Born a slave, Ignatius Sancho (c.1729 80) became one of the most influential free Africans of his century. Largely self-taught, he was the first black Briton known to have voted in parliamentary elections and to be given an obituary in the British press. He corresponded with many notable figures, including the author Laurence Sterne, whom he urged to write against slavery in the West Indies. The politician Joseph Jekyll (1754 1837) commended Sancho's 'epistolary talent' in a brief biography, praising his 'wild patriotism' and 'universal philanthropy'. This two-volume collection of Sancho's...

Born a slave, Ignatius Sancho (c.1729 80) became one of the most influential free Africans of his century. Largely self-taught, he was the first black Briton known to have voted in parliamentary elections and to be given an obituary in the British press. He corresponded with many notable figures, including the author Laurence Sterne, whom he urged to write against slavery in the West Indies. The politician Joseph Jekyll (1754 1837) commended Sancho's 'epistolary talent' in a brief biography, praising his 'wild patriotism' and 'universal philanthropy'. This two-volume collection of Sancho's...

Ignatius Sancho, 1729-1780 Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, An African. In Two Volumes. To Which Are Prefixed, Memoirs of His Life. Vol. II

The correspondence of one of the most important writers of African descent in the eighteenth century is gathered in Vincent Carretta's new edition.