ANSAH SESSARAKOO was born in Annamaboe in 1736. Annamaboe is the original name of the town we now know as Anomabo. It was the then largest slave-trading port on the across the globe.
His father was John Correntee (what other Akan tribes in Ghana call/spell Koranteng), chief caboceer and head of the Annamaboe (present day Anomabo) government & chief who was a slave trader and an important ally for any trader along the coast of West Africa.
Point to note: CABOCEER is from the Portuguese cabociero, which means headman or official. Caboceers were local West African reps/officials responsible for supplying African slaves to European traders.
Ansah Sessarakoo’s father wanted to have eyes in Europe (where he was held in high esteem) to be sure his business is booming so he sent his first son to France for school and Ansah to England to gain an education, curry favour with the English, and serve as his eyes and ears in Europe. But an (un)fortunate incident occurred.
Ansah’s father spoke to one of his trusted captains of a slave ship (a British) and paid him a good sum of money to send Ansah to England for Education. The ship captain entrusted with Ansah’s transport sold him into slavery in West Indies before reaching England.
John Corrente & the Fante people fell out of contact with Ansah and presumed him dead. Still, as John Corrente’s son, Ansah was well known by the Fante people, and he was discovered by a Fante trader doing business in Barbados. Once the trader relayed news of Ansah’s enslavement to Corrente, Corrente insisted that the British free Ansah and carry him the rest of the way to England which they did because they feared their supply of slaves would end if they didn’t heed to the petition of Correntee.
English trade had, during Ansah’s enslavement, been suffering in Annamaboe as Corrente blamed the nation for his son’s presumed death. Not surprisingly then, the English were quick to jump on the opportunity to return to Corrente’s good graces. They liberated Ansah from slavery and transported him to England where he was received as a “The Prince of Annamaboe” or the “Royal African”.
Ansah was received in England in 1748 as Prince William Ansah Sessarakoo or The Royal African. Under the protection of George Montagu-Dunk, 2nd Earl of Halifax, President of the Board of Trade, Ansah received privileged treatment in Britain for political and economic reasons. In fact, there exist many reports of his frequent appearances in London society. Most notably, he attended a showing of Oroonoko, a play depicting the wrongful enslavement of an African prince and his wife by Europeans.
Oroonoko, or, the Royal Slave is a short work of prose fiction by Aphra Behn (1640–1689), published in 1688 by William Canning and reissued with two other fictions later that year. The eponymous hero is an African prince from Coramantien who is tricked into slavery and sold to British colonists in Surinam where he meets the narrator. Behn’s text is a first person account of his life, love, rebellion, and execution.
The play likely reminded Ansah of himself & his predicament as a salve. In William Dodd’s “The African Prince, Now in England, to Zara at his Father’s Court,” Ansah claims: “I can’t recall the scene, ’tis pain too great” when referring to Oroonoko. Speaking about his slave days, Ansah claimed “The shouted prince is now a slave unknown.” He claimed that “in groans, not sleep, [he] pass’d the weary night, and rose to labour with morning light.”
Source for this interview: The Gentleman’s Magazine, July 1749, 323–25.
Regardless, Ansah succeeded in garnering respect for himself and his people as civilized individuals; many were impressed by his manners and graciousness.
Ansah’s to visit England was never meant to be permanent, so he returned home to his father and the Fante people in 1750. He returned “elaborately dressed in the latest style befitting his station” with an English education and immense understanding of English culture.
After only a year back in Africa, he began work as a writer at Cape Coast Castle, the seat of British power on the Gold Coast some ten miles Southwest of Annamaboe.
Employing both his position at Cape Coast Castle and powerful connections in London, Ansah worked with his father, John Corrente, to play the British and French off each other in Annamaboe. By pledging allegiance to neither of the two powers, Annamaboe forced both Britain and France to offer competitive trade offers and regular tributes to remain in good standing.
No longer in good favour with the British, Ansah spent the rest of his life in Annamaboe as a slave trader. Annamaboe was the “World Trade Center” for slaves and Ansah and his father were at the Center of that Slave center. Slaves were matched on foot from Ashanti, Northern Ghana, Burkina, etc to Annamaboe and they had their last bath before taken for final shipment.
The last bath these slaves had denotes that they are heading to Fort Williams to be shipped off. This bath was in a river called “Dɔnkɔ nsuo” (Slave river). This is a sacred place of remembrance. Slaves were brought to this river to be washed and inspected before being sent to nearby slave castles to be sold off.
Ansah lived his final days and passed away in relative anonymity, at least from the European perspective that is. As such, the date of his death is unknown. It can nonetheless be estimated based upon the date of his dismissal from Cape Coast Castle and later trade records that he died ca. 1770.
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