Elephants for Want of Towns- A Quote from 'The Book of Negroes'

Hi!
Today, for English class, I am going to write about a memorable quote from 'The Book of Negroes.'

'So geographers, in Afric-maps,
With savage-pictures fill their gaps'
And o'er unhabitable downs
Place elephants for want of towns'
- Page 368

Aminata reads this quote when she is at the Governor's house for dinner, and is looking through maps. She finds a piece of paper on which this poem is written. It says that it was 'Copied from On Poetry: A Rhapsody, by Jonathan Swift, 1733.' This quote is of particular significance, because it encapsulates Aminata's frustration with the general lack of knowledge about Africa, and the people who live there. She is frustrated with how people fail to understand the true nature of her beautiful home, and simply fill the maps of Africa with elephants and baboons.


This quote is important because it really emphasizes the lack of knowledge about Africa at the time. This would be incredibly frustrating for Aminata, since people had bizarre misconceptions about her homeland, and therefore about her as well. Many people truly believed that Africa was a terrible place with elephants and monkeys everywhere, whereas Aminata knew how beautiful a place it truly was.

Thanks for reading!
STzivanovsky