Summary of The Boy Who Spat in Sargrenti’s Eye
The Boy Who Spat in Sargrenti’s Eye by Manu Herbstein is a historical novel structured as a “found” diary written by fifteen-year-old Kofi Gyan. The story provides a firsthand, African perspective on the violent advent of British colonialism in the Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana) during the 1873-1874 Anglo-Ashanti War.
The story begins in Elmina, a coastal town that had long maintained a peaceful relationship with the Dutch, who paid rent (kostgeld) to the Asante Empire for Elmina Castle.
For Christmas in 1871, Kofi receives a diary from his godfather, Mr. Eminsang, who urges him to record the “momentous times” unfolding around them.
Tensions rise when the Dutch secretly agree to hand over their forts to the British. With this arrangement, they have ridiculously treated the African inhabitants like property to be sold.
Kofi’s uncle, Nana Kobena Gyan, the Ohin (King) of Elmina, staunchly refuses to swear allegiance to the British. He justifies his refusal with the declaration that he is not their slave; that he is an authority on his people in his own right. In response, the British arrest the Ohin and exile him to Sierra Leone.
By June 1873, after the locals refuse to surrender their weapons, the British ruthlessly bombard Elmina from the sea and the Castle. They flatten the town and set it ablaze. Kofi’s family is forced to flee as refugees to the nearby British stronghold of Cape Coast.
In Cape Coast, the British prepare for a massive military invasion of the Asante Empire, led by Major General Sir Garnet Wolseley, whom Kofi dubs “Sargrenti.” War correspondents from major Western newspapers arrive to cover the campaign. The correspondents include Melton Prior, George Henty, and Henry Morton Stanley. Mr. Prior hires the bilingual, highly educated Kofi as his assistant and interpreter.
Kofi’s father and an Asante spy named Ababio recognise this as a strategic opportunity. Therefore, they recruit Kofi to act as an undercover agent for the Asantehene, Nana Kofi Karikari.
The white officers and correspondents play into their hands. They speak freely around Kofi because of their arrogant assumption that Africans are unintelligent and cannot understand English. This dehumanising view of Africans allows Kofi to gather crucial intelligence. Kofi, in turn, relays this information to the Asante using a secret talking drum signal (“Kwaku Ananse”) and an anagram password (“Sargrenti” scrambled).
As the British carve a 74-mile road through the dense jungle towards the Pra River, Kofi witnesses the horrific realities of the British “civilising mission.” One such is how the British employ forced labour. The Fante locals have refused to risk their lives for meagre pay. So, the British drag their men and women from their homes to act as “beasts of burden.”
There is a particular instance when a Black man is brutally flogged at a “whipping tree,” an atrocity Mr. Prior deliberately refuses to draw because he does not want to give “ammunition” to critics of the British Empire. In the same way as Mr. Prior, the other war correspondents regularly express virulent racism. Henty, in particular, declares that Africans possess the intelligence of ten-year-old children. His colleague, Stanley, wickedly recommends that the Fante carriers should be put in slave chains and whipped.
Kofi eventually sneaks across enemy lines to Kumase, where he meets the Asantehene himself. He advises the King to exploit British reliance on technology by sabotaging their water filters and severing their telegraph wires.
Even though the Asante put up a good fight, the war eventually ends in a devastating slaughter. The British rely on their overwhelming technological superiority (rapid-firing Snider rifles and Gatling guns) against Asante warriors armed with ancient flintlocks loaded with stones.
After the bloody battles at Amoaful and Odasu, the British enter the Asante capital of Kumase. The white men systematically loot the royal palace of its priceless gold masks, jewelry, and artifacts. Mr. Prior personally steals gold shoe buckles to make a brooch for his wife. To carry out his looting, he has to threaten Kofi to keep quiet. Sargrenti’s troops then blow up the stone palace, set Kumase on fire, and retreat to the coast.
Back in Cape Coast, the British hold a public auction in the Castle to sell off the stolen Asante treasures. Kofi watches in absolute disgust as British officers and wealthy Fante elites eagerly buy up the looted heritage.
When Sargrenti’s proxy bids on a beautiful bronze sculpture depicting the Asantehene, Kofi completely loses his temper. He repeatedly screams, “You thief!” and publicly accuses Sargrenti of being a murderer who stole the Asante nation’s wealth. The Sargrenti’s guards restrain him but that is not enough to stop him. He proudly declares his true identity: “My name is Kofi Gyan, Kofi Asante, Kofi Africa.”
Sargrenti strikes the boy in the face twice, cutting him with his ring. In a final, triumphant act of defiance, the fifteen-year-old Kofi takes aim and spits directly into Sargrenti’s right eye, and then his left.
The novel concludes twenty-one years later on Christmas Day, 1895. Kofi is now a 37-year-old educated man and a member of the Fante National Association. With the British (again orchestrated by Lord Wolseley/Sargrenti) anchoring ships to launch yet another invasion of Asante, Kofi is persuaded by nationalist leaders to publish his childhood diary. Doing this will transform Kofi’s physical resistance into intellectual activism. It will ensure that the true, brutal history of the colonial war is preserved from the African perspective.
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Setting of The Boy Who Spat in Sargrenti’s Eye
The Boy Who Spat in Sargrenti’s Eye is set in the Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana) in West Africa during the late nineteenth century. The primary events of the novel unfold over a two-year period, from January 1872 to March 1874. They capture the turbulent transition of coastal forts from Dutch to British control and the bloody 1873–1874 Anglo-Ashanti War.
The narrative moves across several distinct geographical locations that highlight the political and cultural divides of the era. First, there is Elmina. The story opens in Kofi Gyan’s hometown of Elmina, a coastal settlement that has long lived peacefully alongside the Dutch, who pay rent to the Asante for Elmina Castle. The town is divided into sections such as the King’s Quarter, characterised by sturdy stone houses, and the Garden Town, where wealthy merchants reside. The setting drastically changes on June 13, 1873, when the British mercilessly bombard Elmina from the sea and the Castle. These attacks set the town on fire and reduce it to a smoldering ruin, which forces Kofi’s family to flee into the bush.
Then, the setting changes to Cape Coast (Oguaa), a neighbouring coastal town which is the central stronghold of British colonial power. After Elmina’s destruction, Kofi and his Fante mother relocate here as refugees, where they live in a crowded family house on Dawson Hill. Cape Coast Castle and Government House are the administrative hubs where the British governor resides. The town becomes the staging area for the British military invasion. It becomes flooded with soldiers, forced Fante labourers, and European war correspondents.
Noteworthily, a significant portion of the novel takes place on the march inland. The British carve a 74-mile road through the dense forest, during which they build heavily fortified way-stations and camps like Inquabim, Akroful, Manso, and the massive artillery park at Prasu. The dense, thorny tropical jungle is a hostile character in its own right. It is depicted as an ideal environment for Asante ambushes and a deadly breeding ground for diseases like dysentery, fever, and smallpox that decimate both the Asante and British forces. Also, the Pra River is featured as a major geographical and political border that separates the coastal ”Protectorate” territories from the sovereign Asante Empire.
Then, there is Kumase, the capital city of the Asante Empire, located deep in the interior forest. Kofi visits Kumase twice; once sneaking in through back paths as a spy, and later accompanying the British army. Kumase is described as a place of impressive architecture and immense wealth, with the Asantehene’s stone palace holding massive stores of gold and silver. The climax of the novel’s setting occurs here in February 1874, when the British loot the royal palace, blow it up, and set the entire city ablaze before retreating.
The Boy Who Spat in Sargrenti’s Eye also features a brief epilogue set in Cape Coast on Christmas Day, 1895, twenty-one years after the war, just as the British are anchoring transport ships to launch yet another invasion into Asante territory.
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