The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho by Paterson Joseph is based on the life of 18th century Ignatius Sancho. Born on and soon orphaned upon a slave ship, two-year-old Sancho is purchased by an Englishman and taken back across the ocean and gifted as a sort of “pet” for three society sisters. Sancho runs from the brutal whims of the Greenwich sisters and befriends the Duke of Montagu, who in turn becomes a type of benefactor and educator for Sancho. Unsure of his “status” as a Black person in London, Sancho traverses the high society of the English while contending with the cognitive dissonance of having a sort of “privileged” life amongst them than he otherwise wouldn’t as an enslaved person on a plantation. Sancho wars with himself upon this dichotomy; the societal issues, nuances, and complexities Paterson presents with Sancho’s situation is interesting and without an answer. What’s more, Sancho himself recognizes he seems to have more education and “society” than the poor whites he comes into contact with, as well as the enslaved Black people he comes across who he at first views with a type of competition but soon realizes his colonized thinking due to his “society” upbringing.
Paterson Joseph’s author note states that he does not sugarcoat Sancho’s story, nor does he have super progressive-thinking 18th century people, and nor is Sancho’s story is one of “trauma porn” of an enslaved person. He expertly balances Sancho’s complex and nuanced standing in the racial and socioeconomic structure of Georgian London. Paterson’s style and novel structure closely echoes an 18th century novel a la Clarissa or Tristram Shandy. Modern readers may find this structure and style a little sluggish at times, however, there is a section of the novel that is all epistolary in letters between Sancho and his soon to be wife and her harrowing accounts of brutal life in the Caribbean.
There are all sorts of interesting nuggets about the real Sancho–he was a composer, writer, shopkeeper, and much more. I encourage everyone to read about the real Sancho, as well as this novel. I wouldn’t be surprised if Paterson Joseph gets a mini-series made out of this tale!
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