Some of the characters in The Boy Who Spat in Sargrenti’s Eye by Manu Herbstein are Kofi Gyan, Intakwadi, Kofi Maame, Mr. F. C. Christian, Ababio, Melton Prior, Sargrenti, Uncle George, Nana Kobena Gyan, Esi, Yaw, George Alfred Henty, Henry Morton Stanley, Kojo Kom, David Mill Graves, and Johannes Kühne.
In this section, we are going to examine these characters and other characters in The Boy Who Spat in Sargrenti’s Eye by Manu Herbstein.
Kofi Gyan
Kofi Gyan is the fifteen-year-old protagonist and narrator of the novel, whose diary provides a primary-source African perspective on the Anglo-Ashanti War.
Kofi is born in Elmina to an Elmina father and a Cape Coast Fante mother. He finds himself caught between his divided heritage and complex political allegiances. He is highly educated and bilingual, fluent in Fante, Dutch, and English, which makes him incredibly valuable as an interpreter and, covertly, an undercover spy.
He is hired by British war correspondent Melton Prior for one shilling and ninepence a day. He uses his position to gather intelligence for the Asante resistance.
His character arc climaxes during an auction of looted Asante treasures, where he proudly identifies himself as “Kofi Africa” and spits in the eye of the British commander, Sargrenti.
As an adult in 1895, Kofi becomes an educated man and a member of the Fante National Association. He chooses to publish his childhood diary to preserve authentic African history.
Intakwadi
Intakwadi is Kofi Gyan’s father and the younger brother of Nana Kobena Gyan, the Ohin of Elmina. He is staunchly anti-British and fiercely loyal to Elmina and the Asante to the extent that he secretly travels to Kumase to act as an informant and spy for the Asantehene.
When the British mercilessly bombard and destroy Elmina, Intakwadi prioritises his family’s safety by sending his Cape Coast-born wife and their children to live as refugees in her hometown.
Although he is perceived by the British as an illiterate native, Intakwadi is a masterful and shrewd negotiator. This is evident in how he successfully secures a high wage and equipment for Kofi by pretending not to understand English.
Intakwadi recognises his son’s maturity, which is why he allows Kofi to make his own decision about accepting the dangerous espionage mission alongside the British troops.
In his later years, Intakwadi lives in peaceful retirement in a new family house in Elmina, cared for by his wife.
Kofi Maame
Kofi Maame is Kofi Gyan’s mother, a Fante woman originally from Cape Coast who married an Elmina man. She is renowned as a highly skilled professional; in fact, the best hairdresser in both Elmina and Cape Coast. She is so good that women travel great distances for her services.
After Elmina is destroyed, she takes her children (Kofi and Esi) to live as refugees in her family’s crowded house on Dawson Hill. As a protective mother, she is absolutely horrified when she learns that the British want to hire her fifteen-year-old son to march into a war zone. She questions why he should risk his life for a single shilling a day.
She is also an excellent cook. The British war correspondents who rent rooms in her father’s house corroborate this when she prepares their favourite meals like fried ripe plantain and boiled eggs. They even go to the extent of praising her cooking.
By the epilogue of the novel, she is living peacefully in Elmina, looking after her retired husband.
Mr. F. C. Christian
Mr. Christian is Kofi Gyan’s maternal grandfather. He is a successful Fante businessman and merchant based in Cape Coast. Before the war disrupted the local economy, he ran an import and export business; he traded palm nuts and palm oil with customers in England.
To make up for lost income during the conflict, he rents out the rooms in his large house on Dawson Hill to three famous British and American war correspondents. As the pragmatic and forward-thinking man that he is, he encourages Kofi to practice his English with the white tenants. He knows for certain that the language is an essential tool for success in a British-dominated world. He frequently tests Kofi’s literacy and intelligence. He even offers him a position as a trainee clerk after being impressed by his handwriting and reading skills.
When Kofi is imprisoned in the Castle for spitting at Sargrenti, Grandpa Christian intervenes. He apologises on his grandson’s behalf to secure his release.
Ababio
Ababio is a dedicated intelligence agent and spy who works directly for the Asantehene, Nana Kofi Karikari. He has a long-standing relationship with Kofi’s family, having visited them in Elmina years prior, where he entertained a young Kofi with traditional Anansesem (folk tales).
Ababio would later recruit Kofi to act as an undercover spy. He teaches him how to use the colonisers’ racist assumptions of African ignorance to gather vital military information.
He establishes a covert communication network for Kofi. To do this, he utilises a secret talking drum signal (“Kwaku Ananse”) and an anagram password (“Sargrenti”) to safely relay intelligence. In addition, Ababio successfully escorts Kofi across enemy lines to Kumase to ensure the young boy can personally deliver his tactical observations to the Asantehene.
According to the adult Kofi in the epilogue, Ababio was never heard from again after the war. He likely died defending Kumase during the British invasion.
Melton Prior
Melton Prior is a young, historical British war correspondent and artist who works for The Illustrated London News. He hires Kofi Gyan as his assistant and interpreter for the British military campaign, completely unaware of the boy’s true identity as an Asante spy.
Although he claims to be an objective artist, Prior actively suppresses evidence of British cruelty so as not to provide “ammunition” to critics of the Empire. This is spelt out by his deliberate refusal to draw the brutal whipping of a Black servant.
His moral bankruptcy is fully exposed during the sack of Kumase when he murders a fleeing Asante warrior by shooting him in the back and eagerly loots gold shoe buckles from the royal palace. He demonstrates a condescending and exploitative attitude towards Africans, as evident in how he casually appropriates Kofi’s secret sketches of Kumase to publish in London as his own work.
After surviving a severe fever that leaves him comatose, Prior returns to England and maintains a distant but friendly correspondence with Kofi, whom he gifts a lifelong subscription to his newspaper.
Major General Sir Garnet Wolseley
Major General Sir Garnet Wolseley, whom Kofi nicknames “Sargrenti,” is the supreme commander of the British invasion force in the Gold Coast. He is a ruthless imperialist who orchestrates the total destruction of the Asante capital of Kumase in 1874 to humiliate the Asante nation and assert British dominance.
Sargrenti displays extreme hypocrisy by ordering the brutal hanging of a Fante policeman for stealing a small scrap of cloth, while simultaneously overseeing and participating in the wholesale looting of priceless Asante treasures.
He relies heavily on forced labour. He utilises Hausa police to violently round up Fante men and women to serve as unpaid carriers for his troops’ supplies.
During the auction of the stolen artifacts in Cape Coast, he physically strikes Kofi in the face after the boy publicly accuses him of theft. This prompts Kofi to spit directly into his eyes.
Over twenty years later, as Lord Wolseley, he orchestrates yet another British invasion of Asante territory. The recent invasion goes to show the relentless, cyclical nature of colonial aggression.
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George Emil Eminsang
George Emil Eminsang is a wealthy Fante merchant based in Elmina. He is Kofi Gyan’s godfather. He initially encourages Kofi’s documentation of history by gifting him a blank 1869 Dutch diary for Christmas. He thereafter urges him to record the “momentous times” they are living in.
Eminsang quickly becomes a highly controversial figure when he accepts multiple lucrative official posts from the new British governor, which makes the local population to brand him a traitor and a sellout. His betrayal causes a bitter and permanent rift between him and Kofi’s uncle, the Ohin of Elmina, who accuses Eminsang of prioritising personal wealth and British contracts over the freedom of his people.
Following the chaotic shooting of Lieutenant Joost by an angry mob, Eminsang fears for his life and flees Elmina to take up residence in Cape Coast. He maintains enough of a connection to Kofi’s family though to offer Intakwadi a room in the St. George hotel he owns in Elmina.
Nana Kobena Gyan
Nana Kobena Gyan is the Ohin (King) of Elmina and the senior brother of Kofi’s father, Intakwadi. He is a powerful symbol of African sovereignty and resistance, given how he vehemently refuses to swear an oath of allegiance to Queen Victoria or recognise British authority over his town.
In a defiant speech to the British Administrator, he boldly declares that he is not a slave and rules Elmina on the authority of his own people. He completely rejects the European practice of trading African lands.
Because of his refusal to capitulate, the British forcefully arrest him without a proper trial and exile him to Freetown in Sierra Leone. He endures over 21 years in exile afterwards.
He explicitly rejects a British offer to return in 1877 because it required him to do so as a private citizen rather than as the rightful Ohin. He finally returns to Elmina in 1894 to a grand welcome and passes away shortly after. His people secretly bury him beneath his family house in defiance of a strict British ban on traditional burials.
Esi
Esi is Kofi Gyan’s older sister, senior to him by two years. She works as an apprentice to their mother in her highly successful hairdressing business.
When the family is forced to move to Cape Coast as refugees, Esi takes on the heavy daily chores of cooking, washing dishes, and serving meals to the white war correspondents renting rooms at Grandpa Christian’s house. Because Kofi previously taught her English, she is able to act as if she does not understand the white men while secretly listening to their conversations and gathering intelligence.
Esi’s physical appearance unfortunately attracts the predatory attention of both Mr. Prior and Mr. Stanley, who make highly inappropriate comments about her behind her back. When Kofi attempts to warn her about their lecherous intentions, she dismissively sticks her tongue out at him and tells him he must be dreaming.
Yaw
Yaw is Kofi’s close childhood friend from Cape Coast and the son of a local goldsmith who operates a workshop inside the Castle. He frequently spends his free time joining Kofi in activities like swimming, surfing on wooden boards, and having spitting contests with watermelon seeds on the beach.
Yaw eagerly assists Kofi in rescuing Mr. Melton Prior and his heavy wooden boxes from the pounding surf when the Englishman’s canoe suddenly capsizes. When Mr. Prior later “rewards” their life-saving efforts with a paltry threepence, Yaw is deeply insulted and bluntly labels the correspondent a “mean bastard.”
Later in the novel, Yaw accompanies Kofi to the British auction of the looted Asante treasures, where he marvels at the beautiful gold items and wishes his poor father could see them.
George Alfred Henty
Mr. Henty is the special war correspondent for the London Standard and a well-known author of boys’ adventure novels like Out On The Pampas. He rents a room in Grandpa Christian’s house and regularly dines and drinks with his fellow journalists.
Henty holds deeply entrenched racist views. He asserts that the intelligence of an average Black person is merely equal to that of a ten-year-old European child. He argues that Africans are totally lacking in originality and are utterly worthless as soldiers. He also insists they are fit only to serve as baggage carriers.
However, he recognises the military threat the Asante pose. After the war, he advocates for a strict ban on selling modern breech-loading rifles to them. He admits that if the Asante had equal weapons, the British would suffer massive losses.
Henry Morton Stanley
Mr. Stanley is the famous war correspondent for the New York Herald, widely known for finding the Scottish missionary Dr. Livingstone in the Congo.
Like Henty, he harbours virulent racist attitudes towards the local African population. He describes them as wild, filthy, and the most shiftless and indolent people in the world. He ruthlessly advocates for extreme violence against Fante carriers who refuse to work; he even suggests the British government should bind them in slave chains and whip them.
Stanley demonstrates his sadism firsthand when he volunteers to administer a flogging to Mr. Prior’s cook. He enthusiastically delivers forty-one lashes instead of the ordered thirty-six.
The British commander, Sargrenti, privately despises Stanley. He refers to him behind his back as a “pompous Welsh ass.”
Kojo Kom
Kojo Kom is an African man hired to serve as Mr. Melton Prior’s personal cook during the British military march towards Kumase. He works alongside the other bearers but finds himself in serious trouble when he gets into a fight with one of Mr. Stanley’s bearers outside Sargrenti’s hut.
As punishment, Sargrenti orders that Kojo Kom receive thirty-six strokes with a cane. Because Mr. Prior cannot bring himself to perform the beating, the brutal Mr. Stanley administers it instead, sadistically delivering forty-one strokes.
After being untied, a furious and defiant Kojo Kom spits, curses both white men by calling them cowards, threatens to slit their throats in their sleep, and successfully escapes into the dense forest.
David Mill Graves
Mr. David Mill Graves is a prominent, highly respected merchant and diplomat from Elmina. He is fiercely loyal to the Elmina Ohin, Nana Kobena Gyan, and staunchly opposes the transfer of Elmina from the Dutch to the British.
When the Dutch decide to sell their Gold Coast possessions, the people of Elmina contribute money to send Graves to Holland to formally petition the Dutch king against the transfer. While in The Hague, Graves is constantly harassed by Dutch police. He steadfastly refuses attempts by Dutch officials to bribe him.
Unlike Mr. Eminsang, who becomes a traitor in exchange for British positions, Graves maintains his integrity and is widely trusted by the anti-British factions in his town.
Johannes Kühne
Johannes Kühne is a German missionary who, along with the Ramseyer family, was captured by the Asante at Anum in 1868 and held hostage in Kumase for years. The Asante treat him relatively well during his captivity. They provide him with a servant, farmland, and regular allowances of money and food. Kühne learns to speak the Asante language fluently and often serves as an interpreter and letter-writer for the Asantehene.
When the Asante finally release him without demanding a ransom, he travels back to the British camp at Prasu alongside Kofi Gyan and an Asante delegation. During the trek, Kühne provides Kofi with a grim firsthand account of the devastating death toll the Asante army suffered from disease and hunger. He claims that they returned to Kumase carrying seventy-nine boxes filled with the bones of their fallen chiefs.
General Akyempon Yaw
General Akyempon Yaw is a famous Asante general and the uncle of the Asantehene, sent to help Elmina during the Fante Confederation siege. During his time in Elmina, he became a favourite of young Kofi, often visiting his family’s house to tell traditional Anansesem, or spider-man stories.
Because of his influence and power, the Dutch and British authorities repeatedly arrested him and held him in Elmina Castle. The British eventually deported him. They sent him back towards Kumase with an escort of Hausa police.
He tragically died from wounds sustained during a British naval attack on the town of Beyin, where he had taken refuge.
Mr. William Winwood Reade
Mr. William Winwood Reade is the special correspondent for The Times who arrives in the Gold Coast on the ship Ambriz. Beyond being a journalist, he actively participates in the violence and boasts to the other correspondents about shooting and killing an Asante warrior at the Battle of Abakrampa.
Unlike his colleagues who view Africans as mere children, Reade expresses a slightly more complex, though still highly prejudiced, view of their political skills. He argues that Asante kings and chiefs are profoundly skilled in diplomacy; that they use treachery as an offensive weapon and suspicion as a defense. He believes that the British must understand this African mindset and mode of operation if they want to successfully defeat them in the war.
Nana Kofi Karikari
Nana Kofi Karikari is the Asantehene, or King of the Asante Empire, who was enstooled around 1867. He receives young Kofi Gyan in his bedroom in Kumase and is deeply impressed by the boy’s literacy, tactical intelligence, and advice regarding the British vulnerabilities.
Throughout the British military advance, he repeatedly attempts to negotiate peace. He sends letters to Sargrenti and returns the European hostages without demanding a ransom. His efforts to appease the British fail, as Sargrenti invades Kumase, loots his royal palace of its massive gold wealth, and burns the city.
According to the novel’s epilogue, he was destooled by his own people in October 1874 and cruelly murdered a decade later in 1884.
Mr. Hendrik Vroom
Mr. Hendrik Vroom is Kofi Gyan’s English teacher at the Castle School in Elmina during the final years of the Dutch occupation. He recognises Kofi’s academic brilliance, which is why he selects him as the best student in his class and awards him a book titled Out On The Pampas as a prize.
When Kofi questions him about the biblical cruelty of the destruction of Jericho, Vroom defends the story. He insists that God promised the land to the Israelites and Kofi must have faith in the Bible.
After the Dutch hand over Elmina to the British, Vroom transitions into working as a clerk for the new British administration. Kofi encounters him again in the Castle’s palaver hall, taking official notes when British Administrator Harley demands that the Elmina chiefs swear allegiance to Queen Victoria.
Captain Henry Brackenbury
Captain Henry Brackenbury is the Assistant Military Secretary to the British commander, Major General Sir Garnet Wolseley (“Sargrenti”). He secretly acts as a war correspondent for The Times, which proves Sargrenti’s hypocritical reliance on the press despite his stated disdain for journalists.
Kofi astutely observes that Brackenbury has a long moustache, a large red nose, and a distinctive speech impediment that causes him to pronounce the word “regiment” as “wegiment.”
He plays a direct role in the systematic looting of Kumase. He personally oversees the selection and packing of the Asantehene’s greatest treasures. During the public auction of these stolen goods in Cape Coast, Brackenbury acts as Sargrenti’s proxy. He bids ten pounds on a beautiful Asante bronze sculpture on behalf of his commander.
John Mensah Sarbah
John Mensah Sarbah is introduced as a nine- or ten-year-old boy who does odd jobs for Grandpa Christian after school in Cape Coast. Grandpa Christian tasks young John with taking Kofi to his teacher so that Kofi’s literacy and educational level can be formally tested.
Although he appears only briefly during the main events of 1873, he becomes a highly significant figure in the epilogue set in 1895. As an adult, he grows up to be a prominent Gold Coast lawyer, a nationalist, and the editor of the weekly newspaper, The Gold Coast People. He becomes a good friend to the adult Kofi Gyan and is the primary person who persuades Kofi to transcribe and publish his childhood diary to preserve their history.
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