2011.06.05: June 5, 2011: Sierra Leone RPCV Kevin Lowther writes "The African American Odyssey of John Kizell"

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Sierra Leone: Peace Corps Sierra Leone : Peace Corps Sierra Leone: Newest Stories: 2011.06.05: June 5, 2011: Sierra Leone RPCV Kevin Lowther writes "The African American Odyssey of John Kizell"

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Sierra Leone RPCV Kevin Lowther writes "The African American Odyssey of John Kizell"

Sierra Leone RPCV Kevin Lowther writes The African American Odyssey of John Kizell

Kizell, who was born in the Sierra Leone region in about 1760, was captured as a young teenager and loaded onto a slave ship bound for Charleston, S.C., where he became the property of German immigrants. Lowther's heavily footnoted account of Kizell is compelling, not only for the unusual life trajectory of his subject - the product of an African village who on this side of the Atlantic became literate, and who later became a business success back home - but also for the book's vivid contextual descriptions of the slave trade, Charleston's economic significance before the Revolution and, among other subjects, the comparatively liberated social norms of slaves in that city before the war. Lowther's account of Kizell's life and times leaves the heart heavy. But it also awakens the mind to the complex forces of history in a world where values are in constant - albeit uneven - change. Kizell wound up in an imperfect situation in Africa, but consider how things could have wound up had he backed the other side in our War of Independence.

Sierra Leone RPCV Kevin Lowther writes "The African American Odyssey of John Kizell"

A fascinating, unsettling look at a slave's life

Posted: Sunday, October 9, 2011 8:34 am | Updated: 8:38 am, Sun Oct 9, 2011.

By James A. Rousmaniere, Jr. | 0 comments

A fascinating, unsettling look at a slave's life

"The African American Odyssey of John Kizell: A South Carolina Slave Returns to Fight the Slave Trade in His African Homeland," by Kevin G. Lowther, University of South Carolina Press, 300 pages, $39.95.

This year's 150th anniversary commemoration of the Civil War has naturally focused on race, and has brought forth a number of biographies of slaves in mid-19th century America.

Of course slavery in North America had a long history prior to that wrenching conflict, including a nationally identifying moment when the social and political dynamics were remarkably complex.

Despite popular impressions of Patriots marching in unison to throw off British rule, our Revolution was very much an internal conflict, as Tories who favored the status quo comprised as much as one-third of the colonial population.

That is the setting for Kevin G. Lowther's fascinating biography of John Kizell, a West African who experienced slavery on two continents during a time of shattering economic and political change.

Kizell, who was born in the Sierra Leone region in about 1760, was captured as a young teenager and loaded onto a slave ship bound for Charleston, S.C., where he became the property of German immigrants.

The owners, from whom his family name is derived, were supportive of the British. Kizell apparently imagined that he might win his freedom if he fought on the loyalist side in the war. After the British lost, he was evacuated with other loyalist-owned slaves (and whites) to Nova Scotia, a most inhospitable place for many of them, and he eventually returned to Africa to be part of a settlement of freed slaves.

Lowther, a Dartmouth graduate who wrote editorials for The Sentinel in the 1970s, is well equipped to handle the subject. He was a Peace Corps volunteer in Sierra Leone from 1963 to 1965, and later helped found Africare, a humanitarian organization, where he worked for 30 years.

His heavily footnoted account of Kizell is compelling, not only for the unusual life trajectory of his subject - the product of an African village who on this side of the Atlantic became literate, and who later became a business success back home - but also for the book's vivid contextual descriptions of the slave trade, Charleston's economic significance before the Revolution and, among other subjects, the comparatively liberated social norms of slaves in that city before the war.

Some slaves in Charleston kept horses, and freely walked about, visiting "dram shops" (bars) and feeling secure enough to dress up in public. Some even hired out their services as independent contractors.

But these liberties had their limits, and the disadvantages that slaves endured in South Carolina, followed by the uneven discomforts of relocated life in Nova Scotia, confirm the misery of it all.

But then hope: In 1792 Kizell and 1,200 other blacks in Nova Scotia set sail under supervised conditions for their West African homeland, where sympathetic British authorities pictured a free haven for them.

Once back home, Kizell had to put up with the paternalism of the British anti-slavery sponsors in a region where slavery among his own people was still very much accepted.

In that awkward environment Kizell made his way as best he could, carving out an economic self-sufficiency that would have been impossible on this side of the Atlantic, while trying to bring about a new society.

He died in the 1830s, at about the time the British government outlawed slavery, and three decades before our own deadly national clash brought it to an end here.

Lowther's account of Kizell's life and times leaves the heart heavy. But it also awakens the mind to the complex forces of history in a world where values are in constant - albeit uneven - change. Kizell wound up in an imperfect situation in Africa, but consider how things could have wound up had he backed the other side in our War of Independence.

James A. Rousmaniere, Jr. is editor of The Sentinel.




The African American Odyssey of John Kizzell: A South Carolina Slave Returns to Fight the Slave Trade in His African Homeland

Kevin G. Lowther

Foreword by Joseph Opala

The inspirational story of John Kizell celebrates the life of a West African enslaved as a boy and brought to South Carolina on the eve of the American Revolution. Fleeing his owner, Kizell served with the British military in the Revolutionary War, began a family in the Nova Scotian wilderness, then returned to his African homeland to help found a settlement for freed slaves in Sierra Leone. He spent decades battling European and Af- rican slave traders along the coast and urging his people to stop selling their own into foreign bondage. This in-depth biography-based in part on Kizell's own writings- illuminates the links between South Carolina and West Africa during the Atlantic slave trade's peak decades.

Kizell was thrown into the brutal world of chattel slavery at age thirteen and trans- ported to Charleston, South Carolina. When Charleston fell to the British in 1780, Kizell joined them and was with the Loyalist force defeated in the pivotal battle of Kings Mountain. At the war's end, he was evacuated with other American Loyalists to Nova Scotia. In 1792 he joined a pilgrimage of nearly twelve hundred former slaves to the new British settlement for free blacks in Sierra Leone. Back in his native land, he bravely confronted the forces that had led to his enslavement. Late in life he played a contro- versial role-freshly interpreted in this book-in the settlement of American blacks in what became Liberia.

Kizell's remarkable story provides insight to the cultural and spiritual milieu from which West Africans were wrenched before being forced into slavery. Lowther sheds light on African complicity in the slave trade and examines how it may have contrib- uted to Sierra Leone's latter-day struggles as an independent state.

You can order the book at Amazon.




About the Author

Peace Corps Online

Kevin G. Lowther served as a Peace Corps teacher in Sierra Leone from 1963 to 1965. In 1971 he helped found Africare, a humanitarian organization supporting development and relief programs throughout Africa. He later managed Africare's work in Southern Africa for nearly thirty years. A former newspaper editor, Lowther has written on African issues for the Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, and other publications. Coauthor of Keep- ing Kennedy's Promise: The Peace Corps' Moment of Truth, Lowther lives in Springfield, Virginia.




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Headlines: June, 2011; Peace Corps Sierra Leone; Directory of Sierra Leone RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Sierra Leone RPCVs; Writing - Sierra Leone; NGO's; African American Issues





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Story Source: New Hampshire Sentinel Source

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Sierra Leone; Writing - Sierra Leone; NGOs; Africare; African American Issues

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