Historical Society of Ghana

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ANTON WILHELM AMO

Author(s): William Abraham
Source: Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana, Vol. 7 (1964), pp. 60-81
Published by: Historical Society of Ghana
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41405765
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Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana , Vol. VII , 1964

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ANTON WILHELM AMO

William Abraham

Only the barest facts of the life of Anton Wilhelm Amo are now
known for certain - his African birth, his distinguished scholarly
career in Europe, his eventual return to Ghana. He was born sometime
around 1703, taken to Holland four years later, served at the court
of Duke Anton Ulric in Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, attended the uni-
versities of Halle, Wittenberg and probably Helmstedt, taught at
Halle, Wittenberg and Jena, returned to Ghana sometime before 1753
and died on the coast probably during the i76o's. In this paper I
have tried to examine these bare facts as closely as possible, to fill
them out with a careful study of the known records of, and references
to, this remarkable man, and thus to present the most comprehensive
picture of his career yet done.
I

The fullest primary account of Amo's life is a short reference to him

in an obituary notice of David Henri Gallandet published by Winkel-
mann in 1782 and based upon diaries and notebooks, now lost, of
Gallandet himself. Gallandet, a Swiss-Dutch physician, was a ship's
surgeon on a vessel that called at Axim in 1753 and, according to
Winkelman,
While he (Gallandet) was on this trip to Axim on the Gold
Coast in Africa, he went to visit the famous Mr. Antony
William Amo, a Guinea-African, Doctor of Philosophy and
Master of Arts. He was a negro, who lived about thirty years
in Europe. He had been in Amsterdam in the year 1707,
and was presented to the Duke Anton Ulric who gave him
later to his son August Wilhelm. The latter made it possible
for him to study in Halle and in Wittemberg. In the year
1727 he was promoted Doctor in Philosophy and Master in
the Liberal Arts. Some time after this his master died.
This made him so depressed that it influenced him into
returning to his fatherland. Here he lived like a hermit, and
acquired the reputation of a soothsayer. He spoke different
languages including Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, and
High and Low German. He was skilled in astrology and astro-
nomy and was generally a great sage. He was then about fifty
years old. His father and one sister were still alive, and resided
at a place four days' journey inland. He had a brother who
was a slave in the colony of Suriname. Later he left Axim
and went to live in the fort of the West Indies Company of
St. Sebastian at Chama.1
1 Winkelmann, "Verhandelingen uitgegeven door het zeeuwsch genootschap
der wetenschappen te Vlissingen," Proceedings of the Zeeland Academy
Science (Middelburg, 1782).

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 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ANTON WILHELM AMO 6l

There are a number of difficulties in Winkelmann's account which we

shall discuss in due course, but, to start with, it does seem clear that
Amo was born in or near Axim, because Winkelmann reports both
that he chose that area to live in upon his return and that his surviving
family was still living nearby. Moreover, in the Register of Under-
graduates of the University oí Halle for 1727 Amo has set down in his
own hand next to his name the words, "Ab Aximo in Guinea Afri-
cana' ' - "Born in Axim in Guinea, Africa/' Finally, Henri Gregoire,
Constitutional Bishop of Blois and one of Amo's main biographers,
wrote in 1800 that " Amo . . . resolut de . . . retourner dans sa terre natale
a Axim, sur la Cote-ď Or" ;2 "terre natale " means not the country of
origin but the locality, the area, where one was born and refers there-
fore not to "la Cote-d'Or," but to Axim. This was also the opinion
of the Reverend Attoh Ahuma of Ghana, who devoted a chapter of
his book, West African Celebrities , 1700-1850, 3 to Amo.
As to the question of Amo's birthdate, here again we have to rely
primarily on Winkelmann, who appears to be reporting Gallandet.
It is safe to say that Amo himself was ignorant of his precise date of
birth; if, however, he considered himself "about fifty years old" in
1753, he must have been born sometime between, say, 1700 and 1706
(since he was already in Germany in 1707). None of the biographers
states the year of birth with any firmness - they all guess 1700, 1701,
or 1703 - and one can gather from this that the records of Brunswick-
Wolfenbuttel contained no specific reference; indeed the baptismal
records of the court chapel mention no birthdate, though they do
give his date of baptism and his baptismal godfathers. The most
reasonable conjecture is that Amo learned his age from his parents
when he returned to Axis - they would have been able to calculate
it with some accuracy in terms of the yearly Kuntum festivals, as is
common in Axim4 - and that it was only his scholarly habit of mind that
cautioned him to use the word "about" when talking to Gallandet.
We may therefore posit that Amo was indeed fifty years old in 1753,
which puts his birthdate as 1703.
We can also posit that Amo left Axim some time toward the end of
1706, since he was first taken to Holland before he found himself in
Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel in 1707 and since the normal voyage from
Axim to Holland, by way of the West Indies, would have taken at
least six months.
The reasons for Amo's departure from his native land so early in
life are only inferential. Three hypotheses have been broached in the

2 Henri Gregoire, De la literature des Nègres (Paris, 1800); translated into

German in 1809, into English in 1826.
3 Attoh Ahuma, West African Celebrities (London, 1910).
4 As Kwame Nkrumah, also from the Axim area, wrote in Ghana (New
York, Nelson, 1957), P- 3: "By tribal custom it was enough for a mother to
assess the age of her child by calculating the number of national festivals that
had been celebrated since its birth."

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Ó2 WILLIAM ABRAHAM

attempt to explain it : (i) he was kidnap

to Europe; (2) he was bought as a childs
(3) he was sent to Europe originally to b
of the Dutch Reformed Church.
The first hypothesis has been championed by Professor Wolfram
Suchier, a former Librarian of the University of Halle and the re-
discoverer of the story of Amo in Germany, in two articles published
early in this century.5 It has also been put forth by Dr. Brent jes, a
specialist in oriental archaeology working in the University of Halle,
and by two Ghanaians - a prosperous timber merchant of Axim,
Mr. Amoo-Mensah, who gave me personal assurance that wicked
sailors had captured Amo while he and his friends were picking berries
in bushes near the sea, and a Mr. Polly of Asomka, a village near
Axim, who held that Amo had been enticed by the predatory sailors
with a piece of cake.
Against this hypothesis, however, must be listed the reasonable
conjecture that if he had been kidnapped at the tender age of three it
is unlikely that his Ghanaian name of Amo would have been preserved,
even if he had been able to communicate it to his kidnappers ; 6
another Ghanaian, known to us as John Jacob Eliza Capitein, who
was kidnapped in 1725 at the age of eight, was unable to preserve
his Ghanaian name. Moreover, it is possible that Amo would have been
unable to find his parents at a place four days' journey inland from the
coast when he returned to Ghana later on, for he could well have had
no memory of their names of their probable location if he had been
kidnapped at the age of three.
The second hypothesis, that Amo was sold into slavery, runs into
the same objections, for under these conditions also Amo would
probably not have been able to preserve his Chanaian name or redis-
cover his parents. Moreover, against this theory is the important
point that in the early eighteenth century no Ghanaian parents would
have sold their children; 7 among other evidence for this is the con-
clusion of Roemer, a Danish resident in Ghana from 1727 to 1749,
who wrote in his account of the Guinea coast that ' 'those who have

6 Wolfram Suchier, "A. W. Amo. Ein Mohr als Student und Privatdozent
der Philosophie in Halle, Wittenberg und Jena, 1727/40/' Akademische Rund-
schau , 4 Jahrg. H 9/10 (Leipzig, 1916); "Weiteres über den Mohren Amo,"
Altsachen Zeitschrift des Altsachsenbundes für Heimatschutz und Heimatkunde,
N0. 1/2 (Holzminden, 1918), pp. 7-9.
6 Suchier, realizing Amo would not have been able to preserve his Ghanaian
name, permits himself to doubt that "Amo" is an African name at all; his
strange idea is that Amo could have portrayed a little Amor at court or could
have been showered with such a profusion of love that he was even called
"Amor," and that he lost the "r" in the course of years. All this is quite wrong;
"Amo," of course, is a common Ghanaian name.
7 The misconception that Africans were selling their children probably arose
from a mistranslation of phrases used by the African slavers; their "Medze ba
bi aba " (Akan) or "Mo gbe omo kon wa" (Yoruba) should not have been trans-
lated as "I have a son for sale" but "I have a chap for sale."

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 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ANTON WILHELM AMO 63

read this will no longer accuse Africans of selling their children/' 8

There is, however, one piece of circumstantial evidence to support
this hypothesis, and that is Winkelmann's statement that Amo's
brother was a slave in Suriname ; what was true of one brother might
have been true of the other. But, in the first place, if Amo's brother had
really been taken away as a slave it is difficult to see how Winkelmann
(or Gallandet) could have known his whereabouts with the precision
which Suriname implies. Second, given the fact that his parents would
not have sold him, Amo's brother could only have been taken as a
slave in error, and if so he would have been repatriated as soon as
the error was discovered; there is abundant evidence to show that the
Dutch West Indies Company would not have jeopardized its lucrative
slave trade by such arbitrary and thoughtless acts and that when
Ghanaians were mistakenly taken as slaves they were indeed repa-
triated.9 The most likely explanation of Winkelmann's reference is
that Amo's brother was in Suriname as a member of the voluntary
military corps recruited from Africa which the Dutch also established
in Indonesia ; Ghanaians are known to have served in such a corps and
one such is known to have been stationed in Suriname.
The third hypothesis therefore seems to me to be the most tenable.
Now it must be admitted that there is no direct evidence for this
hypothesis, but it does enjoy a certain amount of support from indirect
8 Roemer, Tilforladelig Efterretning от Kysten Guinea (Copenhagen, 1760),
P- 145-
9 For example; a 1707 memorandum from Assembly X to a new Director
for Ghana reads, "The Director shall on his arrival at the Coast of Guinea
employ all possible zeal to bring the trade there to a proper state to which
end he shall treat the natives of the country with consideration [beleefdelyk] . . .
and the Director shall be allowed for the better trade of slaves to make some
presents to the Kings of Fida, Aquamboe, Fetu, Commany and Ardra" (Th
Hague, West Indies Company: 54). Another letter from Assembly X to an
Assistant Director General says, "... seeing that the whole trade which is
driven on the coast by the Company can be done not otherwise than with the
natives and that the Company enjoys no profits outside trade, but on the con-
trary seems to suffer such injury by the diversion of trade and the closing of
the passages, it is therefore of the utmost necessity . . . that your Highness
treat, and cause to be treated, the kings and caboceers of all the districts together
with the lesser natives in all friendship and by all reasons to encourage them to
trade: and if any questions and disputes should occur between them, to settle
the same in the best way possible so that trade may flourish for the company
..." (The Hague, West Indies Company: 23 July 1706). In 1749 Assembly X
wrote to their Director at Elmina about the repatriation of Ghanaians: "After
much trouble and great expense (total £ 3271: 15: 8) have finally been trans-
ported from Suriname hither six of the free natives carried off by Christian
Hogeroop commanding the private free merchant ship Africa and sold as slaves
... It is therefore necessary to recommend Your Highness to represent to the
brother and/or relations of Atta [one of the six] that the carrying off of Atta
was done without our consent or blame and il he had not died he would have
been brought back, that skipper Christian Hogeroop has at their request been
arrested and put in irons. But if they are not satisfied by this, persist in their
claim, and you think they may have bad consequences, they not being subjects
of the company or belonging under any stabilised fortress, if they will agree
to a sum not exceeding the value of 6-800 guilders, we allow you to settle it
accordingly in the most economical way possible."

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64 WILLIAM ABRAHAM

evidence. First, if Amo were sent to Holland to

predikant either he or his supervisors would pre
full record of his parents' names and his birthp
use upon his return to Ghana. Second, it seems
preachers in Ghana, at least before 1708, were accus
some children of Christian fathers to the Netherlands to be trained
in Christianity. As direct evidence for this we have a letter from
Assembly X, dated 28 March, 1708, addressed to Johannes van der
Star, Preacher in Ghana, and instructing him that children of Christian
fathers were not to go to Holland but were to be baptised at home and
that someone suitable to teach and expound Bible stories to them
would be sought and sent over;10 the implication is that children
had been sent to Holland previously. Third, it is just possible that this
particular letter was written in response to the arrival in the Nether-
lands of Amo himself and in light of the difficulties which the Dutch
West Indies Company had in placing the boy. We know from Winkel-
mann that Amo was in Holland in 1707 and from court records that
he was presented to Duke Anton Ulric of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel
sometime later that year, and it is possible that the Company had had
the child on its hands for most of that year without being able to find
a guardian for him ; in the end, it seems, no guardian was to be found
in the Netherlands and so he was sent off to Germany. After this kind
of bother it would not be surprising if the company early in the next
year instructed the Dutch missionaries not to send additional Ghanaian
children.

II

In 1707 young Amo was sent to the court of Duke Anton Ulric,
a rather strange old man but an ardent promoter of science and the
arts, a composer of hymns and a novelist. His most serious work was
Fifty Reasons why one must be a Catholic , which convinced at least its
author, who in 1710 abandoned the Augsburg Confession and was
received into the Catholic Church ; but since Amo arrived before this
conversion he was baptised as a Protestant. The baptismal ceremony
took place on 29 July, 1708, in the chapel of the castle at Wolfenbuttel
and is mentioned in the church register thus :
This twenty-ninth day of July has been baptized a little Moor
in the Saltzthal Castle Chapel, and he has been christened
Anton Wilhelm. His Godfathers are all 11 of them very noble
Lordships.12
10 Assembly X of 28 March, 1708, to Johann van der Star.
11 The use of "all" instead of "both" is probably a grammatical laxity, since
Amo's Christian names were most likely taken from his godfathers, Duke
Anton Ulric (died 17 14) and his son Wilhelm August (1 662-1 731); if the
third member of the family, Ludwig Rudolph (1676- 1735) had been a godfather,
his name would undoubtedly have been added, as it was in 1721.
12 Saltzthal Chapel register in the Staatsarchiv at Wolfenbuttel.

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 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ANTON WILHELM AMO 65

The church register also records Amo's later confirmation, on a Sunday

in the year 1721. At that time he is referred to as "Anton Wilhelm
Rudolph Mohre", the first three names coming from the successive
dukes of Brunswick- Wolfenbutt el and the last coming probably from
a German word for a black man, "Mohr." One might conjecture that
when Amo was to be confirmed the priests balked at his African
name, which they would have scorned as pagan, and replaced it with
"Möhre," a practice which had also been in force at Wolfenbuttel
since 1716 at the latest.
The other references to Amo during this period are found in the
court's account books for 1716-17 and 1720-21 in the Staatsarchiv
at Wolfenbuttel. In these books he is listed as having received the sum
of thirty-two thalers as his stipend for the period from Easter 17 16
to Michaelmas 1716 and as having received an equivalent sum for the
period from Michaelmas 1716 to Easter 1717; he is next mentioned
as having received sixteen thalers for the Easter 1720 - June 1720
period and the June 1720 - Michaelmas 1720 period, but he was later
granted an additional three thalers for this last period and a full
nineteen thalers for the period from Michaelmas 1720 to Christmas
1720. These references - the only ones to Amo in the account book -
indicated that Amo received a stipend of sixteen thalers a quarter
from Easter 1716 to Easter 1717 and from Easter 1720 to June 1720,
and a stipend of nineteen thalers between June 1720 and December 1720.
Thus Norbert Lochner in his article on Amo reproduced in the
Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana in 1958 is quite wrong
in saying that "between Christmas 1719 and Michaelmas 1720 ....
Amo was paid a quarterly stipend amounting to sixteen thalers." 13
He is also wrong in suggesting that this sum "can be assumed also for
the intermediary period [from Easter 1717 to Easter 1720], although
this cannot be proved," for the registers make no mention of Amo
during this time and since there do not seem to have been omissions
in these registers (their pagination, for example, is complete and
correct) it must be presumed that no direct payments were in fact
made to Amo then. Lochner is also wrong in dating the decree announ-
cing the rise from sixteen to nineteen thalers as Christmas 1720, as the
reference in the register is quite legibly and clearly to 25 January
1720; nor is there any indication that the decree was retroactive, as
Lochner claims.
The important question about these payments is what they signify.
Of Amo's preceeding biographers, only Brent jes addresses himself
to this, and his answer is most unsatisfactory; he asserts, without
disclosing the reasons for his conclusion, that Amo had been working
as a page in Wolfenbuttel and that the payments in the registers
13 Norbert Lochner, "Anton Wilhelm Amo/' Ubersee Rundschau (Hamburg:
July 1958) ; reprinted in Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana, Vol. Ill,
part3 (Achimota, 1958).

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66 WILLIAM ABRAHAM

refer to this service.14 However, Amo is

registers (being referred to as "the ne
negro Anton Wilhelm Amo") whereas
described as "librarian Hoffmann," and furthermore this does not
explain what Amo was doing between Easter 1717 and Easter 1720
and why he was not paid then. Nor does Brent jes offer any explanation
of the quaint idea of Amo as a page in 1720 when he was probably at
least seventeen years old.
A much more reasonable explanation is that the payments were
simply pocket money for Amo during the time he was at court, and
that the reason they stopped between Easter 1717 and Easter 1720
was that Amo was then at school. There are several reasons for suppos-
ing that Amo was at school during this time. First, it explains why
Amo was paid no stipend during these years, for the court would have
sent his tuition fees directly to the school. Second, since Amo was
confirmed in 1721 he must first have had instruction in religious
matters, which he very likely received at school and not at court.
Third, it is known that Amo was proficient enough in Latin to have
entered the University of Halle in 1727 and to write an inaugural
dissertation in that language in 1729 - and though his training might
only have been obtained at university it can be conjectured that it
began before that. Finally, there is some reason to think that Amo
attended the University of Helmstedt after 1721 and, if so, he would
need to have had some education beforehand.
It is not certain how Amo obtained his education, but we can
suppose that he would not have had a private tutor at court since this
would have proved heavily expensive and his status as an outsider
would not normally have entitled him to this privilege. Nor is it likely
that he went to one of the aristocratic private schools of the time
(although there was such a school in Wolfenbuttel), for again he was
not suited by birth or fortune for this and he certainly would not have
learned sufficient Latin or religious training in these haughty, in-
efficient institutions concerned chiefly with utilitarian subjects and
the "aristocratic graces." It is equally unlikely that Amo attended
the free peasant schools at the other end of the social scale, for the
Dukes were neither so poor nor would they have been so callous as to
send him to a low-grade, poorly taught pauper's school ; he could not
have learned sufficient Latin there either. It is therefore reasonable
to suggest that Amo attended the last type of institution available,
a grammar school (one of which, the Ritter-academie of Wolfenbuttel,
was located nearby), where he would have had a full classical educa-
tion, sound religious training and instruction in accurate and elegant
Latinity ; only such a school could have taught Amo all he needed to
know in order to gain admittance to a university.
14 Bren tj es, "Anton Wilhelm Amo - in Halle, Wittenberg and Jena/' un-
published, but expected 1964/65.

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 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ANTON WILHELM AMO 67

We can thus conjecture an account for the years from 1717 to 1720,
but it is more difficult to account for those from 1721 to 1727, during
which period there are no records of Amo at all. Lochner supposes
that he was studying at the University of Helmstedt, near Wolfen-
buttel, a supposition which I think is tenable for a variety of reasons;
the fact that there is no direct evidence of this could be explained by
the cessation of that university, whose records were lost. Brent jes'
contention that Amo could not have attended this Protestant uni-
versity since the ducal court of Wolfenbuttel was Catholic 15 is based
on the mistake of thinking that because Anton Ulric became a Catholic
the whole court followed suit, which is not true; the university was
undoubtedly irritated by the Duke's conversion but that could hardly
have turned it into a deadly foe of every member of his household.
It would not be terribly unusual for a European nobleman to send
an African protege to university and, indeed, the example of Peter
the Great of Russia, who sent the African Ibrahim Hannibal through
school in Paris, would undoubtedly have been known at Wolfenbuttel,
where the court had connections with the Russian royal family. An
if the Duke of Wolfenbuttel - at this time Augustus Wilhelm - were
so inclined, it is likely that he would have sent Amo first to the local
university, Helmstedt, to see his mettle first-hand before sending
him on to other more distant, and possibly more difficult, universities.
There are several other reasons to support this theory. First, if
we are right in assuming that Amo was in fact in school from 1717 to
1720, it is unlikely that he would have been made to wait until
1727, when he entered the University of Halle, for his higher education;
presumably he would have gone to university as soon after 1720 as
possible. Second, in the Register of Undergraduates of the University
of Halle, Amo has signed himself as immatriculating on 9 June 1727,
and in the next column is entered tiie word "gratis," meaning that he
had sought and obtained exemption from paying matriculation fees.
This suggests that Amo was not then being supported by the Wolfen-
buttel court, perhaps because he had already been supported through
one university - i.e., Helmstedt - after which the court would feel
no obligation to keep paying his fees. Third, in this same register a
number of students who have come directly from a secondary school
indicate this fact, mentioning the name of the school and the number
of years they had spent there,16 and the implication is that those
against whose names there was no such information had not come
from a school but from a university; there is no mention of a school
against Amo's name. Finally, and most important, it is reported that
15 Ibid.
16 For example, Entry 485 of 8 June 1727 was one Andreas Fridericus Wil-
helmus de Crohn, who had been at the Rostock Academy; Entry 486 was a
Johannes Gottlieb Stremel who had spent two years in the Leipzig Academy;
Entry 483 was Nicolaus В. Brokelman who had spent a year in the Leipzig
Academy.

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68 WILLIAM ABRAHAM

Amo took courses only in law at the U

which could be taken only by those
since there is no record of Amo's having
Halle, it must have been obtained at a
Helmstedt.
We have no definitive way of knowing the number of years for which
Amo might have attended Helmstedt, but if he was there only for
a Bachelor's degree it probably would not have taken him more than
two years - say, from 1725 to 1727. (It is of course possible that he
completed a full Master's course at Helmstedt - which would have
meant attendance from 1723 to 1727 - since he was in fact awarded
a Master's degree in 1730; but it is much more reasonable to assume
that this degree was awarded for his postgraduate work at Halle from
1727 to 1729, especially since the degree came so soon after.) This
leaves the years 1721-25 to account for, and my conjecture is that
Amo was then acquiring a more advanced education in a more ad-
vanced grammar school, most likely the Ritter-academie located
right in Wolfenbuttel.

III

If Amo did attend Helmstedt, we can surmise that he would not

have found there a terribly congenial intellectual climate. The uni-
versity was cluttered with clericalism, the priests were for the most
part tolerant of the hierarchical social order of Germany (in which
Amo's rank would be low), and the professors probably would not
have sympathized with Amo's views either on religion or on the status
of Africans in Europe, both of which were made known in his thesis
delivered at Halle in 1729, in which he questioned "to what extent
the freedom or servibility of Africans in Europe, who had been bought
by Christians, was according to laws commonly accepted at that
time." 18
At Halle, however, Amo could expect a more sympathetic atmos-
phere, for that university, which had been founded only in 1694, was
already vigorous in its claim to intellectual freedom and was known
for the number of its free-thinking professors and students who em-
braced the humanist faith. Probably the best known of these huma-
nists was Christian Thomasius, a teacher who had angered the Luthe-
ran orthodoxy by his firm views against witch-hunting (common at
the time), who took as his personal motto the maxim that "unlimited
freedom gives the best life to all spirits," and who boldly opposed
the growing clericalism in his demands for complete freedom of
research and freedom from persecution for unpopular opinions honestly
formed and sincerely held. No less vigorous was his colleague Christian
17 Hallische Fr age-und- Anzeigen Nachrichten , 28 November, 1729, Sections
271-273.
18 Ibid .

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 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ANTON WILHELM AMO 69

Wolff, an unrepentant apostle of the liberal "Aufklärung" who

insisted that free inquiry ought to be trusted far more than any appeal
to authority and therefore sought the complete secularization of
education.
That this free-thinking, anti-clerical attitude would have been
shared by Amo is evident from an examination of what we know of
his first dissertation, which was described in a notice published in the
weekly newspaper of the University of Halle in 1729. The notice read:
Here [in Halle] resided for some time an African called Anto-
nius Wilhelmus Amo who was in the service of this Royal
Highness the reigning Duke of Wolfenbuttel, and as he had
before then thoroughly studied the Latin language, he very
diligently and with great success studied here with the
School of Private Law. In consequence, he became most ac-
complished in that field. So with the knowledge and consent
of his patrons who up to that time had kept him, he registered
with the Dean von Ludewig publicly to defend a dissertation
under him. In order that the argument of the dissertation
might suit his status and circumstance, they gave him the
theme "de jure Maurorum in Europa " : in other words, "about
the rights of Africans." 19 Therein not only has he shown
basing himself upon law and history that the kings of the
Africans were at one time vassal to the Roman Emperor,
and that every one of them had an Imperial Patent, which
Justinian too had granted, but he also especially examined
to what extent the freedom or servibility of Africans in
Europe, who had been bought by Christians, was according
to laws commonly accepted at that time. 20
This dissertation has so far not been traced. It appears, however,
that in it Amo objected to the crime of slavery, not by facilely resorting
to sentimental denunciations but by engaging the intellect of as wide a
spectrum of educated men as possible. It is also interesting that Amo
is not reported as basing himself on Scripture. He was in fact pleading
in the court of humanity, though basing himself exclusively on
European presuppositions. Europe prided itself on its heritage of the
Roman civilisation, in fact on its historical vassalage to Rome. Its
pride, its claim to status and privilege, was regularly built on its
subjection to the Roman law. But had not the Roman law granted
all sorts of immunity and privileges to those over whom it had juris-
diction ? The kernel of Amo's argument was that Africans were
entitled to the same immunities and privileges to precisely that extent
that the erstwhile European vassals of Rome enjoyed them, for the
African kings had been likewise subject to Rome under a Patent
which the Emperors had granted, and which Justinian too had
19 This has been persistently mistranslated as "The Law of the Moors in
Europe," but it is correctly "About the Rights of Africans in Europe/'
20 Hallische F r age-una- Anzeigen Nachrichten, loc. cit.

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70 WILLIAM ABRAHAM

granted. With every new emperor, how

had held a Roman Imperial Patent had had
of this was of course that successive R
Justinian explicitly recognised the vass
If Roman law provided, as it did, for the
dual who was subject to it, then the sa
is thereby extended by the same law to
Imperial Patent subject to it. In that ca
slavement by Europeans who claimed de
must be contrary to accepted laws.
The argument would be the same if o
as Christians; for they claimed to be Ch
through Roman Christian Emperors lik
according to Roman Christian law, th
enjoyed inviolability of person. As Jus
Emperor, had granted to African kings an
their subjection to Roman Christian law
with inviolability according to that law.
the enslavement of Africans was contra
The dissertation, which earned Amo the
and public law, was examined and publicly
manship of Professor Peter von Ludewi
strange man to have presided over the
viously anti-clerical thesis, as he had been
Thomasius and Christian Wolff; at the sam
his sedulous service to the Prussian kin
clerics. In any case, it is known that L
to Amo until his death in 1743, and it is lik
whose death "influenced [Amo] into retu
Winkelmann reported. Brent jes, citing
by Ludewig on Justinian in 1730, conten
emperor in Amo's dissertation was due
influence which every supervisor inev
thesis.21 This seems a little far-fetched, h
any case have mentioned Justinian, for
Europe at that point both to Europe's Ro
tradition ; it was no mere embellishment t
there is no evidence that Ludewig was A
known to have been his examiner.
Suchier, Brent jes and Lochner all say bluntly that Amo defended
his dissertation in November 1729 and cite the above notice in the
28 November 1729 weekly paper. However, that notice does not say
that Amo defended the dissertation in November, and in fact the
opening sentence, which uses the simple past tense instead of the

21 Brent jes, op. cit.

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 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ANTON WILHELM AMO 7I

perfect, suggests that Arno was no longer in Halle by 28 Nov

and therefore that he defended his dissertation sometime earlier.
About the time of Amo's dissertation, unfortunately, the University
of Halle was in a new, pro-clerical phase and the intellectual climate
was most strained. The humanists and free-thinkers were seriously
opposed by the clerical pietists who were able to enlist the intervention
of the Prussian King, Friedrich Wilhelm, on their behalf. In fact,
Christian Wolff had been expelled just a month before Amo went to
Halle, thanks to the vicious rantings of Joachim Lange, ringleader
of the clerical obscurantism and persecution, which convinced the
king that Wolff's ideas were inimical to the state. Christian Thomasius
had died in 1728. And a number of philosophers had left the university,
clearly preferring exile to intellectual slavery. Lange in the meantime
continued his efforts against Wolff and his followers, referring to the
"oversmart Wolfian Magistři (Masters)" who were seducing students
from their proper lectures - especially at Jena where, to his chagrinned
regret, "Wolfianism had taken strong hold"; Lange expressed pity
for the Prussian youths who studied in Jena and who, having been
corrupted, would not be permitted to return to Halle.22 By 1729
Halle, from Amo's standpoint, was doomed. The signs of impoverish-
ment of the intellectual climate, compounded with the hostility which
he would inevitably have evoked by indicting Christians and Euro-
peans in his dissertation, would have encouraged Amo to leave Halle
as soon as he was free to - i.e., as soon as he finished his thesis.23

IV

Amo presumably left Halle after defending his thesis in 1729, and is
not heard of again until 2 September 1730, when he immatriculated
into the University of Wittenberg, not far from Halle. He may very
well have considered going to Leipzig, where Christian Wolff had gone,
but that university was then festulating with enemies of Christian
Thomasiusm whose wrath he had unleashed by his free- thinking views.
And at Wittenberg he would have had a mentor, Martin Gotthelf
Loescher, a friend of Lude wig' s who taught Amo medicine, physiology

22 Johann Joachim Lange, "Clear Proof that the 130 Questions of the New
Mechanic Philosophy especially the Metaphysic" [sic], 1735.
23 This dispute between the free-thinkers and the clericals is illustrated by a
passage from Nikolaus Hironymus Gundling's Vollstandinge Historie der
Gelehrheit (Frankfurt /Leipzig, 1734), Part 4, p. 5256: ". . . . the medical men
have ranged themselves in two sects these days, if we can speak in such world.
First there are the Mechanists, and second the Stahlians. Of them the former
endeavour to maintain that the vital actions in the human body originate and
for the most part act in health as in sickness mechanically, and by use of the
body's physiology. They say even that the medicaments applied act in a mecha-
nical way in the body; and hence that the soul contributes little or nothing to
all this. To this, the Stahlians state the opposite view: namely that the human
soul is the prime mover in the body, and that the body through its physiological
structure is only a mobile instrument; also that the medicaments applied are
only stimulants which prompt the soul to motion/'

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72 WILLIAM ABRAHAM

and psychology and who took the chair

second known thesis in April 1734.
Now Arno was awarded the degree of Mas
Liberal Arts (which a few years later wa
Philosophy degree) at Wittenberg on 1
month after he entered the university - ac
Alte und Neue Curiosa Saxónica of Septe
this was awarded so shortly after he im
doubt in the minds of some of his biogra
compounded because the date in the His
not "1730."
To explain this, Brent jes puts forth th
be 10 October 1733, while Suchier claims th
in a " Rektor Program" dated 24 May 1733,
Program" has been discovered. The diffi
is that we have independent evidence tha
by 10 May 1733 - that is, before the da
suggest; this evidence is an article in the
2 June 1733, referring to events of 10 and
is a mention of "Magister (i.e., Master)
If we assume, then, that Amo was in fact
on 10 October 1730, how can we explain t
entering Wittenberg, before proper exam
have been satisfied? The most reasonabl
had already qualified for the Master's deg
Wittenberg through his two-year course
Halle; we can suppose that he completed a
ments for the degree at Halle, but left that
could be granted since he had incurred b
hostility by his strong dissertation. To
the information that Amo was studying
tation in law at Halle, and this was a co
Bachelor's degree working for a Master's
that the dissertation was mentioned at such
Ludewig's Universal Historie in 1744 sugg
just an undergraduate work and at least a
it is known that between 1730 and 1734 A
in the University of Wittenberg,25 and to d
by university requirement, a Master's de
There is some evidence that while he was
a Master's degree in both medicine and
Program" of 24 May 1733 might have con
24 Hamburgische Berichte von neuen gelehrte
"... right in front the student corporations sto
in the middle of the road as the commander of the entire corps."
25 Address by Rector Kraus appended to Amo's "De humanae mentis Apa-
theia . . . quoted below in full.

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 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ANTON WILHELM AMO 73

especially since we know Arno was taking medical courses from L

scher before this time and since he was allowed to attach a poem
praise to a doctoral dissertation presented by a medical student
I737 i and references in an address appended to his second dissertatio
refer to Amo as "that Most Distinguished Master of Science and
Liberal Arts' ' and as having been "decorated with the laurels of phil
sophy/' both of which may refer to his earning a Master's degre
science.26
At any rate, Amo successfully defended a dissertation at Wittenberg
in April 1734 27 which would have been sufficient to earn him the
Master's Degree in science. The thesis is entitled "De humanae mentis
Apatheia seu sensionis ac facultatis sentiendi in mente humana absentia
et ear um in corpore nostro organico ас vivo ftraesentia" ("Of the apatheia
of the human mind, namely the absence of sensation and the faculty
of sense in the human mind, and their presence in our organic and
living body"); in it Amo subjected Descartes to some very telling
criticisms. Copies can now be found in the libraries of the universities
of Grief swold, Halle, Jena and Göttingen, in the Free University of
Berlin and in the University of Ghana.
At the end of this dissertation were appended two interesting
addresses, one from the rector of the University of Wittenberg and
the other from Loescher to Amo. The first reads:

The Rector and Public Assembly of Wittemberg University

to the kind reader, greetings: Great once was the dignity
of Africa, whether one considers natural talents of mind or the
study of letters, or even the very institutions for safe-guarding
religion. For she has given birth to several men of the
greatest pre-eminence by whose talents and efforts the whole
of human knowledge has been built up. No one in former
times and no one in our own age has been judged to be either
more prudent in civic life or more elegant than Terence, the
Carthagenian. Plato in his Socratic dialogues even assures us
that so vigorous was the insight of Apuleius the Madarensian
into the secrets of things, indeed so comprehensive was his
study of former ages that when other schools had been torn
apart, the Apuleian School continued to flourish, that
School which dared to rival the Ciceronian for pre-eminence in
eloquence.
In christian teaching too how great are the men who have
come out of Africa. Of the more distinguished, it is enough to
mention Tertullian, Cyprian, Arnobius, Optatus, Milevitanus,
Augustine, the refinement of all of whose souls rivals the
learning of every race. And finally with how great faith and
steadfastness for soundness in sacred matters the African
doctors continued their memorials, their deeds and their mar-
tyrdom and their councils declare.
26 Ibid. 27 Gundling, op. cit., p. 5601.
6

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74 WILLIAM ABRAHAM

Those who say that the African Chur

been a receiver of instruction do her
While admitting that with the spread
Africa, great changes have indeed tak
theless one must say that all the ligh
learning has been far from being exting
tism. By an old established custom of th
ing seems to have migrated, liberal s
and where the Moors crossed from A
ancient writers brought with them at
assistance in the cultivation of letters from the darkness
which had taken hold of it. Such was the position of learning,
since it is satisfying that it brought pleasure to the Africa of
ancient times.

But though in our own times indeed that part of the world is
reported to be more prolific in other things than in learning,
nevertheless, that it is by no means exhausted of genius,
Anthony William Amo here, that Most Distinguished Master
of Science and the Liberal Arts, would teach by his example.

Born in a very distant recess of Africa where it faces the rising

sun, he came to Europe as a very little child. He was initiated
by sacred rites in the Julian Halls, and so enjoyed the
kindness of Guelf, of Augustus Wilhelm and of Ludwig
Rudolph, which was so great that in the matter of his
education no bounty of paternal love was lacking. Because
of his proven gentleness of spirit, he frequented the Saxon
Halls, and already learned in various doctrines, he came to
us, and, by continuing the curriculum with diligence, he
won the affection of the Order of Philosophy to such an
extent that by the unanimous vote of the Fathers, he was
decorated with the laurels of philosophy. The honour won by
the deserts of his ability, of his outstanding uprightness,
industry, erudition, which he has shown by public and private
exercises, he increased with praise. By his behaviour with the
best and most learned, he acquired great influence; among
his equals, he easily shone out. In consequence, trained and
stimulated by his studies of these things, he handed over his
knowledge of philosophy to several at home. Having examined
the opinions of the ancients as well as the moderns, he
garnered all that was best, and what he picked out he inter-
preted with precision and with lucidity. This work proved
that his intellectual ability was as great as his powers of
teaching nor have these powers proved themselves unequal
to the office of teaching to which by some natural instinct he
is at length being drawn to administer in the University.
Therefore, since he has completely justified our expectation,
there is no reason whatever why we should deny him our
public judgement and attestation to which he has a right.
Indeed, we hope for all the best things from him and we

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 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ANTON WILHELM AMO 75

adjudge him worthy of that Princely favour which he has

dutifully respected, and which he publicises in every address.
And now for good fortune in order that he may be able to
enjoy for a long time to come this fortune and attain to the
most renowned fruction of his hope, for the well-being of the
good and great Prince, Ludwig Rudolph, for the preservation
of the whole House of Brunswick, Guelfbytanic, celebrated
for so many great services to all Germany, let us all address
prayer to God.
John Godfrey Kraus, Doctor,
Rector of the University.
The second address reads:

We proclaim Africa and its region of Guinea planted apart at

a very great distance from us, formerly the golden coast, so
called by Europeans on account of its abundant and copious
yield of gold, but known by us as your fatherland, in which
you first saw the light of day, the mother not only of many
good things and treasures of nature but also of the most
auspicious minds, we proclaim her quite deservedly. Among
these auspicious minds, your genius stands out particularly,
most noble and most distinguished Sir, seeing that you have
excellently proved that felicity and superiority of your genius,
the solidity and refinement of your learning and teaching, in
countless examples up to now and even in this our University
with great honour in all worthy things and now also in your
present dissertation.

I return to you still complete and absolutely unchanged in

any respect that which you have worked out with proper con-
tentiousness in an elegant manner supported with erudition,
in order that the power of your intellect may shine forth all
the more strongly henceforth.

It now only remains for me to congratulate you wholehearted-

ly on this singular example of your refined scholarship, and,
with a more abundant feeling of heart than words can
convey. I solicit for you all good fortune, and to the Divine
Grace and also to the Highest and Most Noble Prince Ludwig
Rudolph, for whose health and safety I shall never tire of
worshipping the Divine Majesty, I commend you.
I write this at Wittemberg in Saxony, in the month of April,
A.O.R., 1734.

In the same year of Amo's own dissertation, on 29 May, he examine

the dissertation of one Joannes Theodosius Meiner and appended
it an address of his own. It reads:

To the most noble John Theodosius Meiner, let public

greetings be given, from the Chairman.

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 76 FILLIAM ABRAHAM

Of your continued diligence towards learn

knowledge, which can only be gained by ev
remitting application, and which can only b
swift additions of great importance, you ha
manifestation with honour.

There persevere happily as you have been doing for some

time, commended by honourable conduct and prudent living,
in rendering assistance to letters. In this way, the best
people will have affection for you. In this way, your parent,
long worthy of respect in age, that mistress of things of
honour deservedly destined (to him), distinguished in titles
and in piety, who in your fair Misnia provided the graceful
holy temple, will have in you a son not unworthy of so great
a parent. Thus, your most noble family, renowned by its
ancestry and the splendour of its achievements will see in
you its virtues prosper and flower.
I congratulate you, noble Sir, more for your promise of mental
excellence than for the ambiguity of your words.28

Sometime between 1734 and 1736 Amo returned to the University

of Halle, for it is known that in 1736 he opposed a dissertation present-
ed at Halle. The reasons for his return can only be conjectured, but
there is evidence to indicate that the free-thinking Wolffians were
growing in strength there, despite the continuing efforts of that
persistent obscurantist, Joachim Lange. Lange himself gives a clue
to their growth in an article in 1734 when he complains about the
revival of the liberal movement and the expansion and attraction
of anti-clerical lectures 29 and again in 1735 when he attacks students
who run to anti-clerical masters instead of attending their proper
lectures.30 In 1736 he succeeded in getting the king to issue a reprimand
against the Faculty of Theology, in which he complained that whereas
he used to draw a crowd of two to three hundred students to his private
expositions of holy scripture, in later years even those lecturers more
edifying than he could count on only twenty or thirty ; he added that
the Wolffian philosophy had been trying for some years to become
popular again and had, unfortunately, gained a certain following.31
There are several references to Amo during his tenure at Halle.
The first is the account of his opposition to a dissertation on anatomy
in 1736, about which the Halle weekly wrote:
28 Copies of Meiner's dissertation, "Disputatio Philosophica continens ideam
distinctam eorum, quae competunt vel menti vel corpori nostro vivo et organico
are located in the libraries of the university of Grief swald, the Bodleian Library
at Oxford and in Ghana.
29 Johann Joachim Lange in Hallische Fr age-und- Anzeigen Nachr
12 July 1734.
30 Ibid, 173 5.
31 Ibid, 14 May 1736.

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 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ANTON WILHELM AMO 77

During this deputation, then Magister Amo of Africa, and

there born in Guinea, a genuine negro, but a humble and ho-
nourable philosopher, put the public opposition with pleasure
according to his wont, besides others.32
Next there is an entry in the university records for 21 July
granting Amo permission to give public lectures, thus enablin
to supplement the undoubtedly meagre income he made from pri
lectures:

Antony William Amo, Master of Philosophy and the Liberal

Arts, born in Guinea in a coastal province of Africa, has put
forward a petition in which he asks that that same right
of delivering public lectures in certain parts of philosophy
be given to him among us, as he used to enjoy in the area
of Wittenberg. When this request had been communicated to
each person, it was with great pleasure that this facility was
granted to this learned but poor man who had indeed only
recently lost his most serene benefactor.33
Finally, there is a poem in German, in pure iambic meter, written
by Amo and attached to a dissertation by Moses Abraham Wolff
presented in 1737. Roughly translated, the poem reads:
Your nimble mind moving so fast in contemplation
And in profound study with unceasing toil,
Has, noble soul, made you in the scholar's world
A star of such dimensions that, shining
Ever brighter, your fame is thus enlarged
As honours multiply. It's wisdom's gift
To those who are her sons. But enough!
From heaven let there fall upon yourself and yours
Deep joy and purest blessings.
This has with congratulations been added
By Anton Wilhelm Amo, from Guinea
In Africa, Magister and University Lecturer
In Philosophy and the Liberal Arts.
Suchier says that he discovered another dissertation to which Amo
had added a poem in Latin, but unfortunately he lost all trace of it
and reports only that it was signed simply, "Amo."
During his tenure at Halle, Amo gave regular lectures and published
a book. His lectures were on a wide variety of subjects; one series
was devoted to a critical exposition of Leibniz's Principle of Sufficient

32 Ibid , November 1736. It is interesting to find Amo referred to as a genuine

African, for James Hunt, writing in the nineteenth century, offered to prove
at some unspecified date that no genuine African had ever shown the least
signs of intelligence and that those who had been mentioned in works like
those of Bishop Gregoire were either fictitious or half-caste!
33 University Archives of Halle for 1736. The benefactor was Duke Ludwig
Rudolph, who had died in 1735.

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 78 WILLIAM ABRAHAM

Reason , in which he would most probably have

that physiological processes were "mechanical
not influenced by the soul. He also gave lecture
thought of Christian Wolff (though Wolff was still
on Professor Fleischer's Natural and International In
and on the decimal system and the theory of co
described in the Transactions of the Faculty of
on 4 March 1737, was printed in Halle in 1738 unde
Sobrie et Accurate Philosophandi (On the Art of
Philosophising). Copies of it survive in Bamberg, Er
of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Leningrad and
of logical criticism, the book opens with a discussio
mind, attempts a classification of various kinds
shows the relation of philosophy to other mental p
discusses philosophy as logic, ontology, pneuma
politics.
The "mechanistic" flavour of this work would surely have angered
Lange and his group, which may have been a factor in Amo's decision
to go to the University of Jena, a Wolffian centre, in 1739. On 27 June
of that year we have a letter from Amo addressed to the Faculty of
Philosophy requesting permission to give public lectures as a university
lecturer :

Following a practice of doing good service for the state,

pricked on by the sharp dart of poverty (for I have a poor
home), I have, to the best of my ability, been teaching philo-
sophy at home in both the universities of Wittenberg and
Halle, and have quite often engaged in public disputation,
and have performed these tasks with diligence. Therefore, you,
gentlemen of outstanding reputation in the world of letters,
I hope that you will pay the same attention to me in this,
your famous seat of the Muses. Once you have kindly shown
me this indulgence, I shall thank you for your action, and shall
never grow tired of praying to heaven that you, my excellent
patron, may enjoy forever a most desirable happiness.34
The letter is signed, "Antonius Guilielmus Amo Afer, Philos, et art.
liberal. Magister legens et. Jur. cand." It was circulated immediately
to the other members of the faculty by the Dean, Friedrick Andreas
Hallbauer, who pointed out that Amo did not have the means to pay
the nostrification fees and had requested that these charges should
be deferred until he had earned something from his lectures.
There were five other members of the Faculty of Philosophy,
Johann Bernhard Wiedeburg, Georg Erhard Hamberger, Johann
Jacob Lehman, Johann Peter Reusch and Christin Gottlieb Buder.
All except Lehman approved the exemption from nostrification
34 "The Hamburg Report of Learned Matters/' Hamburgische Berichte von
neuen gelehrten S achien, 24 November, 1739.

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 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ANTON WILHELM AMO 79

fees immediately, and apparently Lehman approved it shortly, f

on 8 July 1739 Hallbauer recorded in the Book of Faculty that Am
request had been granted and the nostrification fees deferred u
Easter of 1740; Amo was therefore permitted to become a univer
lecturer. A notice dated 17 July (no year given, but perhaps 17
lists the lectures Amo was to give, including one on "the valuab
portions of philosophy" and one on the refutation of superstitio
beliefs.
The last document bearing Amo's hand which has so far come
light is an album of his friend Gottfried Achenwall from Elbing, th
inventor of statistics in Germany, which according to the title p
contained memorials of men who had attained eminence in science
and learning. Amo signed the book on 5 May 1740 in Jena and append-
ed a quotation from Epictetus which was his personal motto: "He
who can accomodate himself to necessity is wise and has an inkling
of things divine." At the foot of this is added: "These words Antony
William Amo, an African, Master and University Lecturer in Philo-
sophy and the Liberal Arts, has put down in everlasting memory
of himself." 35
There is no direct evidence that after his stay at Jena Amo became
a counsellor of the Court of Berlin, but Professor Blumenbach in an
article written in 1787 has the following:
Our honoured Professor Hollman, while he was still in Witten-
berg, conferred the degree of Doctor of Philosophy on a negro,
who proved his great talent both in his writings and in his
lectures, and who later came to Berlin as counsellor to the
King. I have two of his treatises before me, of which one
especially contains much unexpected and well-digested read-
ing in the best physiological works of that time.36
It is not known what Blumenbach's source was for this assertion*
but if Amo did in fact go to Berlin it seems doubtful that it would
have been in 1739, while Friedrich Wilhelm I was still king, for
Friedrich Wilhelm had patronised pietism and the clerical reaction
against the philosophical free-thinkers with whom Amo was allied
He may, however, have gone to Berlin after 1740, when Friedrich II
"the Great/' came to power and for a few years liberalised the Prussian
regime.
The last record which has been discovered of Amo's sojourn in
Germany is of a satirical recitation performed in a theatre and reported
in 1747. 37 The title of the recitation was "A Comic student, the false
academic virgin and Magister Amo's proposal," and it apparently
35 The album is at present in the library of the University of Göttingen.
36 Blumenbach, "Von den Negern/' Magazin für das Neueste aus der Physik
und Naturgeschichte, Vol. IV, N0. 3 (Gotha, 1787). The treatise mentioned is
the lost "De humanae mentis Apatheia
37 Hallische Fr age-und- Anzeigen Nachrichten, 1747.

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8o WILLIAM ABRAHAM

made fun of Amo by having him fall in

a female student - an idea that could
of the clericalists who had been opposing
tion was billed for Halle suggests that
taken place at Halle and therefore tha
Halle, perhaps at the promise of a new d
withdrawn, by the new King of Prussia
that Amo stayed in Germany until 1
VI

It is not known when Amo left Germ

if we can rely on Winkelmamťs state
master died," then we must suppose
until 7 September 1743, when his old
Ludewig, did. We can assume that the '
mann was Ludewig since no other academ
1740 (when we know he was at Jena) an
in Ghana) and since the only non-ac
referred to as "master" would have been a Duke of Wolfenbuttel,
none of whom died between 1735 and 1755. Amo, then, most probably
left Germany after the death of Ludewig in 1743 but not much before
the satirical recitation of 1747. There is an additional piece of informa-
tion which suggests that he did not return before 1747 : Capitein, the
Ghanaian who had studied in Holland until 1742, returned that year
to Ghana and spent the next five years until his death in 1747 on the
coast, chiefly at Elmina but occasionally also at Chama; it seems likely
that Capitein would have met Amo if the latter were on the coast
before 1747, and yet there is no mention of him in any oí Capitein's
writings.
We have very little information about Amo's life back in Ghana,
except for Winkelmann's report that he lived first at Axim and "later
he left Axim and went to live in the fort of the West Indies Company
of St. Sebastian at Chama." 38 This information is probably not from
Gallandet, who met Amo in Axim, but perhaps something that
Winkelmann gathered from unknown Dutch sources. But it is difficult
to see any reason why Amo should of his own accord have left Axim,
in a region where his father was living and where he had "acquired
the reputation of a soothsayer" and "a great sage," according to
Winkelmann. The only possible explanation is that Amo's ideas about
slavery and vitalism, both those which he was known to have published
in Europe and those which he may be presumed to have accounted
in Ghana, had made the Dutch so anxious about his harmful effects
on the flourishing slave trade at Axim that they sent him as a prisoner
toa lesser fort.

38 Winkelmann, loc. cit .

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 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ANTON WILHELM AMO 8l

There is no further record of Arno. An expedition under Profe

Donatie is known to have toured the Guinea coast sometime after
April 1759 making nature study observations, but there is no mention
of Amo in any of Professor Donatie's works. The diaries of the tw
governors of the fort at Chama in the 1750's, Mr. Sandra and Mr. Soyer,
both of which would presumably contain additional information,
have not yet been found. The fort, in any case, was in ruins by 1769,
by which time Amo was presumably dead.

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