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The Book Of Negroes Aminata Historical Accuracy

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Novels often depict realistic situations and outlooks on life. This enables the readers to view and learn different aspects through the author’s illustrations. Authors project world issues and opinions through their novels and create stories around them. Lawrence Hill took it upon himself to project the issue of racial discrimination in his novel, The Book of Negroes, through a fictional character named Aminata. The protagonist gets abducted into slavery and experience hardships, tragedy, oppression and betrayal. Nevertheless, she faces the horrid, hostile world with a brave face in her long journey to freedom. Aminata’s story grasps the truth behind the human race in terms of their treatment and judgment of the unfamiliar. Hill’s novel effectively …show more content…

Historical fictions bring an individual’s life through historical events into reality. Hill’s use of detail in his writing makes the readers realize the horror of what the human race is capable of. For example, when Aminata describes her experience on the ship, she says, “Everywhere I turned, men were lying naked, chained to each other and to their sleeping boards, groaning and crying. Waste and blood streamed along the floorboards, covering my toes,” (73). This illustration perfectly describes the conditions the slaves lived in. It disgusts the reader to find out this is what really happened. Hill did not exaggerate or left out any gruesome details. The slaves do in fact endure hostility and oppression by these tyrants that are their capturers. Furthermore, slave owners and traders were not the only tyrants to inflict harm on those who are coloured. Many people outside of the slave industry plays a role in the mistreatment of Negroes. The mistreatment is shown when Aminata describes the white men rampaging through town, killing, beating, and raping Negroes. They tear down houses or set them on fire. They will attack anyone who resists (382). The people of Nova Scotia blamed the Black loyalists, African American supporters of the British during the American Revolutionary War, for taking their jobs and retaliated in violence. The ‘white men’ uses violence and fear to beat the Negroes into submission. The slaves flees to a supposedly safe haven for protection and freedom, but is instead met with the same hostility and resentment. All because they are of African descent, they are considered a lower specimen. Hill effectively incorporates accurate historical events to open the eyes of the readers to the truth of our cruel world of

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