James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw and Borno

We here at the blog finally read the brief autobiography of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw. Said to be from Borno, we thought it mandatory to examine his autobiography as another potential source on the history of Kanem-Borno. Unfortunately, upon closer examination, the fascinating character which emerges in this autobiography could not have been from Borno. Too many inconsistencies and errors suggest that James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw was probably from another part of West Africa, perhaps a region closer to the Gold Coast than his narrative suggests.

While Borno certainly did have trading links to the Gold Coast in the 18th century, which may have involved ivory, it is remarkable that Gronniosaw's autobiography creates a portrait of a Borno which couldn't have been in the 18th century. Claiming to be the grandson of the king of Borno, one would expect Gronniosaw to have been a Muslim, or at least familiar with Islam. Unless his mother married a non-Muslim, he would have definitely been raised in the faith and possibly received at least a basic Koranic education. Instead, Gronniosaw fails to mention Islam, but mentions the worship of the Moon, Sun, and stars. Further, Gronniosaw was astonished when he first saw a man (the Dutchman who purchased him on the Slave Coast) read a book. If he was indeed from Borno's capital, and of royal blood, one would expect him to have familiarity with literacy and books. 

Furthermore, when describing their congregations of worship, he only mentions worshipping under trees in the city. Supposedly their day of Sabbath was on Saturday, not the expected Friday of Muslims. How could he not have been familiar with the mosques of Birni Gazargamo or the rituals of Islamic worship? Was his Islamic background erased by the Christian writer who recorded his narrative? Or, as we think more likely, was he from another part of West Africa? That might elucidate the autobiography's allusion to palm wine consumption in Gronniosaw's homeland. It would also explain the use of bark to produce cloth. After all, in our experience with the sources on textiles in Borno, most was produced with cotton.

Despite these flaws and questions of its accuracy for the origin of Gronniosaw, one should still read it. As an autobiography, filtered through the Christian propaganda and symbolism of his interlocutor, it provides some insights into the experiences of West Africans in the "Atlantic World" in the 18th century. Gronniosaw visited Martinique, Barbados, and Havana and lived in New York, Holland, London, and other parts of Britain. He experienced the life of a privateer in the Caribbean, as well as a difficult life of poverty in Britain. Indeed, his white wife, Betty, a weaver, experienced hardship due to labor unrest in her field. Thus, one can see elements of 3 forces that defined the increasingly closer "Atlantic World" of Africa, Europe and the Americas through the lens of race, class, and colonialism in the life of Gronniosaw.