4 While some scholars include Aboan in their critiques of Southerne's attitude toward slavery, they often minimize his presence 5 or characterize him as a "kneeling, supplicant African." 6 Yet he proves himself Oroonoko's equal-at times his superior-in insight and initiative throughout the play and voices much of its antislavery rhetoric. Southerne's Oroonoko, however, depicts a third slave of almost equal importance to the prince and his wife: Oroonoko's attendant, Aboan, second only to the title character in the original production's printed cast list. Lesser-born slaves, the play appears to conclude, deserve their condition, if not its associated cruelties. 3 Like his prototype in the play's source, Aphra Behn's novella Oroonoko Or The Royal Slave (1688), Oroonoko, is, in fact, an extraordinary case: an idealized member of the nobility whose English owners condemn his bondage and exempt him and his wife, Imoinda, from the harsh labor and punishments that slaves typically experience. 1 By concentrating on Oroonoko, an African prince, many scholars argue that Southerne (1660–1746) objects, not to slavery, but to either the enslavement of aristocrats 2 or the institution's excessive brutality. Critics generally base their analyses of ambivalent representations of slavery in Oroonoko, Thomas Southerne's popular 1695 play, on its hero.
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