Ignatius Sancho

Ignatius Sancho
Oil painting, 1768, by Thomas Gainsborough
Born	Charles Ignatius Sancho c. 1729 on a slave ship in the Middle Passage, Atlantic Ocean
Died	14 December 1780(1780-12-14) (aged 50–51) London, Great Britain
Occupation	writer, shopkeeper
Known for	influence over abolitionists, his published correspondence
Spouse(s)	Anne Osborne[1]
Children	Frances Joanna (1761–1815), Ann Alice (1763–1805), Elizabeth Bruce (1766–1837), Jonathan William (1768–1770), Lydia (1771–1776), Katherine Margaret (1773–1779), William Leach Osborne (1775–1810)[2][3]
Signature

Charles Ignatius Sancho (c. 1729? – 14 December 1780) was a British writer and composer. He is the first known Briton of African heritage to have voted in an 18th-century general election (there were strict property-owning requirements which voters needed to meet at that time, and only about 3% of the British population qualified). As an independent male property owner, with a house and grocery shop in London, he had the right to cast his vote for the Members of Parliament in the 1774 and 1780 elections. He gained fame in his time as "the extraordinary Negro", and to 18th-century British abolitionists he became a symbol of the humanity of Africans and immorality of the slave trade.^[4]

The Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, an African, edited and published two years after his death, is one of the earliest accounts of African slavery written in English by a former enslaved person.

Biography

Charles Ignatius Sancho was born on a slave ship crossing the Atlantic Ocean, in what was known as the Middle Passage. His mother died not long after in the Spanish colony of New Granada, corresponding to modern Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, and Venezuela. His father reportedly took his own life rather than live as a slave. Sancho's owner took the orphan, barely two years old, to England and gave him to three unmarried sisters living together in Greenwich, where he lived from ca. 1731 to 1749. John Montagu, 2nd Duke of Montagu (of the first creation) (1690–1749), impressed by Sancho's intellect, frankness, and amiability, not only encouraged him to read, but also lent him books from his personal library at Blackheath. Sancho's informal education made his lack of freedom in Greenwich unbearable, and he ran away to the Montagu House in 1749. For two years until her death in 1751, Sancho worked as the butler for Mary Montagu (née Churchill), Duchess of Montagu, at Montagu House, where he flourished by immersing himself in music, poetry, reading, and writing.^[5][6] At her death in 1751 he received an annuity of £30 (about £7000 in 2020)^[7] and a year's salary.^[5]

During the 1760s Sancho married a West Indian woman, Anne Osborne. He became a devoted husband and father. They had seven children: Frances Joanna (1761–1815), Ann Alice (1763–1805), Elizabeth Bruce (1766–1837), Jonathan William (1768–1770), Lydia (1771–1776), Katherine Margaret (1773–1779), and William Leach Osborne (1775–1810).^[2]

Around the time of the birth of their third child, Sancho became a valet to George Montagu, 1st Duke of Montagu (of the second creation), son-in-law of his earlier patron.^[5] He remained there until 1773.

In 1768 Thomas Gainsborough painted a portrait of Sancho at the same time as the Duchess of Montagu sat for her portrait by the artist.^{[1][notes 1]} By the late 1760s Sancho had already become accomplished and was considered by many to be a man of refinement.^[5]

In 1766, at the height of the debate about slavery, Sancho wrote to Laurence Sterne^[8] encouraging the famous writer to use his pen to lobby for the abolition of the slave trade.^[9]

That subject, handled in your striking manner, would ease the yoke (perhaps) of many – but if only of one – Gracious God! – what a feast to a benevolent heart!

In July 1766 Sancho's letter was received by Reverend Laurence Sterne shortly after he had just finished writing a conversation between his fictional characters, Corporal Trim and his brother Tom in Tristram Shandy, wherein Tom described the oppression of an African servant in a sausage shop in Lisbon that he had visited.^[10] Laurence Sterne's widely publicised 27 July 1766 response to Sancho's letter became an integral part of 18th-century abolitionist literature.

There is a strange coincidence, Sancho, in the little events (as well as in the great ones) of this world: for I had been writing a tender tale of the sorrows of a friendless poor negro-girl, and my eyes had scarce done smarting with it, when your letter of recommendation in behalf of so many of her brethren and sisters, came to me – but why her brethren? – or your’s, Sancho! any more than mine? It is by the finest tints, and most insensible gradations, that nature descends from the fairest face about St. James’s, to the sootiest complexion in Africa: at which tint of these, is it, that the ties of blood are to cease? and how many shades must we descend lower still in the scale, ’ere mercy is to vanish with them? – but ’tis no uncommon thing, my good Sancho, for one half of the world to use the other half of it like brutes, & then endeavour to make ’em so."^[10]

Following the publication of the Sancho-Sterne letters, Sancho became widely known as a man of letters.^[1]

Sancho, an African participant and voter in Westminster, noted that despite being in Britain since the age of two he felt he was "only a lodger, and hardly that." In other writings he describes: "Went by water – had a coach home – were gazed at – followed, etc. etc. – but not much abused." On another occasion, he writes: "They stopped us in the town and most generously insulted us."^[11][12]

Portrait of an African, attributed to Allan Ramsay, a painting some suggest depicts a young Ignatius Sancho.^[13][14] It was previously believed to have depicted the writer Olaudah Equiano.

In 1774 with help from Montagu, Sancho, suffering from ill health with gout, opened a greengrocery shop, offering merchandise such as tobacco, sugar and tea, at 19 Charles Street in London's Mayfair, Westminster.^{[15][notes 2]} These were goods then mostly produced by slaves in the West Indies.^[4]

As shopkeeper Sancho enjoyed more time to socialise, correspond with his many friends, share his enjoyment of literature, and his shop had many visitors. He wrote and published a Theory of Music and two plays. As a financially independent male householder living in Westminster, he qualified to vote in the parliamentary elections of 1774 and 1780; he was the first person of African origin known to have voted in Britain.^[16][17] At this time he also wrote letters and in newspapers, under his own name and under the pseudonym "Africanus". He supported the monarchy and British forces in the American Revolutionary War.

Among his acquaintances were celebrated figures such as Thomas Gainsborough, the Shakespearean actor David Garrick, violin virtuoso Felice Giardini, the preacher Dr. Dodd,^[5] the renowned sculptor Joseph Nollekens, and the novelist Laurence Sterne. Nollekens gave Sancho a plaster cast of his c. 1766 marble bust of Laurence Sterne (National Portrait Gallery, London). Sancho received many prominent visitors at his shop, including statesman and abolitionist Charles James Fox PC (1749–1806), who successfully steered a resolution through Parliament pledging it to abolish the slave trade. He oversaw a Foreign Slave Trade Bill in spring 1806 that prohibited British subjects from contributing to the trading of slaves with the colonies of Britain's wartime enemies, thus eliminating two-thirds of the slave trade passing through British ports.^{[18][notes 3]}

Ignatius Sancho died from the effects of gout on 14 December 1780 and was buried in the churchyard of St Margaret's, Westminster. There is no memorial at the church, as the grave stones (which lie flat) in the churchyard were covered over with grass in 1880 and no inscription was found for him when a record was made of the existing epitaphs.^[19]

He was the first person of African descent known to be given an obituary in the British press.^[19]

Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho

Plaque in King Charles Street, City of Westminster, London marking the location of Sancho's grocery store

While his correspondence often included domestic issues, it also commented on the political and literary life in 18th-century Britain.^[3][9] One of his more famous series of letters includes his eye-witness accounts of the Gordon Riots in June 1780. The angry mob passed outside his shop on Charles Street. The protest that began when Protestants protested against parliamentary extension of Roman Catholic enfranchisement grew into a violent mob of 100,000 looting and burning parts of London.^[20]

There is at this present moment at least a hundred thousand poor, miserable, ragged rabble, from 12 to 60 years of age, with blue cockades in their hats – besides half as many women and children, all parading the streets, the bridge, the park, ready for any and every mischief. Gracious God! What's the matter now? I was obliged to leave off – the shouts of the mob, the horrid clashing of swords, and the clutter of a multitude in swiftest motion drew me to the door, when everyone in the street was employed in shutting up shop. It is now just five o'clock – the ballad-singers are exhasting their musical talents with the downfall of Popery, S-h and N-h, Lord S-h narrowly escaped with his life about an hour since' the mob seized his chariot going to the house, broke his glasses and, in struggling to get his lordship out, they somehow have cut his face.

In 1782 Frances Crewe, a correspondent of Sancho, arranged for 160 of his letters to be published in the form of two volumes entitled The Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, an African. The book sold very well, with more than 2,000 subscribing to it. His widow received in royalties more than £500, equivalent to £63,032 in 2019. Joseph Jekyll provided a memoir of Sancho for the first edition, and four more editions had been issued by 1803.^[21]

Sancho’s son, William Leach Osborne Sancho, inherited the shop on Charles Street, Mayfair, and transformed it into a printing and book-selling business. In 1803 at this shop he printed a fifth edition of Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho with Memoirs of His Life by Joseph Jekyll,^[15] with a frontispiece engraving by Bartolozzi.^[22]

''I am Sir an Affrican – with two ffs – if you please – & proud am I to be of a country that knows no politicians – nor lawyers – nor [word deleted] … nor thieves of any denomination save Natural....''^[23]

On slavery

Sancho was unusually blunt in his response to a letter from Jack Wingrave, John Wingrave's son. Jack wrote about his negative reaction to people of colour based on his own experience in India during the 1770s. Sancho's friend, John was a London bookbinder and bookseller.^[24]

I am sorry to observe that the practice of your country (which as a resident I love – and for its freedom – and for the many blessings I enjoy in it – shall ever have my warmest wishes, prayers and blessings); I say it is with reluctance, that I must observe your country's conduct has been uniformly wicked in the East – West-Indies – and even on the coast of Guinea. The grand object of English navigators – indeed of all Christian navigators – is money – money – money – for which I do not pretend to blame them – Commerce was meant by the goodness of the Deity to diffuse the various goods of the earth into every part – to unite mankind in the blessed chains of brotherly love – society – and mutual dependence: the enlightened Christian should diffuse the riches of the Gospel of peace – with the commodities of his respective land – Commerce attended with strict honesty – and with Religion for its companion – would be a blessing to every shore it touched at. In Africa, the poor wretched natives blessed with the most fertile and luxuriant soil – are rendered so much the more miserable for what Providence meant as a blessing: the Christians' abominable traffic for slaves and the horrid cruelty and treachery of the petty Kings encouraged by their Christian customers who carry them strong liquors to enflame their national madness – and powder – and bad fire-arms – to furnish them with the hellish means of killing and kidnapping.^[24][25]

Legacy

Plaque in Greenwich Park

• A plaque to the memory of Sancho was unveiled on 15 June 2007, by Nick Raynsford, MP for Greenwich, on the remaining wall of Montagu House on the south-west boundary of Greenwich Park. The plaque was funded by the Friends of Greenwich Park to commemorate the bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act, made law in 1807. A second plaque to his memory is on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
• When the City of Westminster commemorated the bicentenary by creating a walking tour of Westminster highlighting events and individuals involved in the campaign to abolish the slave trade, they included 19 Charles Street. This was a collaboration with historian S. I. Martin, the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, London, the Palace of Westminster, Tate Britain, Westminster City Archives, and Westminster City Council.^[15]
• Sancho features on the list of "100 Great Black Britons".^[26]
• The iconic Portrait of an African (oil on canvas 61.8 x 51.5 cm, c. 1757–59; held in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, Devon) is probably of Ignatius Sancho, although it was previously thought to be of Olaudah Equiano, and is now attributed to Allan Ramsay (1713–1784).^[27][28] A full account of the attribution to Ramsay and identification of Sancho is contained in the article "The Lost African" published in Apollo magazine, August 2006.
• In 2015, a play based on the life of Ignatius Sancho, entitled Sancho: An Act of Remembrance, written and performed by Paterson Joseph, was staged at Oxford and Birmingham in the United Kingdom,^[29] and at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York.^[30][31] From 4 to 16 June 2018 it had its London premiere at Wilton's Music Hall.^[32]
• On 1 October 2020, Google commemorated British Black History Month by honouring Sancho with a Doodle.^[33]

See also

• Joseph Antonio Emidy, perhaps the first black English composer (1775–1835)
• George Bridgetower, virtuoso violinist (1778–1860)
• Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, the most celebrated black English composer (1875–1912) best known for his trilogy of cantatas The Song of Hiawatha

Notes

References

Further reading

• Friends of Greenwich Park newsletter. Summer 2007.
• Joseph, Paterson. Sancho: An Act of Remembrance. London: Oberon Books, 2011. Print.
• "Ignatius Sancho: The Composer – Black History Month 2018". Black History Month 2018.

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Ignatius Sancho

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ignatius Sancho.

• John Madin, "Abolition: Trading faces", BBC – Devon, 28 October 2014.
• Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, An African. In Two Volumes. To Which Are Prefixed, Memoirs of His Life. Vol. I. London: Printed by J. Nichols, 1782.
• Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, An African. In Two Volumes. To Which Are Prefixed, Memoirs of His Life. Vol. II. London: Printed by J. Nichols, 1782.
• Carey, Brycchan. "Ignatius Sancho: African Man of Letters". Retrieved 9 January 2013. Brycchan Carey's comprehensive collection of resources for the study of Ignatius Sancho.
• The Music of Ignatius Sancho
• Westminster Council's Abolition of the Slave Trade Commemoration website
• Works by or about Ignatius Sancho in libraries (WorldCat catalog)