Ukawsaw Gronniosaw (c. 1710-1775)
- Name
- Ukawsaw Gronniosaw (c. 1710-1775)
- Identifier
- NJS-PER-00350
- Given Name
- Ukawsaw
- Family Name
- Gronniosaw
- Alternate Name
- James Albert
- Birth Date
- 1710
- Death Date
- 1775
- Sex
- Male
- Description
-
Ukawsaw Gronniosaw was born in Bornu (present-day northeastern Nigeria) around 1710 (his exact year of birth is unknown). As a young man he was captured in Africa and sold to a Dutch slave trader. After surviving the treacherous voyage from Africa to the Caribbean and then to New York, Gronniosaw was purchased by the Rev. Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen and brought to Raritan to live and work. Gronniosaw missed his family in Africa and suffered greatly because of this. He repeatedly asked Rev. Frelinghuysen to allow him to return to his family, but he never got a chance to go back home. He was taught about the Christian faith by the minister. Although Gronniosaw found the tenets of his enslaver's faith strange at first, he eventually converted to Christianity.
Upon the Rev. Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen’s death, Ukawsaw Gronniosaw was granted his freedom, albeit with the understanding that he would stay on and remain as a servant to the household. Eventually, Gronniosaw left New Jersey and the Frelinghuysen family and became a sailor. He sailed throughout the Caribbean and Europe and then settled in England, taking the English name James Albert. It was here in England that he published his autobiography in 1772. The book was titled: A Narrative of the Most Remarkable Particulars in the Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, An African Prince, as Related by Himself. This is one of the earliest autobiographies ever published by a formerly enslaved person. The book provides a rare glimpse of what life was like for enslaved people on the Raritan in the middle of the 18th century. Gronniosaw died in Chester, England, in 1775. - Same As
- Ukawsaw Gronniosaw (Wikidata)
- Ukawsaw Gronniosaw (Wikipedia)
- James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw (Enslaved.org)
- Bibliographic Citation
- A Narrative of the Most Remarkable Particulars in the Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, an African Prince, As Related by Himself. Bath, Somerset, England: Printed by W. Gye, 1772. Digital edition by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
- Carretta, Vincent. “Gronniosaw, Ukawsaw [Pseud. James Albert] (1710x14–1775), Freed Slave and Autobiographer.” In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2004. Online edition May 2015.
- Source Resource
- https://records.njslavery.org/api/items/1432
- Source Site
- https://records.njslavery.org/s/doc/page/home
- Contributor
- Jesse Bayker