Homegoing

The legacy of the slave trade dominates Homegoing, affecting each side of the family in vastly different ways. On Effia’s side of the family, the slave trade allows her family to live comfortably and maintain power in their village and beyond. The lucrative trade allows Fiifi to form an alliance between his family and the Asante, creating protection of their wealth and power while keeping the English as an ally. However, for the individual lives of Effia, Quey, and James, the slave trade has trapped them in compromised situations, in which continued participation means sacrificing individual happiness for the success of the family and the tribe.

While Effia lives comfortably with James Collins, she is aware that she could just as easily be in the dungeon. Additionally, this alliance means losing her connection to her village and tribe, along with the status she would have enjoyed as Abeeku’s first wife. As the slave trade grows, it affects Quey’s life as well, for he, too, must compromise his own desires to become a leader in their Fante village, feeding the trade with more and more captured Africans. Finally, James Richard Collins most fully realizes his opposition to the slave trade when confronted with Akosua Mensah’s words, “I will be my own nation” (99).