Ignatius Sancho

I was looking for a British composer from the late 1700s or early 1800s to use in a short story recently and came across a man by the name of Ignatius Sancho. He wasn’t what I was looking for—I needed someone who was not as popular or as well-known long after his death—but what I read about him stayed with me. I decided to learn more about him, and today I am sharing what I found out with you. The image I get of Sancho is that he was a creative, intelligent person who succeeded at a time when he likely had few, if any, role models. Sancho is remembered for a series of letters, which were published posthumously in the two volume Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, An African, and as a music composer. He was an abolitionist, and is viewed as a man of letters, a social reformer, and a keen observe of British life. Ignatius Sancho was the first Black man known to have voted in Britain.

Birth, early life, & his life in service

A caveat before we continue: although I have endeavoured to put together what seems to be the most accurate information, or acknowledge what is questionable, some of the details are almost certainly wrong.

Although a quick Internet search makes it appear that we know a lot about Sancho’s origins and early life, in reality it seems that we do not. A lot of the information on Sancho comes from a short biography written by Joseph Jekyll which was included with the editions of Sancho’s letters which were published in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Researchers such as Carey (2003) and Hammerschmidt (2008) have questioned the validity of some of the details in Jekyll’s piece.

Sancho was born around 1729 and died on 14 December 1780—two days before Jane Austen’s fifth birthday. Jekyll wrote that Sancho was born on ship carrying slaves to Cartagena, in what is now Columbia, and that his mother died soon afterwards, and his father committed suicide rather than face life as a slave. Jekyll further wrote that Sancho was baptized by the Bishop of Cartagena before he was brought to Britain as a young child. In Britain, he worked as a slave in Greenwich for three unmarried women, sometimes identified as the Legge sisters, until he escaped their home and went into service for the Montagu family. He worked for the second Duke of Montagu, John, until his death, upon which time he worked for the widowed Mary, Duchess of Montagu. When she died, Sancho remained in service to the family, now working for George Montagu. (George, who was the son-in-law of John Montagu, was considered the first Duke of Montagu since the title had been recreated for him.) Sancho remained with the Montagus until 1774, when he and his wife opened a grocery store with the assistance of the family.

Some of these facts are verifiable. For example, parish records document his marriage in 1758 and death in 1780. The earliest accounts of Sancho show that he was in service to Mary, Duchess of Montagu in late 1749 or early 1750, at which time he would have been about twenty years old, based on Jekyll’s date of birth. We also know that Sancho remained in the Montagus’ household until he left to open his shop in 1774. As for the story that Sancho was born on a ship transporting slaves, there is no proof of it, and he never refers to this version of his life history in his letters. Carey (2003) questions why a baby who was destined to be a slave (what an awful sentence to write) would have been baptized at all, let alone by a bishop. Furthermore, Jekyll’s biography refers to an unsuccessful attempt to build a stage career, a youthful fondness for gambling, and several publications, such as a Theory of Music which was dedicated to the Princess Royal (Anne, the eldest daughter of George II and Caroline of Ansbach). None of this is easy to verify. Interestingly, what Jekyll failed to mention were Sancho’s musical compositions which were published; they are discussed later.

It does call into question the sources of Jekyll’s information. Carey (2003) wrote that it is not clear what the relationship was between Jekyll and Sancho. There is no proof that they ever met. Jekyll was about twenty-three years old when Sancho died, and he had recently returned to London from Oxford and France. There is some evidence that Jekyll was in contact with Sancho’s family in the early 1780s, and it is possible that Sancho’s wife supplied details on his early life. It seems clear that whatever Sancho knew about his beginnings, it was oral rather than documented information. This means that he would have been unable to corroborate any of it himself.

What Carey and Hammerschmidt both find interesting is that Sancho never referred to himself as a former slave or wrote about his parents’ deaths in the letters that survived him and were published. Of course, many of these letters were written to friends during the last five years of his life; these people would already have been familiar with his life story. On the other hand, Sancho’s most famous letter, to Laurence Sterne in 1766, contained a brief autobiography; in it, Sancho makes no reference to being born on a slave ship. I’ll come back to the Sterne letter. For now, you can see what Sancho shared about his history in the following quote (Carey, 2003, p. 4).

I am one of those people whom the vulgar and illiberal call ‘Negurs.’—The first part of my life was rather unlucky, as I was placed in a family who judged ignorance the best and only security for obedience.—A little reading and writing I got by unwearied application.—The latter part of my life has been—thro’ God’s blessing, truly fortunate, having spent it in the service of one of the best families in the kingdom.

Sancho often referred to himself as ‘an African,’ which could imply a belief that he was born in Africa. He also wrote to a friend in 1780, “I am not sorry I was born in Afric [sic],” (Carey, 2003, p. 6) which seems to confirm that this was his understanding of his past, rather than having been born on a slave ship.

In the end, when and where Sancho was born and spent his early years will remain a mystery unless new documents emerge to provide clarity to the issue. We do know that he spent many years of his life with the Montagu household, and it was there that he completed his (informal) education, became familiar with and to British society, and rose to prominence.

Education

In his biography of Sancho, Jekyll claimed that he was the product of an educational experiment. The first Duke of Montagu (George) wished to show that a Black person had the same intellectual capabilities as a White person did. In so doing, it would undercut the pro-slavery argument that Black people were inferior to White people, thus their subjugation was justified. Like other aspects of Sancho’s life, it is unclear whether this is accurate. I also came across accounts that suggested Sancho taught himself to read. In this version of events, John Montagu encouraged him to learn and gave him books to read. This may have been during the time he lived with the Legge sisters or after he left them to enter service at the Montagu home.

However his education began, Sancho became an avid reader and took advantage of his position with the Montagus, which included access to their libraries and exposure to their highly-cultured guests. It was likely through them that his musical abilities developed, combined with music being played at gatherings of Black servants in London at the time.

Marriage

Ignatius Sancho married Anne Osborne in 1758. I could find little information on her, apart from that she was born in the West Indies in 1733 and lived until 1817, surviving Sancho by 37 years. The couple had seven children—Frances Joanna, Ann Alice, Elizabeth Bruce, Jonathan William, Lydia, Katherine Margaret, and William Leach. Jonathan, Lydia, and Katherine did not survive to adulthood. Their last child, William, was born five years before Sancho’s death.

Businessman

Over the years, Sancho developed gout, and it left him chronically ill to the point where he could no longer fulfil his duties as butler to the Montagus. With some financial assistance from the family, Sancho and his wife opened a small grocery store in Westminster, an elite neighbourhood of London. The shop was located at 19 Charles Street. The Sanchos’ shop was one of about twenty thousand such establishments in London. By this point in his life, Sancho was well known—Le Jeune (2008) calls him the first well-known Black man in Britain—and the store became a meeting place for many wealthy people, as well as famous writers, artists, actors, and politicians.

In the grocery store, Sancho sold products such as tobacco, sugar, rum, soap, and other daily necessities. He wrote that his customers came to find exotic commodities, such as “tea, snuff, and sugar.” In other words, the family sold some products that would have been produced on plantations by slaves; they did sell other goods, too. There is some irony here, given that Sancho was an abolitionist. Walvin (1997, cited on AfriClassic.com) wrote:

As Sancho tended to his counter and customers—taking tea with favoured or famous clients—his wife Anne worked in the background, breaking down the sugar loaves into the smaller parcels and packets required for everyday use, Slave-grown sugar, repackaged and sold by Black residents of London, themselves descendants of slaves—here was a scene rich in the realities and the symbolism of Britain’s slave-based empire.

It might be easy to call Sancho a hypocrite, but I would not do so. We cannot judge the social and economic realities and pressures he and his wife faced, and which no doubt contributed to their decision about what to sell.

Gainsborough Portrait

In 1768, Ignatius Sancho’s portrait was painted by Thomas Gainsborough, one of the most important artists in England at the time. Gainsborough had been commissioned to complete a portrait of the Duchess of Montagu (the wife of the George, the first Duke of Montagu after the title was recreated), and the duke had Sancho’s likeness done at the same time. Sancho was then the butler for the family, and, according to Le Jeune (2008), the portrait was done so that the duke could display his exotic servant. This was common in wealthy households.

Sancho’s portrait is uncommon, however, and represents a departure from the usual representation of “Blackamoors” as little Black pages, footmen, or hairdressers in livery. You can see this in Hogarth’s The Countess’s Morning Levee. By contrast, in the Gainsborough portrait, Sancho is dressed as a successful gentleman, and he is posed as a naval commander. It is an elegant portrait, and nothing in it speaks to Sancho’s then-role as a servant, albeit a butler in service to a duke.

Firsts

There are three firsts we can ascribe to Ignatius Sancho. His obituary was published in the British newspapers, marking the first known time this had occurred for a Black person. It highlights his place of prominence in society. The second is that Sancho was the first known Black person to publish music in the European tradition. The final first was that he was the first known Black person to vote in British general elections. (This was not mentioned in Jekyll’s biography, which seems like a significant oversight.) He was afforded this right after he left service and opened his grocery store, which made him a financially independent male householder. Sancho was interested in, and actively involved in, local and national politics and voted in parliamentary elections in 1774 and 1780. His letters show that he voted for Charles James Fox  in the 1780 election. Fox was part of the parliamentary radicals, an abolitionist, and a customer at Sancho’s store. I imagine it gave Sancho great pleasure and pride to be able to vote, and to do so alongside the gentlemen he served while in the Montagus’ household and as patrons of his grocery shop.

Letters

Ignatius Sancho is best known for his letters, which were first published in a two-volume set in 1782, two years after this death. Sancho had an extensive network of friends and correspondents in Britain, as well as in the then-colonies in North America and India. Among these friends was Ottabah Cugoano, a former slave from Ghana, who was also an abolitionist.

After Sancho’s death, a woman by the name of Frances Crewe. Lady Crewe sought out the letters he had written in order to compile them for publication. Lady Crewe was a “dear client” of Sancho’s shop. She was an abolitionist, and she and her colleagues used the letters to encourage Britons to rethink their perspectives on Black people and the practice of slavery. Published with “the desire of shewing that an untutored African may possess abilities equal to an European” (Crewe’s editor’s note, as cited in Hammerschmidt, 2008, p. 267), the book became an immediate best seller.

As Hammerschmidt (2008) discussed, the book was published to show equality between Black and White people as a means of disrupting the pro-slavery argument that Black people were intellectually inferior. Hammerschmidt contends that the book was informed by and perpetuated the belief that Black slaves would necessarily be liberated by White Britons—and that it was natural that they should rely on White people in this way. It denied Black people their own agency in a way that today we would find troubling. The title of the volume was The Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, An African, emphasising or linking Sancho’s identify to the colour of his skin and his real or assumed place of birth. By comparison, a White writer would not have their identity situated in such a manner. For example, Jane Austen published as “A Lady,” not “A White British Woman” or “A Lady, White European.” While Sancho refers to himself as “an African” in his correspondence, it seems evident that Crewe and her associates identified Sancho in such a manner because it was central to their use of his work to support their anti-slavery campaigning. We cannot know how Sancho would have felt about being used in such a way; Le Jeune (2008) suggested that Sancho had no intention of publishing the letters.

As a whole, the 157 published letters provide an account of Sancho’s life, particularly the latter part of it, as well as his critique of the culture and politics of his time. Some of the letters were to his wealthy customers, and these rarely contained anything radical, such as his views on slavery or the position of Black people in Britain. In addition, Sancho wrote letters to the editors of various newspapers, expressing his view on political issues. An example is a letter to the The General Advertiser in 1778. In it, he urges the nobility to give up their useless family silver as a means to help pay off the national debt and fund an imminent war with France (the Anglo-French War of 1778-1783). In another letter, he suggested that hairdressers should work for the army rather than continue to spend hours creating extravagant hairstyles for ladies, who would reclaim their reason as they got their heads back. Sancho also wrote about important historical events, and through letters to a friend, provided an eyewitness account of the anti-Catholic Gordon riots. The riots began in response to the Papist Act of 1778, which was intended to reduce discrimination against British Catholics. He felt it was necessary to create an “imperfect sketch of the maddest people that the maddest times were ever plagued with.”

Slavery was mentioned only in a handful of the letters which were collected and published. He wrote about it to a selected few people, including his protégé, Julius Soubise, who was a freed slave, as well as a young White soldier (Mr Brown) and John Wingrove, a young, White gentleman who worked for the East India Company. Le Jeune (2008) notes that he offered an apologetic tone to the latter two.

Happy, happy lad! what a fortune is thine! Look round upon the miserable fate of almost all of our unfortunate colour—superadded to ignorance,—see slavery, and the contempt of those very wretches who roll in affluence from our labours superadded to this woeful catalogue. (Cited in Le Jeune, 2008, p. 447)

Sancho may have hesitated to write about slavery more often due to his dependent position on those of the upper class, first as a servant and then as customers in his grocery store, although we cannot know why he shied away from the subject.

The most famous letter Sancho wrote was to Laurence Sterne, and it clearly depicted his views on slavery. Sterne was a clergyman, an author, and a distant relation of the Montagus. Sancho, who was a great admirer of Sterne’s, wrote to him in 1766. It was in this letter that Sancho provided the brief autobiography I mentioned earlier. One Sterne work Sancho especially enjoyed was “Job’s Account of the Shortness and Troubles of Life, Considered ,” which was part of Sermons of Mr Yorick. The theme of triumph over adversity was central to the work, and Carey (2003) believes that if Sancho was aware of or gave credence to Jekyll’s version of his origins—that he was born on a ship carrying slaves and spent his early years as a slave to the Legge sisters—he would have mentioned it in this letter as his own story of triumphing over adversity, i.e. having gone from being an orphaned slave to butler to a duke, to a business owner in a rich neighbourhood.

In his letter to Sterne, Sancho spoke about Sterne’s philanthropy and encouraged him to write something about chattel slavery.

I am sure you will applaud me for beseeching you to give one half hour’s attention to slavery, as it is at this day practiced in our West Indies.—That subject, handled in your striking manner, would ease the yoke (perhaps) of many—but if only of one—Gracious God!—what a feast to be a benevolent heart!—and, sure I am, you are an epicurean in acts of charity (cited in Hammerschmidt, 2008, p. 262).

You who are universally read, and as universally admired—you could not fail—Dear Sir, think in me you behold the uplifted hands of thousands of my brother Moors.—Grief (you pathetically observe) is eloquent;—figure to yourself their attitudes;—hear their supplications addresses!—alas!—you cannot refuse. Humanity must comply—in which hope I beg permission to subscribe myself (Le Jeune, 2008, p. 450).

Hammerschmidt (2008) discussed the cleverness with which Sancho represented himself and chose his words, thus manipulating the reader. He wrote of ‘our West Indies,’ which links all Britons, including himself and Sterne, to the Caribbean colonies. This made everyone responsible for the practice of slavery, ‘as it is at this day practiced.’ If everyone shared responsibility, that implies that they must actively be against the practice, or, at best, condone the plantation system that relied on slavery.

The two men apparently struck up a friendship, and Sterne did reply to Sancho’s letter. The letter was published in 1775 and became an important part of abolitionist literature at the time. Sterne wrote (The Jane Austen Centre, 2015):

There is a strange coincidence, Sancho, in the little events (as well as in the great ones) of this world: for I had been writing a tender tale of the sorrows of a friendless poor negro-girl, and my eyes had scarce done smarting with it, when your letter of recommendation in behalf of so man of her brethren and sisters, came to me—but why her brethren?—or your’s, Sancho! any more than mine? It is by the finest tints, and most insensible gradations, that nature descends from the fairest face about St James’s, to the snootiest complexion in Africa: at which tint of these, is it, that the ties of blood are to cease? And how many shades must we descend lower still in the scale, ‘ere mercy is to Amish with them?—but ‘tis no uncommon thing, my good Sancho, for one half of the world to use the other half of it like brutes, & then endeavour to make ‘em so.

Sterne is referring to characters in his work, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. We know that Jane Austen read this book; there is a reference to it in a letter to her sister, Cassandra. It seems apparent that she was also familiar with Sterne’s other work. I could not find any reference to Austen having read Ignatius Sancho’s letters, although it seems reasonable that she would at least have known about Sancho and The Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, An African.

Music

Ignatius Sancho was a talented amateur musician and published several volumes of music during his lifetime. In total, he published sixty-two short compositions in the following:

1. Minuets, Cotillons & Country Dances for the Violin, Mandolin, German Flute, & Harpsichord Composed by an African Most Humbly Inscribed to his Grace Henry Duke of Buccleugh;
2. A Collection of New Songs Composed by An African Humbly Inscribed to the Honble. Mrs James Brudenell by her most humble Devoted & Obedient Servant, The Author;
3. Minuets &c. &c. For the Violin, Mandolin German-flute and Harpsichord. Compos’d by an African. Book 2d. Humbly Inscribed to the Right Honble. John Lord Montagu of Boughton;
4. Cotillions &c. Humbly dedicated (with permission) to the Princes’s [sic] Royal, by Her Royal Highness’s most obedient servant Ignatius Sancho; and,
5. Twelve Country Dances for the Year 1779. Set for the Harpischord By Permission Humbly Dedicated to the Right Honourable Miss North, by her most obedient Servant Ignatius Sancho.

The works were published between about 1769 and 1779, meaning the earliest ones were released to the public while Sancho was still in service; these appear to have been anonymous (‘by An African’), with the later ones using his name. The Duke of Buccleugh, to whom the earliest volume was dedicated, had married into the Montagu family.

Because Sancho was an amateur, he had to pay to have his music published. His songs were appealing, and it is likely that Jane Austen was familiar with his work and conceivable that characters from her stories would have played them. Sancho was the first Black composer known to publish music in the European tradition.

Commenting on Sancho’s music, Wright (1997, as cited on AfriClassical.com) wrote:

There can be no pretence that the music of Ignatius Sancho equals that of the leading composers of his day. But his musical compositions reveal the hand of a knowledgeable, capable amateur who wrote in miniature forms in an early Classic style. His composition are of great historical significance in understanding the roots and origins of a classical tradition among Black musicians in the Western Hemisphere. His published music records the achievements of one Black composer from the eighteenth century who was active at a time when most persons of African descent were chained by the bonds of slavery on both sides of the Atlantic.

Conclusion

Even after the time I’ve spent reading and writing about Ignatius Sancho, I feel there is so much more I have to learn about him. He was an interesting character—a man who lived a life full of remarkable accomplishments, regardless of whether Jekyll was right about his birth and early years. Sancho was a man who inspired people during his lifetime and who continues to do so. The dates on the references I found—from both the academic world and various organizations on the Internet (there are ones from 2020 in academic journals, too)—demonstrate this as well as anything could.

References

AfriClassical.com 2020 Ignatius Sancho (1729-1780). From African Slave to Composer & Author. Abolitionist & Britain’s First Black Voter. Online https://chevalierdesaintgeorges.homestead.com/Sancho.html Accessed 14 July 2020

British Library (n.d.) Ignatius Sancho. Online. https://www.bl.uk/people/ignatius-sancho Accessed 13 July 2020.

British Library (n.d.) Ignatius Sancho’s letter to The General Advertiser asking the nobility to give up their useless family silverware. Online. https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/ignatius-sanchos-letter-to-the-general-advertiser-asking-the-nobility-to-give-up-their-useless-family-plate Accessed 13 July 2020

British Library (n.d.) Minuets, cotillons & country dances by Ignatius Sancho. Online

https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/minuets-cotillons-and-country-dances-by-ignatius-sancho Accessed 12 July 2020

Carey, B. (2003). ‘The extraordinary negro’: Ignatius Sancho, Joseph Jekyll, and the problem of biography. British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 26(1): 1-14.

Geni (2020). Anne Sancho. https://www.geni.com/people/Anne-Sancho/6000000012933264660 15 July, 2020

Hammerschmidt, S.C. (2008). Character, cultural agency and abolition: Ignatius Sancho’s published letters. Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 31(2), 259-273.

Ignatius Sancho’s Music (n.d.) Online. brycchancarey.com/Sancho/music.htm Accessed 13 July 2020.

Le Jeune, F. (2008). Of a negro, a butler, and a grocer. (Jekyll 7)—Ignatius Sancho’s epistolary contribution to the abolition campaign (1766-1780). Etudes anglaises 61(4), 440-454.

Roberts, K. (1997). Jane Austen and Laurence Sterne. Online. mural.uv.es/efuenva/austen_sterne.html. Accessed 13 July 2020

The Jane Austen Centre (2015). Laurence Sterne: giving voice to Tristram Shandy. Online. Janeausten.co.uk/tag/sentimental-journey Accessed 13 July 2020