Baquaqua and Moore (1854) is a unique historical source for the study of politics and everyday life in a commercial city in nineteenth-century West Africa and the social history of slavery in the Americas. It is also unique among the 'slave narratives' - or 'freedom narratives' - published in the United States in the nineteenth century and in Great Britain from the eighteenth century in that its subject, Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua, together with the likes of Gustavus Vassa, Ottobah Cugoano, Venture Smith, and Nicholas Sa'id, is one of the only African-born subjects of those narratives (Lovejoy, 2011, p. 91). In addition to the extensive descriptions of his homeland and the commercial and court culture of a number of cities provided in his biography, other sources of information on Baquaqua's trajectory include a series of letters written and received between 1848 and 1857; affidavits from a trial to which he was subjected in 1847; newspapers published in Brazil, the United States and Canada; a 'fugitive slave' notice; and various reports and documents related to his second Brazilian owner (Bezerra, 2015). ${ }^{3}$  
Baquaqua dictated his life story to Samuel Moore and the book was published in 1854, with an attribution to Moore as editor and writer, which is confusing as Baquaqua had clearly drafted at least part of the text himself and the copyright was registered in his name at the Clerk's Office of the United States District Court of Michigan. ${ }^{4}$