The Two Princes of Mpfumo: An Early Eighteenth-Century Journey into and out of Slavery

by Lindsay O'Neill

Overview

A fascinating account of two eighteenth-century princes from East Africa, their travels, and their encounters with the British Empire and slavery

In 1716 two princes from Mpfumo—what is today Maputo, the capital of Mozambique—boarded a ship licensed by the East India Company bound for England. Instead, their perfidious captain sold them into slavery in Jamaica. After two years of pleading their case, the princes—known in the historical record as Prince James and Prince John—convinced a lawyer to purchase them, free them, and travel with them to London. The lawyer perished when a hurricane wrecked their ship, but the princes survived and arrived in England in 1720. Even though the East India Company had initially thought that the princes might assist in their aspirations to develop a trade for gold in East Africa and for enslaved labor in Madagascar, its interest waned. The princes would need to look elsewhere to return home. It was at this point that members of the Royal African Company and the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge took up their cause, in the hope that profit and perhaps Christian souls would follow. John would make it home, but tragically, James would end his own life just before the ship sailed for Africa.

In The Two Princes of Mpfumo, Lindsay O’Neill brings to life individuals caught up in the eighteenth-century slave trade. O’Neill also shows how the princes’ experiences reflect the fragmented, chaotic, and often deadly realities of the early British empire. A fascinating and deeply researched historical narrative, The Two Princes of Mpfumo blurs the boundaries between the Atlantic and Indian ocean worlds; reveals the intertwined networks, powerful individuals, and unstable knowledge that guided British attempts at imperial expansion; and illuminates the power of African polities, which decided who lived and who died on their coasts.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781512827194
Publisher:	University of Pennsylvania Press
Publication date:	02/13/2025
Series:	The Early Modern Americas
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	200
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

Lindsay O’Neill is Associate Professor (Teaching) of History at the University of Southern California and author of The Opened Letter: Networking in the Early Modern British World, also available from the University of Pennsylvania Press.

Editorial Reviews

"Any book that can bring to life individual victims of the eighteenth-century slave trade is significant. That the princes come from East Africa is even more so. Through Lindsay O'Neill's sophisticated work, we gain insight into the many and various schemes the European powers had in East Africa and even in remote islands in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, all important to understanding those rivalries and ambitions. The Two Princes of Mpfumo is required reading for scholars and students interested in the slave trade."

author of The Two Princes of Calabar: An Eight Randy Sparks

"Beautifully written and superbly researched, Lindsay O’Neill’s brilliant book thrives on a winning combination of vivid story-telling and a deep, expansive appreciation of the settings her actors operated in. Most important, she skillfully handles the evidence to allow ‘the two princes of Mpfumo’ some control over their lives."

William Pettigrew

2024-11-23
A little-known story that exposes the complexities and contradictions of British colonialism during the early 18th century.

O’Neill, a University of Southern California historian, excavates the story of two East African princes who boarded a British ship with the intention of traveling to London, only to be sold into slavery in Jamaica. After years of enslavement, the princes persuaded a lawyer to help them regain their freedom, setting up the next stage of their journey to London and then, finally, back home to Mpfumo, in present-day Mozambique. As O’Neill follows the two men, she shines a light on the lesser-known British slave trade in East Africa and Madagascar and the troubling, naïve, and conflicting interests of the British East India Company, Royal African Company, and Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. O’Neill’s thoughtful and extensive research is apparent, but information about the princes themselves is limited by the sparse and problematic archival record. O’Neill, acutely aware of the bias implicit in the extant European sources, seeks to reclaim the princes’ agency by questioning her sources and using speculation to “recreate [the princes’] reactions to certain events.” This approach is generally effective but falters when O’Neill speculates about the reasons that one of the princes took his own life before returning home to Mpfumo. Throughout, O’Neill relies on historical context to stand in for the missing details of the princes’ lives. Readers will better understand the complex moral, racial, and trade networks the princes traversed, but much about the princes themselves—even their given names—remains obscured.

An intriguing subject presented with more historical context than biographical detail.

Kirkus Reviews