New York City! Who hasn’t heard of it? Its one of the most major known cities in the world, and so many different people come and go and live in it. Whilst reading the novel Oroonoko by Aphra Behn, and Captain Singleton by Daniel Defoe, one can only make connections to their world around them. As a student in NYC I was able to do just that! First and foremostly, I live in Washington Heights. Oroonoko is set in Suriname in the West Indies, a colony owned by the British and Dutch for resources such as sugar. Suriname is in some ways very similar to the Caribbean islands many of the Hispanic and Caribbean communities in Washington Heights have connections to. Many families have backgrounds and family histories leading back to the same kind of slave treatments or native islander stories they share and can relate to, their homelands being exploited by the white man for its resources with very little compensation. And while in this area, NYC, is different because there are no slaves, however in some ways colonization is still relevant today!
The increasing gentrification of the area could be considered a domestic colonization of the area. There are multiple family owned businesses going out of business because commercial rent is increasing and increasing the more the while colonizers continue to spread and take homes in the area. My own building was just sold and what used to be 90% Hispanic residence is now more like 30%.
Captain Singleton is a great example of someone who can be/was colonized but could also be the potential colonizer, his connections to NYC lay within his characterization. He would be connecting to those in the lower income areas or ‘hood’ with his go-getter hustler pirate attitude. Alongside his economic status he also encountered many different people and places, such is the case with New York City. NYC is a huge range of different diversities and races and ethnicities and people are from everywhere, such as Captain Singleton had visited so many different areas.
In Oroonoko, colonization is viewed as cultural more than physical. An example of this is the idea to Christianize the American Indians, that this idea that by teaching them the word of the lord, they somehow become less savage and more humane. It’s cultural influences, such as teaching the bible and changing names, “I ought to tell you that the Christians never buy any slaves but they give ’em some name of their own, their native ones being likely very barbarous, and hard to pronounce; so that Mr. Trefry gave Oroonoko that of Caesar,” Behn wrote. In some ways this colonization or treatment of Oroonoko as an almost-slave-almost-native where they give him the freedom and the status and the name and find his wife is all fine and dandy, however at the end of the day he is still considered the slave and is expected to act as such. This could be compared to the issues many people from low economic statuses face, such as the new policy for jumping the train and getting a $100 ticket or arrested, or the idea of cash bail that was just abolished in NYC.
