not being treated as a free person what did you consider you were. What did you know that you were?” (86) Melton had his way of defining slavery but Abina knew exactly what she was considered. She responded as her being an “Amerperlay” or slave. (86) Abina had come to the conclusion that she was sold and she knew she had been sold when her former master told her she was going to be marrying Tandoe. (92) “They were all clothed and fed, but not fed [sic… meant “paid,” I think],” proved that Abina was uneducated because she questioned her own statement. This statement made by Abina did not seem plausible to the men in the room because that showed them that she was both uneducated and knew nothing she was talking about. (89) Both Aja Melton and James Brew made Abina out to be stupid when she was not. She just misunderstood because of her lack of education. However, the way that Abina responded
The primary source promoted a deeper understanding of the history and more evidence through the research of Getz. The purpose of these sources was to get a better understanding of what happened and why it happened. (97) This meant Getz would have to discuss the historical background of the trial and region. Both Part II and III gave a great abundance of information that the reader would need to know in order to understand the story and how it ended. Getz and Clarke had to reconstruct Abina’s story and bring together as many sources as possible. The historical context of the story gives the reader knowledgeable information and background history around that time period. In order for the reader to understand, Getz had to reconstruct the background history of the documents and oral histories that came from archives and communities of Ghana. (115) The reconstruction of the documents and works of experts led Getz to make inferences based on what he read and how he interpreted it. The historian has to interpret the past events in order for it to make sense to the reader. Therefore each person interprets the story in their own way. With that being said the author chose to write Abina’s testimony in a way that it was speaking to him, and he had a way of emphasizing words at certain points by putting words in character’s mouths that they may not have said. (116) If the interpretation of both the author