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Abina and the Important Men is a compelling and powerfully illustrated "graphic history" based on an 1876 court transcript of a West African woman named Abina, who was wrongfully enslaved and took her case to court. The book is a microhistory that does much more than simply depict an event in the past; it uses the power of art to convey important themes in world history and to reveal the processes by which history is made. 
 
The story of Abina Mansah--a woman "without history" who was wrongfully enslaved, escaped to British-controlled territory, and then took her former master to court--takes place in the complex world of the Gold Coast at the onset of late nineteenth-century colonialism. Slavery becomes a contested ground, as cultural practices collide with an emerging wage economy and British officials turn a blind eye to the presence of underpaid domestic workers in the households of African merchants. The main scenes of the story take place in the courtroom, where Abina strives to convince a series of "important men"--a British judge, two Euro-African attorneys, a wealthy African country "gentleman," and a jury of local leaders--that her rights matter. "Am I free?" Abina inquires. Throughout both the court case and the flashbacks that dramatically depict her life in servitude, these men strive to "silence" Abina and to impose their own understandings and meanings upon her. The story seems to conclude with the short-term success of the "important men," as Abina loses her case. But it doesn't end there: Abina is eventually redeemed. Her testimony is uncovered in the dusty archives by Trevor Getz and, through Liz Clarke's illustrations, becomes a graphic history read by people around the world. In this way, the reader takes an active part in the story along with the illustrator, the author, and Abina herself. 
 
Following the graphic history in Part I, Parts II-V provide detailed historical context for the story, a reading guide that reconstructs and deconstructs the methods used to interpret the story, and strategies for using Abina in various classroom settings. 

 

 

About the 2nd Edition 

 

The second edition of Abina and the Important Men was published in 2015. It included a new section, Part 5 (“Engaging Abina”), built on the contributions and ideas of numerous students, readers, and scholars who have used the first edition. This new edition features a number of small changes and two innovative sections, a look at the way that greater attention to gender shifts our understanding of Abina’s experiences, and a debate between three leading historians about whether Abina was a slave. It also contained additional testimony, previously lost but now rediscovered in the National Archives of Ghana 

 

About the 3rd Edition 

 

The third edition of the book, which you hold in your hands right now, was a response to questions raised mainly by high school students around matters of race. In addition to editing one page of the graphic history, we have added to Part 5 a scholarly essay by a leading historian of race in the Gold Coast. We have also added an explanation of changes we made --  and chose not to make -- with reference to the place of race.  These additional sections and revisions reflected the need to constantly revisit the past through new lenses, both to make history usable in a shifting present and to increase our accuracy and authenticity in depicting the past.  More than even the previous edition, these revisions continue a conversation we are having with a community of scholars, students, and of course Abina Mansah. 

 

About the Authors 

 

Trevor R. Getz is a Professor of African and World History at San Francisco State University. His work focuses on history education – especially in the field of world history – as well as the social history of Africa. He is the author or co-author of eleven volumes, including Abina and the Important Men, which won the 2014 James Harvey Robinson Prize.  His work has been published by Duke UP, Oxford UP, Ohio UP, Bloomsbury, Prentice Hall, Westview, and James Currey.  It has also appeared in The American Historical Review,  The Journal of West African History, Slavery and Abolition, African Economic History, and Ghana Studies.    He is the recipient of the American Historical Association’s 2020 Eugene Asher Distinguished Teaching Award.  Trevor loves to do history in Lego and film as well as comics. He is currently president of the World History Association. 

 

Liz Clarke is an award-winning artist whose graphic histories include Abina and the Important Men, Perpetua’s Journey, The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt, and All Rise! Her art and illustration can be found at https://www.lizclarke.co.za/index.html.  

 

Trevor and Liz are co-authors on a forthcoming graphic history of the Montford Point Marines, the first African-American Marines, to be published by Oxford University Press in 2024.