Autodidacts, Commonplacing, and Colonial Affiliations in Ignatius Sancho's Letters

Abstract: This article examines Ignatius Sancho's letters as a challenge to the marketplace of sentiment and the colonial politics of literacy in the long eighteenth century. While scholars often associate Sancho's works with sentimentalism, this article reconsiders his epistolary strategies through the lens of autodidacticism, commonplacing, and self-governance. It looks at how Sancho critiques the fetishization of Black exceptionalism and emotional labor. As a counterpoint, his letters function as pedagogical tools that emphasize writing as a rational practice of self-education, countering the expectations of sentimental affect. By analyzing Sancho's engagement with commonplace books, epistolary sociability, and transnational affiliations, this article argues that he fosters an alternative model of learning—one that disrupts racial hierarchies, links autodidacts across the British empire, and reclaims intellectual authority outside of institutionalized education. This study situates Sancho's writing-to-learn methodology within eighteenth-century debates on self-instruction, Enlightenment sovereignty, and colonial literacy, ultimately revealing how his letters reshape notions of authorship, pedagogy, and Black intellectual agency in the Atlantic world.