BUTLER, Weeden
Zimao, the African
Dublin, Printed by Brett Smith for Gilbert and Hodges et al., 1800
12mo, contemporary half leather, gilt title and decorations to spine, xi-104 p.-[1] ff.; good copy, binding rubbed, joint splitting but binding intact, missing woodcut vignette on title-page
Dublin edition of this anti-slavery tract, published in the same year as the London first edition. A “corrected and enlarged” second edition appeared in 1807. Although the author is shrouded in anonymity, it is generally believed that the writer of the book is the so-called translator Weeden Butler (1772-1831). With the use of bold and advocative language, it is understandable that the author preferred to remain anonymous. The book begins with the story of the narrator visiting his friend Wilmot, a compassionate slave owner, when elsewhere a slave revolt breaks out. The leader of the rebels is twenty-two-year-old Zimao, who was brought from Benin to Jamaica not long before. When Zimao reaches Wilmot’s plantation, he recognizes the benevolence of the slave owner and proceeds to recount his story. Zimao’s story can be read as a justification for his rebellion against the slaveholders. In the Appendix the author reinforces his anti-slavery argument with documents and testimonies, mainly from British naval surgeons, who had witnessed the slave trade and its horrors at first hand. The dedication in the beginning of the book sets a clear tone for what follows: “To a Lady [possibly Mrs. Fitzherbert] eminent for her private qualities and her public station… The truly illustrious personage whose favour you enjoy, patronizes the sale of his fellow-mortals… His royal heart is kind and generous. Too long, however, has his royal ear been open to rich and crafty individuals, hackneyed in the traffic: to men, whose whole fortunes are exhaled from the holds of slaughter-houses, and whose avarice is drenched and glutted with blood-potations.” A very poignant, quite early, and rare anti-slavery narrative.
