Someone Knows My Name is an older historical novel by Lawrence Hill. After reading it, I am surprised that I'd never come across this novel before. It's the story of Aminata, an 11-year old African girl, kidnapped from her homeland by slavers in the mid-1700s. She is marched over many months to coastal Africa from her home further inland where she is put on a slave ship headed towards South Carolina. She started out as a slave on an indigo plantation, eventually gets traded to an administrative type in the indigo industry. She ends up in New York City during the Revolutionary War, and then gets rewarded for her service to the king of England with passage to Nova Scotia and hope for a fresh start. Life continues to be hard and full of prejudice. Meena agrees to join with British abolitionists who are determined to create a colony in Africa, Sierra Leone, which former slaves can become "adventurers" and experience freedom for the first time.
Meena, feeling like she'd lost everything that was every important to her decides that going to Sierra Leone will be her opportunity to go home. The home that she's longed for since she was first kidnapped many years earlier. Home is not exactly what she imagined, but she and the abolitionists realize the importance of Meena telling the story of her life. That brings her from Africa to England.
This is a sweeping saga in the life of a fictional slave. It was exceptionally told. It wasn't so much a novel about slavery as about the life of this one fictionalized woman. But I was either made aware of things in the history of slavery that I wasn't familiar with or that I'd forgotten all about. I'd highly recommend this novel.
