This is an important book that takes history into the public domain in a very accessible form, combining text with graphics in the retelling of an 1876 court case over slave emancipation in the Gold Coast. The court transcript from Regina v. Quamina Eddoo is unusual in its length, representing one of a handful of cases in which former slaves, especially women, sought their freedom in colonial courts after the British abolished slavery in the Gold Coast in 1874. The British adopted a different model of abolition in the Gold Coast from that pursued when Britain abolished slavery in other possessions in 1834. In the first instance, Britain emancipated slaves and compensated their former owners. In the Gold Coast, Britain abolished the status of slavery, but did not enforce it in order to avoid the financial responsibility of compensating masters. Slaves bore the burden of appealing to the British court of law for their freedom. Abina and the Important Men discusses Abina's relations with four important men she encountered in her bid for freedom: Quamina Eddoo, the wealthy planter in Saltpond, within the new British colony, who had recently purchased Abina from her Asante owner Yaw Awoah; James Davis, a court interpreter at the British administrative capital of Cape Coast, who became Abina's legal advocate; James Hutton Brew, a renowned lawyer of Scottish and Gold Coast descent, who represented Quamina Eddoo; and William Melton, a colonial official and the acting judicial assessor, who presided over Abina's petition. Abina, upon learning that slavery was illegal in the British colony, fled from her master's home in Saltpond to Cape Coast to file for her freedom.

The book is divided into five parts: the creative representation in graphic history; the actual court transcript; the historical context; a reading guide; and a recommendation for how to use Abina in the classroom. Having recently taught a sophomore tutorial which introduces undergraduates to the craft of history, I found the approach by Trevor Getz and Liz Clarke extremely useful in their discussion of archives and primary evidence, the ways historians choose their topics and evidence, the process of interpretation, the use of secondary literature, and the importance of context in situating historical motives and actions. I used Abina in my graduate class on ‘Sources, Methods and Themes in African History’. The graduate students expressed appreciation for the authors' reflexiveness about the historian's craft, the ways the book was designed with multiple audiences in mind – high school, undergraduate, and graduate students, and how it problematized slavery in the nexus of cross-cultural understandings, British and African. Was the slave defined by the act of purchase and exchange of money, by the nature of work she did, or, as Abina expressed, by the lack of control over one's physical self and life?

I had my quibbles. The graphic history has Abina as born in Asante, but enslaved in her youth (p. 6). The transcript only indicates that Abina had been a slave in Asante, initially as a slave of Eddoo Buffo, who presumably later sold Abina to Yaw Awoah of Adansi (p. 91). This is an important historical fact and the glossing over it altered the narrative of the graphic history with key interpretative implications. Asked by William Melton in the transcript if she was ever called a ‘slave’ while in Saltpond, Abina replied that one day Quamina Eddoo's sister Eccoah (Akua) called her ‘“Amperlay” which in the Kreppee means slave’ (p. 86). That Abina should use a Krepi word for slave in the context of Akan-speaking Saltpond struck me as odd. These are important historical details.

Attention to such detail and more historical context are in order. In 1869, the Asante army in alliance with Akwamu and Anlo crossed into the northern Volta region in an Asante bid to establish authority in this area. Lynne Brydon has commented on the need for a thorough history of the Asante military campaigns among the northern Ewe between 1869 and 1871, but has provided an important installment in a recent article in The Journal of African History, 49:1 (2008). Abina Mansah must have been a Krepi captive and slave of military commander Adu Bofo, who led the Asante campaigns in northern Eweland between 1869 and 1871; she must not therefore have been born in Asante. That she considered herself Yaw Awoah's ‘wife’ (p. 83) or a slave-concubine because they had had sexual relations indicates that she was already a young girl when brought into Asante. These are important details, as this is a work of history and not simply historical fiction. The authors make clear in the Introduction that they aim ‘for accuracy and authenticity’. This is an important study, and will be a useful text for students for years to come. I would like to see a more accurate historical representation in subsequent editions.