Saturday, October 27, 2018

Akua, the influential slave healer who became queen in Jamaica

The Queen of Kingston in Jamaica or Cubah Cornwallis, as she is popularly known, is lost in history due to the improper documentation that makes it hard to follow or believe in her existence. In trying to read about the adventurous life of this woman who took the unwilling journey into slavery from Africa and was later executed for resisting oppression, it is easy to think that one is reading about two different women while trying to make sense of her story. That withstanding, it is equally important to attempt to make sense of her story and tell it as it is – an important part of history.

Cubah Cornwallis’s real name was Akua from the Ashanti Empire in Ghana which was then the Gold Coast. Nothing much is said about her life before being captured and sold off as an enslaved girl to the Carribean, but through historical readings, it can be speculated that she was captured during the early years of the many Ashanti Empire wars in an attempt to expand their Empire and have more power than the British.

read more here @ Face2Face Africa

1 comment:

Teslim Omipidan said...

Interesting piece of history. Proper documentation of these histories really need to be taken seriously and that is why I always commend good historians when I see or meet one. There is also a lady named Sarah Bonneta Forbes originally named Aina from the Egbado tribe of Nigeria. She was sold into slavery but later became Queen Victoria's goddaughter. You can read her story here

- With love from OldNaija