Natives of My Person

by George Lamming

A compelling novel of slavery and colonialism

Genres: Fiction, Classics

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

George Lamming was born in the Caribbean island of Barbados on June 8, 1927. He attended The Combermere School which has produced other Barbadian literary icons including Frank Collymore and Austin Clarke. He left that island for Trinidad in 1946, teaching school until 1950. He then emigrated to England where, for a short time, he worked in a factory. In 1951 he became a broadcaster for the BBC Colonial Service. He entered academia in 1967 as a writer-in-residence and lecturer in the Creative Arts Centre and Department of Education at the University of the West Indies.

Since then, he has has served as a Visiting Professor and Writer-in-Residence at the City University of New York. He has worked as a faculty member and lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Pennsylvania. He has also served as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Duke University and a Visiting Professor of Africana Studies and Literary Arts at Brown University. In addition to his American teaching and lecturing experience, Lamming has also taught or lectured at universities in Tanzania, Denmark, and Australia.

Reviews

[B Sarv · Rating 5 out of 5]

Natives of My Person by George Lamming is a tragic allegory. In this instance, while he may have had a hidden political meaning I had less difficulty extracting the moral meaning in this book.

Since I am no literary expert I took my clue that I was reading an allegorical novel from the setting. Lamming writes about two major powers in his imaginary world: the Kingdom of Lime Stone and the nation of Antarctica. He also writes of small islands known as the Islands of Black Rock which include Dolores and San Cristobal, which lie across the ocean from Guinea. Although only the African region of Guinea is identifiable, it is a fair guess that Lime Stone represents England (the White Cliffs of Dover?) while Antarctica could represent France (more likely) and Spain.

Aside from the setting, we also have the principal action taking place during a sea voyage. Much is made of the sea-faring rivalry of Lime Stone and Antarctica. The characters relate their lives as subjects of Lime Stone with varying degrees of loyalty and frustration - but all with a connection to The House of Trade and Justice (which could be the British Admiralty or the British East India Company).

The hierarchy of shipboard life is clear with the Commandant in the role of ship's captain and the officers (Steward, Boatswain, Surgeon and Priest) at the top. Below deck is the chorus of common crewmen of which Lamming singles out a few: the Painter (Ivan), the Powder Maker (Baptiste), the Fisherman (Marcel), the Carpenter (Pierre) and the Cook (Duclos). Much like a Russian novel where one must keep track of more than a single name for one character, Lamming often switches between role (Painter - which he capitalizes) and the person's name (Ivan). There is also the Cabin Boy, Sasha. None of the Officers is named, they are always referred to by their post.

During the voyage the crew attacks and captures over 100 Africans (Lamming's characters refer to them as "the black cargo"). The crew was jubilant because they believed they would become wealthy due to the share in the profits they would receive. The captives, however, committed mass-suicide by jumping into the river while chained together. Afterward the Commandant ordered that the ship would, "receive no cargoes of the black flesh but proceed with its original crew for the Isles of the Black Rock." This order prohibiting the crew from engaging in the slave trade was a source of consternation among the officers and crew. The ship left Africa without any further atrocities being committed by the crew. Lamming made the horrors of captivity quite plain as he described the activities of the men of Lime Stone while on the Guinea coast. This part was not allegory but an historical recounting of a few of the many crimes committed at that time.

Two features of this allegory stand out as moral lessons. First was the clear irony with which Lamming wrote about the piety of the Priest, the officers and the men while they were engaging in heinous kidnapping and murder while attempting to trade in human beings. Because Lamming's main audience lived in the 20th century the message of the hypocrisy of religious men was delivered with no hint of delicacy. Furthermore, as the tale unfolds we learn of all manner of moral failings on the part of these "upright men of society." In the lives these "pious" men left behind we learn that they were knee-deep in greed, corruption, spousal abuse, abandonment, adultery and (in a Greek Tragedy accidental fashion) incest. Towards the end of the book one of the characters lays out this moral tale, just in case the reader were to miss Lamming's point. The wife of the head of the House of Trade and Justice, who is also the Commandant's Mistress, says, "Because their whoredom is also the whoredom of the House of Trade and Justice. It is the national principle of Lime Stone. What safer consolation or protection can a citizen have than to know that his private vice is the nation's religion?"(349)

For political allegory one can find the connection in the speech of Baptiste, (ironically?) the Powder Maker. "So what is your share in the wealth of Lime Stone? Go on, speak! What is your share in the continent where, even now, tonight, mothers and children are clawing like crabs for food. . . .Go on, speak," Baptiste continued, jeering at the men. "Where do you stand in the conscience of the House of Trade and Justice? What is your place in the affections of the Commandant himself? Go on, speak! Name your region. North? Is it the East? South or West? Name it. Whatever name you honour it with, I tell you now the same fevers mutilate your villages. Hunger is no less savage. The same hands of authority organize your decay. They name you adventurers for the purpose of turning you into common animals of prey. . . .Your service in the name of Lime Stone is a lifetime of robbery against yourselves." (312). This speech could have been given in 1972, when this book was published and it could be given today because change the name of the colonizer and it is still true.

Without giving further details of the plot, suffice it to say that I call this story a tragedy for obvious reasons as it relates to the Africans. But it meets the technical elements of fictional tragedy for other reasons too. It is difficult for me to imagine the creative genius needed to harness the inner thoughts of all of these crewmen and officers - which Lamming does liberally. The breadth and depth of imagination is one thing and writing this novel took it to another level.

Remember, in literature, "You see evil always contains the seeds of its own destruction." (Neil Gaiman, The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter: Witch). It is this literary device of self-destructive evil in tragedy which fools us all into believing it happens in realty too. Sometimes I let myself believe it, as Lamming apparently did, that the fantasy of fiction will play out with the real-life evil doers. It is my self-indulgent way of forgetting that humanity will likely meet its end in my life time so a few people can have three mansions, a private jet and ten yachts.

[lark benobi]

it did not keep my attention.

[Thobile · Rating 4 out of 5]

Natives of My person by George Lamming

George Lamming, born in Barbados on 8 June 1927, is an author of West Indian literature. Lamming comes not only to writing of the West Indian psyche, but of humans in general. Despite critics' accusations of using his novels as soapboxes from which he preaches his Marxist ideology, Lamming's efforts to tie together collective history through the shared humanity of his characters ensure that his novels remain skillfully crafted and multifaceted.
Lammings “Natives of my Person” is a disturbing allegorical account of the journey of a slave ship toward San Christobal during the early colonial period.
Through his direct confrontation of old colonial rule, and his inventive writing style, Natives of My Person depicts the natives’ endeavours to overcome the horror imposed by settlers. More disturbing is his exploration of the psychological and emotional motivations of the colonisers. Lamming forces the reader to explore the human weaknesses of the men aboard “The Reconnaisance”, as they are forced to confront their insecurities and subsequent physical and emotional abuse of their women, power relations and class struggles in their native land of Lime Stone (symbolic of Europe and England?)
While expressing, among other concerns, his anti-colonial commitment, George Lamming highlights outstanding issues which address the inherent tragedy that accompanies colonial domination. This tragedy, most often, stems from the author’s dramatic use of the inevitable antagonism between characters, in their quest for better opportunities on the one hand, and their attempt to resist colonial assaults on the other hand.

Natives of my Person is definitely a must read for anyone interested in gaining a better understanding of Carribean colonial history.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t often enjoy or agree with the introductions people write to novels. I usually read them after the novel itself because I don’t want to read with someone else’s expectations in my head, and when I go back at the end to read them, I often don’t find they illuminate much.

In the case of Natives of My Person, however, the introduction by Caryl Phillips perfectly describes what I wanted to say about the book:

“The fine, sinewy prose beautifully illuminates the many ideas about the colonial world and the role of the colonizer which inform the novel; yet the allegorical nature of the novel creates a distance which often militates against the reader’s feeling any real drama.”

I’ve read quite a few books by the Barbadian writer George Lamming, such as In the Castle of My Skin and The Pleasures of Exile, and I saw him speak about the politics of reading at a literary festival in Barbados 16 years ago now. So I knew what to expect from the prose, and Lamming didn’t disappoint.

His style reads as quite old-fashioned these days, more like a classic nineteenth-century novel than a 1970s one, with an omniscient narrator and a heavy dose of detailed physical descriptions. It’s the small, surprising details that I appreciate the most. To take a page at random, we have a very unusual description of the sea’s action:

“The tide quickened and came high up the bow, rubbing its weight against the waist of the ship.”

Then we meet the captain of the ship, who is missing his usual ostrich-feather hat:

“Now his hair was naked and shifty in the wind.”

I’ve never heard hair described as either naked or shifty, but it works perfectly in this context. And the way the tide rubs its weight against the ship’s waist is almost sexual, which again works in context (the ship has been delayed in port for months, and it’s as if the sea is trying to lure them out).

Every page is like this, with words and sentences selected and assembled with great care, each with a very specific job to do.

Then we have the ideas, which, as Phillips rightly notes, form a rich and interesting examination of colonialism. The ship we have encountered is a vessel from the fictional nation of Lime Stone (which bears a striking resemblance to Britain in the age of empire). It embarks on a long voyage to settle the distant island of San Cristobal, which Lamming uses in other novels as a fictional representation of a Caribbean island, although the geography in Natives of My Person is always vague, and the Caribbean or West Indies are never mentioned by name.

The ship contains within it the hierarchies that it will export to the New World, along with the violence and cruelty. The officers and crew repeatedly doubt each other and fear that they’ll be betrayed to the House (a ruling trading company, which reminded me of the East India Company). They vie for favour and power, while functioning within an overall order that demands absolute obedience and submission.

I think this is what Phillips means by the “allegorical nature of the novel”. The ship’s voyage feels like an exploration of what drove European colonisers to do what they did, and how the injustices and inequalities of colonial societies were contained in their very origins.

Natives of My Person is also, I think, a novel about male fragility and the use of violence and bravado to mask that vulnerability. The ship’s crew is entirely male, and several of them have quite disturbing back stories involving women (resenting them, feeling oppressed by them, lying to them, having them committed to mental asylums, etc.). When it emerges later that a ship of women is also making the voyage to San Cristobal, including some of the officers’ wives, it has an interesting effect that I won’t spoil for you here because it’s an important part of the novel’s conclusion.

For many characters, the inability to relate to the women in their lives leads to a kind of emotional stuntedness and repression, which then causes the violence, aggression and lack of empathy that will make them (or men like them) into able colonisers and colonial administrators.

But Phillips is right that the “allegorical nature of the novel” creates a sense of distance. Everything is happening for a reason, but the reasons are to do with what George Lamming wants to say about the psychology of colonisation. The characters themselves are not interesting or compelling, and I often struggled to tell them apart. Many are referred to not by names but by functions (Boatswain, Priest, Steward, etc.), which fits with the theme of individuals being cogs in a colonial machine but doesn’t help the reader care what happens to them.

Also, not much happens on the voyage. There’s a lot of talking and not much action, which is odd for a maritime voyage like this. It’s clear that Lamming would never write an “adventure on the high seas” kind of novel, but I was surprised that a premise like this led to such a slow, dialogue-heavy book.

All in all, I think there’s enough beautiful prose and complex themes in Natives of My Person to make it worth reading (and worth publishing in a new 2026 edition—thanks to Penguin Classics for the review copy). However, if you’re new to Lamming’s work, I’d recommend starting with his beautiful debut novel In the Castle of My Skin.

[Dima · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is set in the 16th or 17th centuries and tells the story of a ship involved in the slave trade, sailing from Lime Stone (a fictional country closely resembling Britain) to Guinea and then to San Cristobal, a stand-in for a Caribbean island.

The novel follows the inhabitants of the lead ship on their journey and explores the psychological motivations that allow them to participate in the cruelty of the slave trade. Most of the characters remain nameless, referred to instead by their roles (the "boatswain", the "surgeon", the "steward") which helps frame the story as an exploration of the psychology of the slave trade more broadly, rather than merely through individual biographies.

The picture that emerges is one of fragile human beings, particularly among the officers. Almost all are compensating for their insecurities through bravado and violence. They each have reasons for embarking on this voyage and participating in the trade, but few of those reasons are related to greed or power. Instead, they are more often linked to their attempts to establish their masculinity or preserve some sense of self-worth. Most of the characters also have complicated relationships with women in their backstories, and these further underscore the men's fragility, especially when contrasted with the strength and love often displayed by their wives or concubines.

The book raises several interesting questions. Is cruelty ultimately the product of weakness and insecurity? What role do societal expectations of masculinity play in the actions of these men? How far will men go to escape their obligations and avoid exposing their vulnerabilities to the women in their lives?

In this sense, the novel is both important and excellent. It examines an aspect of the slave trade that is, as far as I know, rarely explored: the sociology and psychology of the officers and crews who transported enslaved people. I found this line of inquiry genuinely fascinating, and the questions it forced me to contemplate made the book a worthwhile undertaking.

That said, I really struggled with the reading experience despite the book's relative brevity. The writing style was perhaps the biggest obstacle. There was something almost somnambulistic about the entire novel. Scenes and characters blended into one another, often making it difficult to distinguish between them. While I can appreciate the possible artistic intent behind this approach, it did not make for an engaging reading experience. I found it difficult to follow events and even harder to become invested in the characters.

The book is also overwrought at times, particularly in its descriptions of events aboard the ship. By contrast, the flashbacks to the officers' previous lives were often the highlight of the reading experience. There is simply too much flourish and verbosity, and I am not convinced that it adds much. Instead, it prolongs the experience and makes the novel more difficult than it has any right to be. Likewise, the politics between Lime Stone and Antarctica (thinly veiled versions of England and Spain), and the various machinations surrounding the "House", a sugar conglomerate, felt largely superfluous and added little to what seemed to me to be the novel's central purpose.

Finally, I was not particularly persuaded by what felt like an implied absolution of women in the narrative, which casts men as the principal culprits. Historically, women were also substantial beneficiaries of the slave trade, and the author's apparent unwillingness to grapple with this feels somewhat unfair.

Overall, this is an important book, but not an easy one to read. Its value lies primarily in its subject matter rather than its literary qualities. I am glad I read it, and I suspect I will remember it for a long time, but I genuinely didn't enjoy it.

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an early copy of this book in return for an honest review.

[Janine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is another book in the new Doubleday series, Outsider Editions. This series seeks to reprise and reissue works that have been overlooked or forgotten through time but which are “classics” and worthy of rereading. George Lamming (1927-2022) was a Barbados novelist and poet who had an ongoing concern for the Caribbean and the evils of colonialism. In his novels, he created a fictional generic island, San Cristobal, which figures in this book. This book is a powerful psychological thriller of sorts.

Renaissance is the name of a 16th C ship the reader follows on a difficult journey to San Cristobal. It’s a fictitious world the ship is in. Two sides - Lime Stone and Antarctica - possibly referring to England and Spain - are implacable enemies. Commandant (no character has a name just a position on the ship identifying him) is the violent but adored hero of Lime Stone is waiting for the arrival of Pinteados, the former hero of Antarctica, to begin their voyage. The journey actually is for expiation of the Commandant’s past and to set up a more egalitarian society on Black Rock. What emerges in the journey to set up a new colony is the age old story of colonialism: greed, selfishness and racism.

This is a complex book and not easy to read. It follows a kind of madman snd his crew set upon imposing his or their will on others. At one point I thought of a Werner Herzog movie, Aguirre the Wrath of God, that’s haunted me for years. Aguirre has defied Philip II to go beyond his defined mission and wants to find new land; the movie ends with Aguirre (played by Herzog) going by himself up this unknown river - it’s a creepy memory like the Commandant. What I thought in my memory of this movie is that imposing one’s will on others - as is happening today here - isn’t going to work over time. Eventually the desire for freedom asserts itself and change comes.

Most of book takes place on the ship as it goes to Black Stone. There we learn of the ambitions and motivations of the crew. Each of the crew members has a sordid past - infidelity, rape, murder, incest. These characters are the microcosm of the morally bankrupt aspects of colonialism. Through these vile men we see a reckless ambition devoid of any humanity - Aguirre and that awful scene as he goes to nothingness returns. Like Aguirre the reader is trapped on the voyage but I think that’s the author’s intent: the journey to nowhere which is I think Lamming’s metaphor for colonialism.

This is a dark but brilliant novel not the fare for every reader. It’s ideal for readers who appreciate symbolism and metaphors and unfinished journeys.
PS: in 1972 when this book was first published it sold for $7.95.

My thanks to NetGalley and Doubleday/Outsider Editions for allowing me to read this ARC.

[Cloud Jumpa]

So...much...detail D: