Scipio Africanus (c. 1702 – 21 December 1720) was a former

slave Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...

born to unknown parents from

West Africa West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Gha ...

. He was named after Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus (236/235–183 BC), the famous Roman general who defeated the Carthaginian military leader

Hannibal Hannibal (; ; 247 – between 183 and 181 BC) was a Punic people, Carthaginian general and statesman who commanded the forces of Ancient Carthage, Carthage in their battle against the Roman Republic during the Second Punic War. Hannibal's fat ...

Life

Very little is known of Africanus' life. He was a former slave (since as the courts were to hold in

Somersett's Case ''Somerset v Stewart'' (177298 ER 499(also known as ''Sommersett v Steuart'', Somersett's case, and the Mansfield Judgment) is a judgment of the English Court of King's Bench in 1772, relating to the right of an enslaved person on English soi ...

(1772), slavery did not exist in Great Britain under English common law) in the household of Charles William Howard, 7th Earl of Suffolk, who lived in the "Great House" in Henbury,

Bristol Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by t ...

. It is not clear how he came to the household; historians believe that he may have been born into the household as the son of an enslaved West African woman, and named by Howard. One biographer has suggested that Africanus' name implies that Howard intended to free him for loyal service because the Roman historian

Polybius Polybius (; , ; ) was a Greek historian of the middle Hellenistic period. He is noted for his work , a universal history documenting the rise of Rome in the Mediterranean in the third and second centuries BC. It covered the period of 264–146 ...

wrote about how the Roman general Africanus freed people he had enslaved who promised to work hard. Africanus died in the Great House aged eighteen.

Grave

He is remembered because of the elaborate

grave A grave is a location where a cadaver, dead body (typically that of a human, although sometimes that of an animal) is burial, buried or interred after a funeral. Graves are usually located in special areas set aside for the purpose of buria ...

, consisting of painted

headstone A gravestone or tombstone is a marker, usually stone, that is placed over a grave. A marker set at the head of the grave may be called a headstone. An especially old or elaborate stone slab may be called a funeral stele, stela, or slab. The u ...

and footstone, in the churchyard of St Mary's in Henbury. The grave is

grade II* listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

. Both stones feature black

cherub A cherub (; : cherubim; ''kərūḇ'', pl. ''kərūḇīm'') is one type of supernatural being in the Abrahamic religions. The numerous depictions of cherubim assign to them many different roles, such as protecting the entrance of the Garden of ...

s and the footstone bears the

epitaph An epitaph (; ) is a short text honoring a deceased person. Strictly speaking, it refers to text that is inscribed on a tombstone or plaque, but it may also be used in a figurative sense. Some epitaphs are specified by the person themselves be ...

: It is thought that 10,000

black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...

slaves and servants were in

Britain Britain most often refers to: * Great Britain, a large island comprising the countries of England, Scotland and Wales * The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a sovereign state in Europe comprising Great Britain and the north-eas ...

in the early 18th century, but this is one of the very few memorials to them. Despite the quality of the memorial, there is no record of his burial in the church registers.

2020 Vandalism

Sometime between 16 and 17 June 2020 the headstone was smashed in two, with a message left nearby in chalk suggesting that the vandalism was in retaliation for the pulling down of the statue of Edward Colston by Black Lives Matter protestors, as well as the proposed removal of the gravestone of music hall blackface artist G H Elliott: The memorial was restored and put back in place in 2021.

Legacy

The author

Eugene Byrne Eugene Byrne (born 25 February 1959) is an English freelance journalist and fiction writer. His novel ''ThigMOO'', and the story it was based on, were nominated for the BSFA award. His story "HMS Habakkuk" was nominated for a Sidewise Award for Al ...

featured Scipio Africanus in his 2001 alternative history novel ''Things Unborn''. In this novel people who had suffered an untimely death were reincarnated in an England recovering from a

nuclear war Nuclear warfare, also known as atomic warfare, is a War, military conflict or prepared Policy, political strategy that deploys nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons are Weapon of mass destruction, weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conven ...

; Scipio Africanus was a famous war hero and a detective inspector in the Metropolitan Police. The Bristol-based reggae band Black Roots wrote a song about Scipio Africanus which they performed live at Trinity Hall, Bristol on

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

's 10-part series ''Rockers Roadshow'', produced by Mike Wallington and hosted by Mikey Dread in the 1980s. They featured a short scene of the grave.

References

External links