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Abina And Her Historians Analysis

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Abina and Her Historians With so much history in the past it would be impossible for historians to tell the story of every human and every case. Historians use Abina and the Important Men to summaries how life was in her time. Historians are tasked with a hard job, explaining the past and helping others understand how the World is the way it is. In this story historians use three different sources to explain the past. This story, while not all of it may have actually happened, is an example of how historians take a small true story and expand it and interpret this history. While using a comic strip, a court case, and some historical background; the author reconstructs a time with using just one story. The story follows the life of Abina …show more content…

Most of the court case is in “The Transcript” but the historical background helps the reader picture her life before and after. The first two pages of the comic come from the historical background. It explains the setting of the story while “The Transcript” only says the date. “The Gold Coast is a name bestowed by Europeans upon a stretch of West Africa roughly approximating the southern half of the modern-day state of Ghana” (99). This gives us a sense of where she is and what is happening right now in that area. It provides a map that points out the physical location. In the comic strip there are bubbles with words in them. These come from the four other slave girls (Accosuah, Abina, Adjuah, and Ambah) and two other men (Attah and Senegay). The things they say are not directly stated in the primary source document. They are inferred to add more understanding to the story. In the comic, the important men argue about if prosecuting Eddoo will be worth it to the economy. “If just any unhappy worker can accuse their employer of slavery, what will it do to our young economy” (69). “Their labor is necessary for the smooth functioning of the household, of the clan, and eventually the state” (69). This is not in “The Transcript” but is imagined by the historians using the historical content. The British had recently created Colonies and Protectorates in Africa and were being careful not to mess up the new system. “Out of the chaos left by the Asante retreat, the British managed to create a system of agreements with local rulers” (103). “…more and more children, especially girls, were enslaved outside the Colony and Protectorate and brought in to serve as slaves” (108). “They feared that actively liberation enslaved people would cause chaos, which they wished to avoid” (108). The historical context provides the important roll of making the story whole. Historians do this so

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