Ignatius Sancho: An African Man of
Letters
Reyahn King et al.
National Portrait Gallery of the U.K. (1997)
The Raritan Players
Rebecca Cypess, director and lecturer
Sonya Headlam, soprano and lecturer
The Black British writer Ignatius Sancho is known today primarily as the author of an extensive correspondence, published posthumously, which used a sentimental, "conversable" literary style to criticize and disrupt the African slave trade. Yet the books that Sancho published during his lifetime were his five volumes of music—one book of songs and four of instrumental dance pieces—which made him the first Black man to publish his original musical compositions. The role of Sancho's music in his broader project of challenging discrimination, dehumanization, and slavery has never been fully addressed or understood.
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