Zamba Zembola (born c. 1780) is the supposed author of an 1847

slave narrative The slave narrative is a type of literary genre involving the (written) autobiographical accounts of enslaved Africans, particularly in the Americas. Over six thousand such narratives are estimated to exist; about 150 narratives were published as s ...

, ''The Life and Adventures of Zamba, an African Negro King; and his Experience of Slavery in South Carolina'', which describes his kidnapping and 40 years of labor as a slave on a

plantation A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...

in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

South Carolina )'' Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no) , anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind" , Former = Province of South Carolina , seat = Columbia , LargestCity = Charleston , LargestMetro = ...

. The work was edited by Peter Neilson, a Scottish abolitionist. Some scholars believe the book is not a genuine slave narrative, but is fiction written by Neilson. Neilson refused to produce Zamba for inspection by anyone else.

Debate on authenticity of ''The Life and Adventures of Zamba''

On its appearance in 1847, ''

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world. It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''The ...

'' took a sceptical view of all the detail in the book; the ''

New Monthly Magazine ''The New Monthly Magazine'' was a British monthly magazine published from 1814 to 1884. It was founded by Henry Colburn and published by him through to 1845. History Colburn and Frederic Shoberl established ''The New Monthly Magazine and Univ ...

'', however, called it "a genuine and interesting sketch of African domestic manners". A review in the ''Baptist Magazine'' raised the question of its authenticity. Some modern scholarly sources state outright that Neilson was the author of the work, not without cautioning that

Harriet Jacobs Harriet Jacobs (1813 or 1815 – March 7, 1897) was an African-American writer whose autobiography, '' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl'', published in 1861 under the pseudonym Linda Brent, is now considered an "American classic". Born int ...

' ''

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl ''Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, written by herself'' is an autobiography by Harriet Jacobs, a mother and fugitive slave, published in 1861 by L. Maria Child, who edited the book for its author. Jacobs used the pseudonym Linda Brent. The ...

'', once thought to be fiction written by its American editor Lydia Maria Child, is now accepted as authentic. Graham White wrote of the time gap between the 1820s, when on Neilson's account he knew Zamba in the US, and 1847 when the work was published, as raising issues that do not have immediate answers. Robert S. Starobin stated that the work "provides an extreme example of the problem of antislavery romanticism in a slave narrative", citing also Philip D. Curtin's opinion that it was a "blatant forgery".

Account of early life and slavery

According to the book, Zamba was born in the Congo. He was in his twenties when he befriended Captain Winton, one of the Western slave traders with whom his father the king did business. Winton provided Zebola with an education and eventually with passage on his slave ship to America. A free man, Zebola recorded the squalid conditions in which the slaves were kept. Upon his arrival to the United States, the Captain sold him into slavery and confiscated his possessions. Forced to work for over 40 years on a plantation in South Carolina, he published his autobiography ''The Life and Adventures of Zamba, an African King'' in 1847, after obtaining his freedom.

References

External links

The Life and Adventures of Zamba, an African Negro King
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zembola, Zamba People who wrote slave narratives African Americans in the American Civil War 18th-century American slaves Congolese-American history 1780 births 19th-century deaths Year of birth uncertain Year of death unknown 19th-century American slaves Written fiction presented as fact