The Ancestry of a Slave Caitlin Turberville College

In Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing, it shows how one person can go from living in bliss to living in a dungeon. But how could this happen you may ask. Slavery. The people would become enslaved after being taken from their families. “The Asante had power from capturing slaves. The Fante had protection from trading them” (Miller 1) The Asante would become wealthy after stealing the people from their lives. They would sell their “loot” to the British in return for money and to be revered throughout the other villages. They would get their power from making other terrified of being in their path. The Fante would sell their own people just so they wouldn’t get raided. If they got raided the whole village would become destroyed and many would be enslaved. At least if they gave them their own people, their own families it wouldn’t be as much of a loss, right?

Esi was one of the characters that the novel essentially originated from. She and her long-lost sister against the cruel world of slavery. Her sister, Effia married a slaver (against her own will of course) and Esi, who actually got enslaved. I will tell the story of Esi, the half-sister born from a forgotten mother and warrior father. One day when her mother, Maame was cooking her father,...