Joanna Vassa

Joanna Vassa's memorial, re-erected in 2006 (photo: April 2007)

Joanna Vassa (1795-1857) was the only surviving child of the former slave and anti-slavery campaigner Olaudah Equiano. Her grave has recently been rediscovered, but little is known of her life.

Vassa was born to an English woman, Susannah Cullen of Fordham, Cambridgeshire, and Olaudah Equiano, also known as "Gustavus Vassa, the African". Her father was well known for his autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano. The year after her birth, her mother died, and was buried at St Andrew's Church, Soham. In the following year, her father died in London, aged 52, and this was shortly followed by the death of her elder sister and only sibling Anna Maria (b. 1793), on 21 July. Mixed race children were not common in eighteenth century England, but nor, as the British Empire grew, were they unknown, especially in the capital and port cities.

In 1816, on reaching her 21st birthday, Joanna Vassa, being Equiano's only known surviving relative, inherited a silver watch and £950 from his estate; the National Archives inflation calculator gives an approximate equivalence of £32 000 in 2005 pounds.

She married the Congregational minister Henry Bromley, whose first position was at Appledore in Devon, where he worked for five years. For many years she lived near the chapel at Clavering, Essex, where Rev. Bromley was pastor between 1827 and 1845.

Joanna Vassa's memorial at Abney Park Cemetery shortly after its discovery in 2005, awaiting restoration

The couple moved to London in 1845 for her health, her husband taking on only occasional commitments at Clavering thereafter. She died on 10 March 1857, aged 61. She was buried on 16 March in Abney Park Cemetery, close to the memorial statue to Isaac Watts on the axial walk from the chapel to Stoke Newington Church Street. Her husband Henry survived her for twenty years, and was buried with her on 12 February 1878. It has not been discovered whether she had any children.

Her memorial at Abney Park was re-pinned and re-erected in 2006, in time for the 150th anniversary of her death in 2007. This coincided with the bicentenary of the Slave Trade Act, which abolished the slave trade in the British Empire, a goal towards which her father worked.

Sources

Osborne, Angelina (2007). Equiano's Daughter: The Life and Times of Joanna Vassa. London: Momentum Arts. ISBN 978-0953432813.