Ignatius Sancho: 18th Century Slave & Abolitionist

 

Ignatius Sancho, slave and abolitionist. Image: Wikipedia. Public Domain.

Ignatius Sancho: A Slave From Infancy

Largely thanks to the slave trade, throughout the Georgian era there was a 20,000 strong black population in Britain and many communities settled in and around London. Ignatius Sancho arrived in the city as a 2 or 3 year old orphaned slave-child and he was set to work by his owner.
Charles Ignatius was born on a slave ship in the Atlantic Ocean in 1729. His mother died shortly after their arrival in the Spanish colony of New Granada in South America (Today's Colombia) and his father committed suicide to escape from the horrors of slavery. The baby was named Charles Ignatius by the Catholic priest that baptised him in the colony.

Still an infant, he was transported to Britain to work for the genteel Legge sisters, relatives of the Earl of Dartmouth, in their Greenwich, London residence. He spent the next 18 years in their household. The sisters gave Ignatius, as he was better known, the surname Sancho. This was a reference to the character of Sancho Panza in Miguel de Cervantes' novel Don Quixote.

A Better Life at Montagu House

John Montagu, 2nd Earl of Montagu was a frequent visitor to the sisters. The earl appreciated Ignatius' intelligence, politeness and curiosity. When he discovered that the secretly self taught Ignatius could read, he allowed him to use the books in his library at nearby Montagu House. (Slaves were not educated because their owners feared that with knowledge came danger: their slaves might rebel).

Ignatius spoke out passionately against the slave trade and he ran away from the sisters in search of a better life. He headed to Montagu House where he was employed as a butler. The earl died in 1749 and the countess followed in 1751. Ignatius was left an annuity of £30 per annum by the countess. This was around a year's wage per annum.

Ignatius Sancho continued to campaign for an end to slavery and he was eloquent and compelling in his arguments. He was becoming well known for his abolitionist work. He also composed more than 60 musical compositions during his life.

He married 24 year old Anne Osborne, of West Indian heritage, at St. Margaret's Church in Westminster, London on the 17th December 1758. The couple had seven children.

Ignatius Sancho and Laurence Sterne

In the mid 1760s the second earl's son-in-law George was made the 1st Duke of Montagu. He employed Ignatius as his valet and in 1768 Ignatius was painted by Thomas Gainsborough when he created portraits of the family members.

In 1766 Ignatius Sancho wrote to the clergyman and writer Laurence Sterne urging him to campaign against the slave trade.

Sterne replied:

"...It is by the finest tints, and most insensible gradations, that nature descends from the fairest face about St. James’s, to the sootiest complexion in Africa...but ’tis no uncommon thing, my good Sancho, for one half of the world to use the other half of it like brutes, & then endeavour to make ’em so."

The full response was well publicised and it became a cornerstone of the abolitionist movement's literature. Sterne used his novels including Tristram Shandy to speak out against slavery.

Sancho: The First African British Citizen to Vote in an Election

Ignatius Sancho spent almost all of his life in London but the books, plays, essays and articles that he wrote under his own name or as "Africanus" revealed that he felt like an outsider, and that he was often stared at or verbally abused when he was walking around London. For example: "They stopped us in the town and most generously insulted us."

Ignatius began to suffer from gout which suggests that he enjoyed a rich diet, and his health led him to leave his post as a valet in 1773.

In 1774 he purchased and opened a grocery store in Charles Street, London; Anne was the manager. Several items that they sold were provided by the slave trade that they abhorred. The same year, as a property owner, Ignatius was entitled to vote in an election. This was the first time an African British citizen voted in a parliamentary election.

Ignatius Dies in 1780

The shop was frequented by leading figures in literature and the theatre, in politics and the clergy. The prominent politician and abolitionist Charles James Fox was arguably the shop's most famous customer. We know from records that Ignatius voted for him in 1780. In 1806 Fox passed a bill in parliament that eradicated 75% of the slave trade.
Persistent gout contributed to Ignatius Sancho's death on the 14th December 1780. He was buried on the 17th at St. Margaret's Church in Westminster. As the gravestones were laid flat at the time and there was no marker, his grave was long ago lost and covered in grass. In December 2023 a stone memorial was unveiled at the church in his honour.
Ignatius Sancho was the first British person of African descent to receive an obituary in the British newspapers.

Anne and William Sancho Continue Ignatius' Work

A selection of Ignatius' letters were published in 2 volumes by his friend Frances Crewe, Lady Crewe. They sold very well and Anne Sancho received £500 in royalties. (Approximately £70000 today). Some of the money was used to aid the campaign to abolish slavery.

Anne and Ignatius' son William ran the grocery shop with Anne and they turned it into a bookstore and printers. Anne Sancho was the first black publisher in Britain. She survived until 1817 and she was buried with her husband.

A 2020 BBC poll named Ignatius Sancho as one of the 100 Great Black Britons of all time and yet many people have never heard of him, or Anne.

Sources:

• Ignatius Sancho: The Composer - Black History Month 2024
  
• Charles Ignatius Sancho: Man of Music & Letters - Handel and Haydn Society
  
  
• Ignatius Sancho | Westminster Abbey