Homegoing: Part 1: Effia Summary & Analysis

The night Effia is born, a fire is raging through the woods in Fanteland. It moves through the forest for days, wrecking everything in its path. Effia’s father, Cobbe Otcher, leaves Effia with his first wife, Baaba, to survey his yams, which have been damaged. He is haunted by the sight of the fire, and tells Baaba never to speak of what happened that day.

The villagers say that Effia had been born of that fire, and that was why Baaba had no milk. Effia is nursed by another of Cobbe’s wives, but she bites the woman until the woman is too afraid to feed her. Effia then grows thin and screams all day. Baaba dreams of leaving the baby in the dark forest, but Cobbe commands Baaba to love the girl.

Effia grows older. When Effia is three, Baaba has a son named Fiifi. The first day that Effia holds Fiifi, she accidentally drops him. Fiifi is undisturbed by this, but Baaba beats Effia with her stirring stick, leaving hot stew burning into her flesh. When Baaba finishes, Effia is covered with sores, screaming and crying.

When Cobbe comes home and discovers what happened, he and Baaba fight into the night, and he beats her for the cruel way she treated Effia. This begins a cycle: Baaba beats Effia; Cobbe beats Baaba.

When Effia turns twelve, she begins to blossom into a young woman. The men of the village wait for her to begin her menstrual cycle so that they can ask Cobbe for her hand in marriage. The family starts to receive gifts from the men.

In 1775, one of the village girls named Adwoa Aidoo becomes the first to receive a proposal from a British soldier. The first time the soldier visits the village, Adwoa’s mother asks Effia’s parents to show him around the village. Effia tags along.

When Effia meets the soldier, she hides behind Cobbe’s leg, as she has never seen a white man before. Cobbe and Baaba show him their compound, explaining that each wife has her own hut that she shares with her children. The man’s eyes grow wide, finally understanding that the huts are where they live.

A few weeks later, the officer returns to pay his respects to Adwoa’s mother. Effia and the other villagers gather to see the goods that he has brought: fifteen pounds for the bride price, fabric, millet, gold, and iron.

Cobbe then pulls Effia aside, explaining that the white men bring those goods to trade with the village, and that there will be more like him to take away the village’s daughters. Cobbe tells Effia that he has bigger plans for her, however, and that she will not marry a white man. Baaba scowls at this, though Cobbe does not see her.

Effia hopes that she will be married to Abeeku Badu, who is next in line to be the village chief. He had visited their compound four times in the previous month, and later that week, he and Effia are to share a meal together.

Abeeku brings a goat for Effia, while his servants bring yams and fish and palm wine. She had prepared herself for the dinner by oiling her body, braiding her hair, and putting gold in her ears.

When the dinner begins, Effia asks if Abeeku will work for the British. Her parents glare at her for speaking out of turn, but Abeeku smiles at her. He tells her he will work with the British, facilitating trade between the British and the Asantes.

Effia nods and stays quiet, which she notes pleases Baaba. She has come to realize that Baaba prefers to remain silent and wants Effia to do the same.

Abeeku finishes eating and tells Baaba to let him know when Effia is “ready.” That night, Baaba tells Effia that when her menstrual blood comes, she must hide it and only tell Baaba. Effia sees the desperation in her mother’s eyes and agrees.

The next spring, the chief of the village grows ill, and Abeeku marries two women as he prepares to become chief. One of them, named Millicent, is the daughter of a Fante woman and a British soldier. The soldier had died, leaving his wife and two children with a significant amount of wealth. Millicent and her mother visit Effia often, saying that they would soon be part of the same family.

On one such visit, Baaba asks Millicent’s mother what it is like in the Castle. Millicent’s mother says that they are very well taken care of, and they pay a good bride price. But Millicent’s mother notes that she is glad her daughter married a Fante man, because then she could be close to her and marry the wife of a chief.

Two days after Effia’s fifteenth birthday, she has her first menstrual period. She tells Baaba, who tells Effia to keep this development a secret. When Effia asks why, Baaba pinches Effia’s tongue with her fingernails and tells her not to question her mother, threatening to make sure that Effia would never speak again.

The following week, the old chief dies and Abeeku is crowned the next chief. Three days later, he gathers up the men of the village in his compound. He feeds them for two days and gets them drunk on palm wine until their laughter can be heard throughout the village.

Effia asks Baaba what they’re doing, but Baaba tells her that it does not concern her. Baaba has stopped beating Effia in exchange for keeping the secret about her period.

Cobbe and Fiifi return from the meeting. Cobbe carries a new machete, and shouts that they will make the village “rich with blood.” That night, Effia crawls over to Fiifi in their hut, and asks what they are planning. Fiifi at first tells her it is the business of men, but then he explains that they are helping the British and Asantes with their trade, helping them sell slaves to the British.

In the days following the chief ceremony, Cobbe continues to ask Baaba what is happening with Effia, as he had hoped that she would be Abeeku’s wife by now. Baaba replies that she is not ready. Cobbe sends Baaba and Effia over to Abeeku’s compound once a week so that he can remember how much he likes Effia.

On one such visit to Abeeku’s compound, Baaba and Effia are there at the same time as British soldiers. When the soldiers tour the compound, Abeeku’s wives tell Effia and Baaba not to speak. When the soldiers enter the hut, Abeeku introduces them as his wives and daughters.

One of the soldiers, James Collins, says hello to each woman in bad Fante. When he reaches Effia, she giggles. He asks Abeeku if Effia is his wife; Abeeku tells him she is not. James looks at her intently before leaving the compound.

James Collins is the newly appointed governor of the Cape Coast Castle. Within a week, he comes back to ask Baaba for Effia’s hand. Cobbe is outraged because he wants her to marry Abeeku, but Baaba convinces him that Effia should marry James because Effia might not have children, and the soldier is willing to marry her regardless. He’s also offered thirty pounds upfront and twenty-five shillings a month—more than any previous bride price in the village.

Cobbe tells Baaba that they must make Abeeku think that it is his own idea for Effia to marry James Collins. To do so, Baaba tells Abeeku that there is evil in Effia’s spirit and that she cannot bear children. Additionally, she says if Effia marries James, he will think fondly of their village and trade will prosper.

Abeeku calls Effia into the room, and tells Baaba and Cobbe that they are right—Effia should marry James Collins. Cobbe weeps openly, but Baaba is happy. When Abeeku leaves, Baaba gives Effia a black stone pendant, which she says is a piece of her mother. Effia notes that Baaba seems relieved as she leaves.

Effia is married in the chapel of the Cape Coast Castle, reciting words she doesn’t understand. Effia’s family does not attend the ceremony, because Baaba convinced them that Effia was a bad omen.

James Collins tries to make Effia comfortable, learning more and more Fante words so that he can tell her how beautiful she is. He leads her on a tour of the Castle: the parade ground, soldiers’ quarters, stockyard, pond, hospital, smithy, kitchen. Effia is in awe.

Effia notices a breeze coming up from holes in the floor. She asks what’s below, and James Collins says “cargo.” She hears a faint crying sound. She asks if there are people down there. When he says yes, she demands to be taken home and starts screaming. James puts his hand over her mouth, telling her that her home is no better. Effia remembers Baaba’s treatment and realizes that he is right.

James Collins leads Effia up to his quarters on the top floor. She can see out onto the ocean, and the cargo ships get smaller and smaller in the distance. She wants to ask him what the ship is carrying, but she is tired of trying to decipher his poor Fante.

James Collins leads her to the bed, and he and Effia consummate their marriage. Baaba had told Effia what was expected of her, but James seems very unsure, and so Effia takes the lead.

After a few weeks, Effia feels very comfortable in her new routine. She likes the attention that James Collins pays to her and the fact that she doesn’t have to compete with any other wives. However, she knows she is not supposed to care for James, because her father had wanted her to marry a Fante chief rather than a white man. But instead, Baaba had cast Effia out of the village entirely.

Effia has also heard the Englishmen call her and other Fante women “wenches” instead of wives, in order to keep their conscience clean with their god. However, Effia and James Collins continue to be more and more affectionate: they teach each other their language, and James tells Effia that he loves her every day.

One day, Effia asks about James Collins’s British wife. He explains that her name is Anne. They married ten years ago, but he’s barely seen her since. He had two children with her, but they’ve spent very little time together. Effia has a hard time understanding how James can be satisfied with having so few children, when chiefs can have nearly a hundred. James occasionally receives a letter from Anne, and when he does, he lies very far away from Effia in bed.

On this night, however, James Collins tells Effia that he wants children with her. Effia cringes in worry. First, she thinks she may be a bad mother, because she had such a bad mother herself. Furthermore, even though Baaba’s insistence that Effia could not have children had been a ruse, Effia worries that she may not actually be able to have children because months have passed since the night of their wedding, and she still hasn’t gotten pregnant. She wonders if she is cursed.

Effia recalls a story that the villagers used to tell in which a young girl had accidentally spilled hot oil on her sleeping father, disfiguring his face badly. She was then banished from the house and wandered the Gold Coast for years. When she returned at seventeen, a boy offered to marry her even though she was destitute. She became pregnant, but when the baby came out it was half-caste, with light skin and blue eyes, and died within four days. She lived under a palm tree for the rest of her life.

Effia knows that the village tells the story to warn children about hot oil, but she wonders about the half-caste child, which was an evil powerful enough to force the woman to live under a palm tree. She thinks that even Cobbe had disapproved of her union with the white soldier.

Effia and Adwoa, the other girl from her village who had married a British soldier, become friends at the Castle. Adwoa tells Effia that she needs to become pregnant in order to stay, and offers her a root to put under her bed as they have sex. She tells Effia to make sure that James does not see the root, and helps prepare her for the evening.

When James Collins arrives home that evening, Effia pounces on him. He grows excited by her seduction, but when the two finish, he notices the root under the bed. She tells him Adwoa gave her the root for fertility. James tells her that he can’t have any voodoo or black magic—that it’s “not Christian.”

The next day, Effia tells Adwoa what had happened. Adwoa grows frustrated that the British men don’t understand the truth about what is good and what is evil. She tells Effia that the root may not work now.

Soon after, Dutch officers visit the Castle. That afternoon, Effia and other Fante women at the Castle sit in the shade of a tree. One woman who arrived at the Castle relatively recently, Eccoah, complains that her husband cannot pronounce her name. Adwoa says that it’s better to use an English name so that one’s own name doesn’t have to be butchered all the time.

Eccoah also says that her husband comes up from the dungeons smelling like feces. She says there are women down there who are just like them. The other women grow quiet, as they never speak about the dungeons. Effia realizes that even though she knows that there are slaves in the dungeon, she had never thought that they would look like her—that James Collins would return in the evening haunted by seeing women who reminded him of her.

In the spring, Effia realizes she is pregnant. James Collins is thrilled at the news. But soon after, they receive word from Effia’s village that Cobbe has fallen ill. Effia wants to travel back to the village, as she has not been back to her village since her wedding two years prior and has not heard from anyone in her family since then.

Effia and a house girl travel to Effia’s village. Baaba stands in the entranceway when she arrives, scowling. Baaba leads Effia to Cobbe. No one knows why Cobbe is ill, and Fiifi explains that Cobbe cannot speak. Fiifi says that he was the one who sent for Effia, even though Baaba did not want her to come. Effia thanks him.

Fiifi then reveals that Baaba is not Effia’s mother. Effia is actually the child of Cobbe and a house girl (Maame) who ran away into the fire the night Effia was born. The stone that Effia wears belonged to Maame, not Baaba.

Fiifi steps outside, and Cobbe takes his last breath. Effia thinks that Fiifi’s revelation allowed Cobbe to pass on his unrest to her so that he could die. Effia wipes her tears and walks out of the compound.

As Effia leaves, she starts to apologize to Baaba for the burden that Cobbe made her carry for so many years, but before she can speak, Baaba says: “You are nothing from nowhere.” Pointing at Effia’s stomach, she asks, “What can grow from nothing?”