Ignatius Sancho
Man of Letters (1729-1780)
Ignatius Sancho was born on a slave ship in 1729. He survived the terrible voyage to arrive in the Americas, only to lose his parents soon after. When he was about two, his owner took Ignatius to England and gave him to three maiden sisters from Greenwich. His intelligence impressed John, the Second Duke of Montagu, who lived nearby and give him books. The boy taught himself to read and write, and after the duke died, Sancho persuaded his widow to employ him as her butler. In 1773, ill health forced him to leave the Montagu's employ, but they helped him to open a grocery shop in Charles Street, Westminster. As a property owner, he gained the right to vote and became the only 18th Century Afro-Briton we know of to have voted in parliamentary elections.
Sancho adored the arts. He composed music and published newspaper essays as well as writing a Theory of Music and two plays. A passionate theatregoer, he became an integral part of the capital's artistic community, befriending writers such as Samuel Johnson and Laurence Sterne.
Sancho had a wide range of correspondents, including William Stephenson, publisher of the Norfolk Chronicle. His collected letters, Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, an African, published two years after his death attracted over 1200 subscribers, making him the first African to have his prose published in England.
As was the case with Equiano and Cotton and Charley, Sancho's life was a direct challenge to the racism of the system of slavery. His talents and his love of life disproved, again and again, the bigoted views upon which slavery thrived and acted as a powerful testament to the strength of cosmopolitan ideals.
