Abina and the Important Men: A Graphic History by historian Trevor R. Getz and illustrator Liz Clarke is a unique combination of educational storytelling and historical facts. Presented in an unconventional historical graphic “novel” formal, Abina and the Important Men is a fascinating multipart text containing a pictorial translation of an engrossing historical account, the primary transcript of that account, and various textbook-like supplements for understanding the history behind a long forgotten story.
The purpose of the work can be interpreted as three-fold: sharing Abina’s personal story with the reader, shedding light on the typical work of a historian, and finally discussing historical context behind important themes. ABINA’S STORY One problem with understanding colonialism is that not all voices are preserved and written down equally. This is especially true of the illiterate, the poor, women, and in some cases people of color such as oppressed people like Abina.
The authors try to rectify this through the title of this book Abina and the Important Men by putting Abina before all the “important men” who would typically be remembered for dominating the proceedings of the court case, including Eddoo, Davis, Brew, and Hutton, despite this story is about Abina. However, it is crucial for people to hear the voices of others who have been disempowered before them because there are dangers of telling stories from only one perspective. According to “The Danger of a Single Story”, the TED talk by Chimamanda
Ngozi Adichie, “[My roommate’s] default position toward me, as an African, was a kind of patronizing, well-meaning pity… If I had not grown up in Nigeria, and if all I knew about Africa were from popular images, I too would think that Africa was a place of beautiful landscapes, beautiful animals, and incomprehensible people, fighting senseless wars, dying of poverty and AIDS, unable to speak for themselves and waiting to be saved by a kind, white foreigner” (The Danger of A Single Story TED talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie).
In essence, history needs stories such as Abina’s, as she incarnates a very different kind of colonized African woman that threatens the traditional passive prototype with more courage. According to Abina, “It was never just about being safe. It was about being heard. I went to court so that I could say what needed to be said” (77). Abina and the Important Men is also an exercise in the process of historical reconstruction. Getz and Clarke attempt to give voice to Abina by filling in the empty spaces of the court transcript, which was actually a transliteration of what Abina said.
Excavating Abina’s voice from within the document requires that the authors to confront the limitations and processes of representation and translation by which her testimony was turned into a transcript and then a graphic history. Consequently, in part four, they discuss the issues they grappled with in attempting to reconstruct a voice for Abina. For example, problems, reconstructing the way Abina talked and looked, and decoding the significance of the removal of Abina’s beads, were some of the many issues that the authors had to explore and reinterpret in their own way.
Despite a few lapses in which the dialogue unnaturally trudges through the backstory of British colonization, Getz does a superb job of recreating the court scenes, selecting his word choices on the actual primary source of the court transcript, which is also included in the book’s extensive appendices. As Getz explains to the reader, “[Historians] seek to understand not only what happened but also how people experienced events and why these events happened…
Like detectives, historians work with evidencewritten documents, archaeological remains, spoken words, each of which provides only a small part of the story. ” (115). To make this work of translation as transparent as possible, Getz and Clarke include alongside the graphic story many of the primary documents and historical contexts that informed their creative rendition of the facts. The result is an engaging book that is as much a classroom tool as it is an experimental amalgamation of historical research, and storytelling.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT Social class Aside from the primary text of the court proceedings in part two, part three offers the essential historical context for understanding the narrative. One reason the book is so useful for classroom instruction is because it is a window into many aspects of the institution of slavery in Africa. For example, the Abina and the Important Men showcased how there were variances among the different classes of Africans; not all Africans were slaves in contrary to popular belief.
Some were like Abina and Tando, however others were more powerful oversee-ers like Eccoah and Quamiah Eddoo, slave trader Yaw Awoah, and educated men such as James Davis, who was of mixed heritage. The book also highlighted some of the conflicts between these social classes and disrupts the generalization that all Africans under British rule had the same priorities. Justice The fundamental paradox which Getz illustrates brilliantly was William Melton’s tradeoff between preserving the high morals of British civilization versus preserving the political and economic tability of his job and the region.
William Melton points out that since slave owners are taxed, “We don’t want to stir things up. We can’t afford to have slave owners becoming angry with us” (14). Consequently, “English justice was supposed to eliminate slavery but instead it has just shifted it onto the backs of children, who have become safer slaves to own than adults” (71). There are also other tensions or conflicting points of view throughout the book on topics such as free will, patronizing role of slave owners and gift giving/buying a wife.
Gender & Marriage Finally, in contrast to marriage in Western societies where it is a celebaratory system, in Abina and the Important Men, Getz emphasizes that marriage is only a mechanism for Abina to continue being enslaved and that it was a cyclic problem. This is evident as Abina continually continues to change hands among the men that own her, including Yaw Awoah, Eddoo, and Tando. Abina’s gender also makes her prone to being enslaved as women were physically weaker, not educated, and were perceived as more submissive.
Eddoo highlights Abina’s lack women’s rights when he exclaims, “No Tando… she will marry you because I tell her to do so” (45). Gender was also present in the colonial courtroom through paternalistic British attitudes and law system. According to Davis, “To be a member of the jury, you must speak English well, you must own land or have money, and above all you must a man” (57). Finally, gender was at the heart of Abina’s motives in bringing her case to court, as she sought to navigate a route from shame to respectability through the institution of marriage and determine her own fate.
VERDICT Overall, the complexities of Abina and the Important Men arise from the difficulties faced by British “important men” in balancing principles of English justice with the profitable necessity of allowing rich landowners to carry on with abusive systems of slavery. However, the complex subject matter of slavery is easily digestible in Abina and the Important Men due to the graphic novel format and its various methods of educating readers including illustrations, notes, and Abina’s original court transcript.
The illustrative format also allowed the author to portray Abina as an authentic character through scenes such as the one where the slaves all huddle and cry together at night (41) which established empathy for Abina early n and primed readers for the heartbreaking conclusion without verbal cues. Moreover, I liked the fact that this book tried to reduce bias by offering a diverse selection (and conflicting) views of historians on the themes in Abina and the Important Men.
I found that the graphic novel format was also one of its weaknesses; although I was immediately engrossed story of Abina due to the vivid illustrations of her life, I found that the graphic novel portion of the book ended awkwardly and the ending was lukewarm for my taste in comparison to the rest of the book. While I understand that the story itself is short due to the lack of primary sources regarding Abina’s story and that a major theme is that the oppressed typically do not have a voice, a weakness has to be that this story was based on a single account of a witness and the author made many speculations.
Consequently, I believe that the latter parts of the book which discussed the historical context, various interpretations, and majors themes is crucial for preparing the reader for Abina’s story, and it would have been beneficial to the reader if it was discussed earlier on in the novel. Regardless, this graphic novel was a very good read and I would recommend this to others for its unconventional approach to storytelling and the unique story of Abina.
