Ignatious Sancho

The overall website aims at educating its users on notable black British writers from mid-19th century and earlier. This specific page provides information on Ignatious Sancho, who was an African slave in London and later a music composer and entertainer. The website’s author, therefore, recognizes Sancho in his website by providing a large collection of scholarly works done globally on him. Some of these include Sancho’s famous letters, music, portraits, among other useful information. The website’s author, Brycchan Carey, achieves this by including numerous links that all directs to either the same, or different websites with information on Sancho. All of the links presented are active, fast, and is useful for users who seek to understand more on Sancho, his life, and letters. Seeing the author’s qualifications and inclusion of some articles that are peer-reviewed, the website suffices for academic research. However, the lack of a list of references for the information presented, the nature of this website as a personal blog, along with other factors make it unsuitable for conducting academic research.

According to this website, Sancho was an African whose first memories of being in Europe are him working as a child slave, before convincing his masters to offer him employment as a butler. Sancho later retired and opened a grocery in Westminster. In his life, Sancho accomplished a variety of things that differentiated him from other Africans in Europe thus, known as “the extraordinary negro.” (Carey, 2015) He was a music composer who entertained prominent people in the artistic and literary groups of London. He also wrote numerous letters to newspapers and publishing houses, which were published after his death in 1980. Some of these letters, which are included in the website, talk of Sancho’s contributions and service to the public, especially in advocating for anti-slavery and justice in controversial court cases, such as that of Reverend William Dodd. The website, therefore, has insightful content and links to more equally important information.

In addition to this, some characteristics of the website makes it sufficient to serve as a reference for conducting academic research. First, going by the personal information provided by a link from this webpage, the author is qualified and an expert in issues regarding history and its literary aspects. Carey is an English professor at Northumbria University and is sufficiently educated for the same. Besides this website, Carey has also authored a few books and published articles which discuss the issue of slavery and history, in a literary manner. The author is also a public speaker on, among others, academic events, and supervises doctoral researches on similar topics as the content found on this website. A simple search of the author on the internet also validates his qualifications, with most results mentioning his noteworthy contribution to the topics of abolition and slavery. In this view, the author’s qualifications make it easy to qualify the site’s content as useful for academic research.

Second, with the author’s primary aim being to reflect on and present collective works on Sancho, the most probable target audience for this website is academics. More often than less, scholars collecting and presenting information regarding a notable person implies that their work can be used for other academic purposes. Additionally, the content in this website adequately addresses its intended audience using a scholarly or academic approach. The author first introduces his topic and briefly provides information regarding his life and why he is noteworthy to study on the website. Carey then presents his primary aim and what the website’s content includes, just like scholarly academic works. The links provided too, direct users to additional and useful information that is scholarly authored. Third, consulting additional sources that discuss Sancho validates the information presented on this website, signifying its acceptability to be used for academic research. Finally, the information presented on the website was updated three years ago, validating its currency and suitability for academic use.

However, the content on this website serves as a bad source too, due to several shortcomings. To start with, information presented on this page and others that open by following links are not followed by a list of references for the same. As such, it is difficult to ascertain the source as well as credibility and dependability of the content, especially for academic research. Additionally, besides the content found on pages that direct users to peer-reviewed articles, a large part of information on this and other link pages is neither edited nor peer-reviewed. Another source of conflict for using the content for academic purposes is that the website is a personal blog, which are well-known for opinion presentation rather than facts, unless a bibliography is included.

In summary, this website aims at providing scholarly works that have been done on famous writer, actor, composer, and entertainer, Ignatius Sancho. The author achieves this by including numerous links all leading to the same or different websites with said information. The content on this site is insightful and has several factors that make it suitable for academic use. Brycchan Carey, the website’s author, is an English professor, has written several books and published articles, all related to this topic. He also presents the information in an academic manner, beginning with a brief history on Sancho and later stating the aim of this website. However, the lack of a comprehensive bibliography as well as the website’s nature makes it difficult to use the content for academic purposes.

Carey, Brycchan. Ignatius Sancho: African Man of Letters. Retrieved from http://www.brycchancarey.com/sancho/