Story: 1820. A Quaker woman purchases the freedom of two African men, Sandanee and Mahmadee. In return for teaching her their languages, she would give them a Christian education. A lopsided bargain demonstrating what Hannah Kilham thought they lacked and needed. She wanted to use them to continue her civilising mission of the continent. She ‘bought’ them with a convoluted idea of freedom for the sum of £47. All 3 of them live together in Sheffield. She took them to Gambia in 1823 and there they ‘reverted’. In 3 short years they went from ‘obedient’ to ‘unacceptable’. We can only imagine their time in Sheffield being surrounded by gratitude demanding people. For Hannah Kilham did not register her own reduction of them. They needed to shape their own freedom.
The recovery: Otis is a keeper of stories. A tormentor of the conventional and here with his poetry he plays with perspective, faith and dreams. Otis is seeking to give the story back to Sandanee and Mahmadee and therefore to us.
The entire piece is entitled The African Instruction, after Hannah Killham’s publishing’s of her insidious missionary conquests. The pieces depict two West African people Sandanee & Mahmadee from The Gambia and Senegal. My piece follows them on a journey from Sheffield back to West Africa, starting with Sandanee’s dream to Géwël (Wolof for griot), commencing
with 28-19-20 transgress referencing the book of Matthew: "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”, which of course was instrumentalised and weaponized for the vile and evil ideological-colonisation of parts of Africa.
