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p then sets sail. When they arrive at their destination, PrinceOroonoko is sold to a British gentleman named Trefry who likes and admires the prince.As is the practice with all slaves, Oroonoko is renamed. His slave name is Caesar.Oroonoko soon finds out that Imoinda is a slave on the same plantation, but her slavename is now Clemene. They reunite together and soon Imoinda finds out that she ispregnant. Oroonoko tries to free his family because he does not want his children borninto slavery. His request is denied. He next leads a slave revolt but he is betrayed and isbadly beaten when he is caught. Finally, he decides that he would rather see his familydie quickly from his own hand than die the slow death of slavery so he kills Clemeneand the unborn child. He is about to kill himself but decides to first have his revenge onthose who would not give him his freedom. Eventually he is caught and suffers a crueland inhuman death.
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Chapter OneColonial Legitimacy in Cultural Tradition

The seventeenth century of Britain was a time characterized by turmoils and greatchanges. At the threshold of the seventeenth century, when James I ended the prolongedwar with Spain and led a new translation of the Bible from 1604 to 1611, it becameclear that this age brought the hope of something glorious. At the same time, this eraexperienced the English Civil War and the Interregnum. In the revolutionary period, theking became the open enemy of the people, and the country was divided by thestruggles for political and religious power accordingly, so was the literature5. Britishliterature of this period was very much concerned with the tremendous social upheavalsof the time.As a key English playwright and a major figure in the Restoration period, AphraBehn has exerted great and far-reaching influence on the development of English novel.Oroonoko，one of her most famous and literary works, was exactly a product of thetimes and revealed the cultural significance among slaves, inhabitants and Englishcolonizers. Both of the natives and the colonizers had feelings of superiority accordingto their own customs and opinions in Behn’s Oroonoko.

A. The Traditional Origins
“The first British empire”7(1583-1783) was established in North America bycolonizing lands that made up British America. During this period, the Elizabeth erawas a major epoch in English history. Historians invariably defined it as the golden agein English History. As the ruler, Elizabeth achieved the renaissance of classical ideals,the rise of national pride and international expansion. Just as David Armitage notes, thereviving of the British dominion had originally been established by King Arthur(Armitage 52). As a matter of fact, under the reign of Elizabeth I, the success of theBritish exploration and expansion over large segments of the world was the legacy ofArthurian empire.According to medieval romances and histories, King Arthur was highly viewed as alegendary British leader, who led the army against Saxon invaders in the late fifth andearly sixth centuries AD. The texts of the Arthurian legend varied far and wide fromstory to story, and there was no standard version. Furthermore, Geoffrey of Monmouth’sversion of Arthurian legendaries frequently served as a precedent for later stories. Onethe one hand, Lacy points out that “Geoffrey, however, has to make Arthur confront theworld’s greatest power and win, momentarily recreating t