Oronoko
is a short work of prose fiction by Aphra Behn (1640–1689), published in 1688,
concerning the love of its hero, an enslaved African in Surinam in the 1660s,
and the author's own experiences in the new South American colony. Oronoko:
or, the Royal Slave is a relatively short novel concerning the grandson of a
Coromantin African king, Prince Oronoko, who falls in love with Imoinda, the
daughter of that king's top general.
The
king, too, falls in love with Imoinda. He gives Imoinda the sacred veil, thus
commanding her to become one of his wives, even though she has already married
Oronoko. After unwillingly spending time in the king's harem (the Otan),
Imoinda and Oroonoko plan a tryst with the help of the sympathetic Onahal and
Aboan. They are eventually discovered, and because she has lost her virginity, Imoinda
is sold as a slave. The king’s guilt, however, leads him to falsely inform
Oroonoko that she has been executed, since death was thought to be better than
slavery. Later, after winning another tribal war, Oronoko is betrayed and
captured by an English captain, who plans to sell him and his men as slaves.
Both Imoinda and Oronoko are carried to Surinam, at that time an English
colony based on sugarcane plantation in the West Indies. The two lovers are
reunited there, under the new Christian names of Caesar and Clemene, even
though Imoinda's beauty has attracted the unwanted desires of other slaves and
of the Cornish gentleman, Trefry.
Upon
Imoinda’s pregnancy, Oroonoko petitions for their return to the homeland. But
after being continuously ignored, he organizes a slave revolt. The slaves are
hunted down by the military forces and compelled to surrender on deputy
governor Byam's promise of amnesty. Yet, when the slaves surrender, Oroonoko
and the others are punished and whipped. To avenge his honor, and to express
his natural worth, Oroonoko decides to kill Byam. But to protect Imoinda from
violation and subjugation after his death, he decides to kill her. The two
lovers discuss the plan, and with a smile on her face, Imoinda willingly dies
by his hand. A few days later, Oroonoko is found mourning by her decapitated
body and is kept from killing himself, only to be publicly executed. During his
death by dismemberment, Oroonoko calmly smokes a pipe and stoically withstands
all the pain without crying out.
Models
for Oroonoko
There
were numerous slave revolts in English colonies led by Coromantin slaves.
Oroonoko was described as being from "Coromantien" and was likely
modelled after Coromantin slaves who were known for causing several rebellions
in the Caribbean.
One
figure who matches aspects of Oroonoko is the white John Allin, a settler in
Surinam. Allin was disillusioned and miserable in Surinam, and he was taken to
alcoholism and wild, lavish blasphemies so shocking that Governor Byam believed
that the repetition of them at Allin's trial cracked the foundation of the
courthouse.[4] In the novel, Oroonoko plans to kill Byam and then himself, and
this matches a plot that Allin had to kill Lord Willoughby and then commit
suicide, for, he said, it was impossible to "possess my own life, when I
cannot enjoy it with freedom and honour".[5] He wounded Willoughby and was
taken to prison, where he killed himself with an overdose. His body was taken
to a pillory,
"where
a Barbicue was erected; his Members cut off, and flung in his face, they had
his Bowels burnt under the Barbicue… his Head to be cut off, and his Body to be
quartered, and when dry-barbicued or dry roasted… his Head to be stuck on a
pole at Parham (Willoughby's residence in Surinam), and his Quarters to be put
up at the most eminent places of the Colony."
Allin,
it must be stressed, was a planter, and neither an indentured nor enslaved
worker, and the "freedom and honour" he sought was independence
rather than manumission. Neither was Allin of noble blood, nor was his cause
against Willoughby based on love. Therefore, the extent to which he provides a
model for Oroonoko is limited more to his crime and punishment than to his
plight. However, if Behn left Surinam in 1663, then she could have kept up with
matters in the colony by reading the Exact Relation that Willoughby had printed
in London in 1666, and seen in the extraordinary execution a barbarity to graft
onto her villain, Byam, from the man who might have been her real employer,
Willoughby.
While
Behn was in Surinam (1663), she would have seen a slave ship arrive with 130
"freight," 54 having been "lost" in transit. Although the
African slaves were not treated differently from the indentured servants coming
from England (and were, in fact, more highly valued), their cases were
hopeless, and both slaves, indentured servants, and local inhabitants attacked
the settlement. There was no single rebellion, however, that matched what is related
in Oroonoko. Further, the character of Oroonoko is physically different from
the other slaves by being blacker skinned, having a Roman nose, and having
straight hair. The lack of historical record of a mass rebellion, the
unlikeliness of the physical description of the character (when Europeans at
the time had no clear idea of race or an inheritable set of "racial"
characteristics), and the European courtliness of the character suggests that
he is most likely invented wholesale. Additionally, the character's name is
artificial. There are names in the Yoruba language that are similar, but the
African slaves of Surinam were from Ghana.
Instead
of from life, the character seems to come from literature, for his name is
reminiscent of Oroondates, a character in La Calprenède's Cassandra, which Behn
had read. Oroondates is a prince of Scythia whose desired bride is snatched
away by an elder king. Previous to this, there is an Oroondates who is the
satrap of Memphis in the Æthiopica, a novel from late antiquity by Heliodorus
of Emesa. Many of the plot elements in Behn's novel are reminiscent of those in
the Æthiopica and other Greek romances of the period. There is a particular
similarity to the story of Juba in La Calprenède's romance Cléopâtre, who becomes
a slave in Rome and is given a Roman name—Coriolanus—by his captors, as
Oroonoko is given the Roman name of Caesar.
Alternatively,
it could be argued that "Oroonoko" is a homophone for the Orinoco
River, along which the English settled, and it is possible to see the character
as an allegorical figure for the mismanaged territory itself. Oroonoko, and the
crisis of values of aristocracy, slavery, and worth he represents to the
colonists, is emblematic of the new world and colonisation itself: a person like
Oroonoko is symptomatic of a place like the Orinoco.
Slavery
and Behn's attitudes
The
colony of Surinam began importing slaves in the 1650s, since there were not
enough indentured servants coming from England for the labour-intensive sugar
cane production. In 1662, the Duke of York got a commission to supply 3,000
slaves to the Caribbean, and Lord Willoughby was also a slave trader. For the
most part, English slavers dealt with slave-takers in Africa and rarely
captured slaves themselves. The story of Oroonoko's abduction is plausible, for
such raids did take place, but English slave traders avoided them where
possible for fear of accidentally capturing a person who would anger the
friendly groups on the coast. Most of the slaves came from the Gold Coast, and
in particular from modern-day Ghana.
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