author

James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw

Remembered as the first published African in Britain, he turned a life marked by enslavement, migration, and hard-won freedom into one of the earliest Black autobiographical works in English. His 1772 narrative helped open a new chapter in literary and Black British history.

1 Audiobook

A Narrative of the Most Remarkable Particulars in the Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, an African Prince, as Related by Himself

A Narrative of the Most Remarkable Particulars in the Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, an African Prince, as Related by Himself

by James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw

About the author

Born in the kingdom of Bornu, in what is now northeastern Nigeria, around the early 18th century, James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw was captured as a young man and sold into slavery. Sources differ on some details of his early life, but they agree that he was taken across the Atlantic and eventually lived in colonial America before later gaining his freedom.

He is best known for A Narrative of the Most Remarkable Particulars in the Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, an African Prince, as Related by Himself, published in 1772. The book is widely described as the first slave narrative published in England and one of the earliest autobiographical works by an African author in Britain.

Gronniosaw later lived in England with his family, and his life story remained important for readers and scholars because it offers an unusually early first-person account of enslavement, faith, travel, and survival in the 18th-century Atlantic world. No suitable verified portrait image was found from the source pages reviewed, so a profile image is not included.