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In the novel Homegoming by Yaa Gyasi, I read the chapter about James who is the son of Quey and Nana Yaa. The chapter starts off with James grandfather on his mom's side passing away and them going to attend her funeral. Through him dying it is hinted that tensions are flaring between the Asantes and the Fante tribes. While at the funeral, the reader learns that James is being set up to marry a young girl from his village named Amma, that he knows he could never possibly love. James explains that he doesn't want the same forced love that his parents have but rather something real and genuine. He believes that with Amma he would fall into the same trap that his father fell into, and be forced into marriage for power rather than love or compassion. Later that night, James and his family stay with his father's friend David, in which James overhearsd discussion about the abolition of slavery. However, James seems to understand that this isn't true and that people like his family will find a way to profit from slavery which appears to repulse him. When James and his family finally get to where the funeral is being held, a beautiful young girl named Akosua refuses to shake James' hand because he's a slaver. James becomes entranced and obsessed with her and the entirety of the moment, that he begins to spend the whole day looking for her just to see her again. When he finally finds her, they talk about their political and religious feeling and she says that neither side is fully innocent, but that three of her 12 siblings have been taken in war. James walks all the way back to her house with her and once they get there, he asks for her hand in marriage in which she replies yes, if he comes back to the village for her and that they will live on small village where they can start fresh.

The chapter shifts into about a year later where James is married unhappily to Amma and their relationship appears to be rocky. She wants to have kids, but James doesn't like her so his body refuses to giving her kids. She forces him to go to the apothecary to get herbs in an attempt to fix him. While there James realizes that this power isn't worth fighting for and that he'd rather live a happy life with Akosua. The universes final sign that James should go and live a life with Akosua is when his grandmother Effia tells him to go for it and be free. James travels to Efutu to pick up a job as a doctors assistant, and after his first month there, the Asante Army attacks causing James to nearly die from the fighting. One of the soldiers then finds him and recognizes him as the Asante Kings' grandson, and James pleads him to tell everyone that he is dead. The chapter ends with James seeing Aoksua still waiting for him to build their small and peaceful village like they'd always dreamed.

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1. "For almost 150 years, Ghana, on Africa’s west coast, was the center of the British slave trade."

2. "Approximately 10 million enslaved people were transported in the transatlantic slave trade, at rates of up to 100,000 persons per year."

3. "The Atlantic Slave Trade was likely the most costly in human life of all long-distance global migrations."

4. "The Middle Passage was dangerous and horrific. The sexes were separated; men, women, and children were kept naked, packed close together; and the men were chained for long periods. About 12 percent of those who embarked did not survive the voyage."

5. "In an 1845 account of his visit to the Gold Coast, as Ghana was then known, U.S. Navy officer Horatio Bridge noted that “all of the Europeans have native wives,” meaning that interracial marriages between European men and African women were common."

6. “These marriages produced prominent trading families who were important to the economic and political history of the coastal areas,” Ray said. “But as of the late 1800s, when Britain finally decided to formally colonize the Gold Coast, these relationships were increasingly frowned upon.”

7. "itially Europe’s main interest in the country was as a source of gold, a commodity that was readily available on the coast in exchange for such European exports as cloth, hardware, beads, metals, spirits, arms, and ammunition."

8. "However, trade declined under the new regime, which was averse to assuming formal control over the territory influenced from the forts, and in the 1860s, as a result of this British reticence and of the growth, from the 1820s onward, of Christian missionary education, the Fante states attempted to organize a European-style confederacy independent of British and Asante control. "

9. "'Ghana'' means ''king of gold.'

10. "1800: Osei Bonsu ascends the Asante throne."

The slave trade had many important impacts on my character and their life as James' whole family profited off of it and he grew up around it. The slave trade caused James to isolate himself from his family and move away to a small village because of how terrible and inhumane the slaves were treated just below his feet. As well as this we can see that there were many interracial marriages throughout the story which relates to many of what the articles were saying.

https://www.britannica.com/place/Ghana/Contact-with-Europe-and-its-effects

https://now.fordham.edu/inside-fordham/scholar-studies-interracial-relationships-in-colonial-ghana/

https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/teacher-resources/historical-context-facts-about-slave-trade-and-slavery

https://www.tracingcenter.org/resources/background/ghana-and-the-slave-trade/

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1. Trust

The theme of trust is shown when James is unsure what to do with his life as he's married to Amma who he doesn't like, and feels out of place in his village. Leaving the village and "divorcing" Amma would setback his family and everything they've worked for, but doing these things would make him happy. Throughout the chapter James sees how unhappy Quey is with his wife, and in a way, vows to himself that he will never be in the trapped situation his father is in. James trusts his gut and decides to seek the life he wants, and towards the end of the chapter it foreshadows that trusting his gut has paid off.

2. Self-confidence

Another one of the main themes throughout this chapter is self-confidence which can be seen when James is forced to decide whether to stay with his family or leave for his one true love. Without confidence he would've never chose to meet up with her and live a happy life, as he'd still be married to Amma, a women he doesn't even like. As well as this example, it is clear that James' family is very involved in the slave trade as they earn money for it and support it. James however, expresses his weariness on the issue and realizes that this is an inhumane thing to take part of. One of the reasons he wanted to move to a small village was to be away from the slave trade and start a new life.

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In Homegoing, James is Effias' grandson and comes from a family that profits off of slavery as well as depends on it for their livelihood and status. Unlike his family, James doesn;t support the slve trade as he beleives it to be inhumane and is extremley weary on the subject. Although James wasn't necessarily sold to slavery, it caused him to seperate from his family and village entirely and even go as far to fake his own death, to get away from it. Throughout his whole life, he's observed how it affects people and his parents relationship and in a way vows to never grow up and live as unhappy and compromised as his parents. A quote that symbolizes how outsides were affected by slavery is "The British were no longer selling slaves to America, but slavery had no ended, and his father did not seem to think that it would end. They would just trade one type of shackles for another, trade physical ones that wrapped around wrists and ankles for the invisible ones that wrapped around the mind” (92-93). This proves that even though James wasn't directly affected by slavery, he still experienced the side effects and had to make tough decsicions for his personal well-being regarding this issue.