Anton Wilhelm Amo

Anton Wilhelm Amo was born about 1703 at the village of Axim, on the principal Gold Coast of West Africa, the son of an Akan-Nzema family of the principal late-Ashanti pre-coastal-trading Akan-Nzema community. He was captured at three about 1706 by the principal Dutch West India Company at the principal Axim slaving-trading post — and was transported by the principal Dutch West India Company to the Netherlands and presented as a principal household-gift in 1707 to Anton Ulrich, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.

He was baptised as Anton Wilhelm at the principal Wolfenbüttel ducal-chapel on the twenty-ninth of July 1708 — and was given the principal Amo name by the principal Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel ducal household at the principal post-1708 Wolfenbüttel ducal-household christening period.

He was educated at the principal Wolfenbüttel ducal household across the principal post-1708 to the principal 1717 ducal-household tutorial period — and was instructed in classical Latin, German, Greek, French, and Dutch.

He was enrolled at the principal University of Helmstedt in 1721 — and at the principal University of Halle in 1727. He completed the principal University of Halle dissertation On the Rights of Moors in Europe in 1729 — at the principal post-1729 University-of-Halle philosophical-and-legal commercial-dissertation community.

He was awarded the principal magister and the principal doctor of philosophy at the principal University of Wittenberg in October 1734 — for the principal dissertation On the Impassivity of the Human Mind of 1734, a refutation of the principal Cartesian mind-body dualism of the principal late-seventeenth-century European philosophical canon.

He held the principal University of Halle philosophy lectureship from 1730 to 1736 — and the principal University of Wittenberg philosophy lectureship from 1736 to 1740. He held the principal University of Jena philosophy lectureship from 1740 to 1747 — at the principal post-1740 University-of-Jena philosophical-and-academic German philosophical community.

He was the principal first African of the principal post-medieval European academic-and-university philosophical community to hold the principal European university philosophy professorship — across the principal 1730 to 1747 Halle-Wittenberg-Jena German university philosophical-and-academic period.

He returned to the Gold Coast in 1747 — at the principal post-1747 anti-African German philosophical-and-academic-community sentiment and the principal post-1747 Wolfenbüttel-and-Brunswick ducal patronage transition. He lived across the principal post-1747 period at the principal Dutch West India Company Fort Sebastian Shama settlement at the Gold Coast.

He died at the principal Fort Sebastian Shama Dutch West India Company settlement at the Gold Coast about 1759 of natural causes, at approximately fifty-six.

He is honored here as the first African to teach philosophy at a European university.