1. Olaudah Equiano is an African-born former slave, wrote one of the earliest slave narratives entitled The Interesting Narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano.…
Why do scholars today doubt parts of Olaudah Equiano's autobiography of his years as a slave?…
England had abolished slavery at this point making it illegal to take slaves from West Africa…
Olaudah Equiano is describing the brutal treatment of slaves being transported overseas. In the beginning of the passage he describes his fear of being killed or eaten by the European men. After he was brought onto the ship he describes what he sees and states “there was a multitude of black people of every description chained together, every one of their countenances expressing dejection and sorrow.”(73) The slaves are kept in the cargo hold of the ship chained to the ground. There were guards watching them to make sure they didn’t try and jump over board. Equiano recounts the state of the area the slaves were kept in he states “the air soon became unfit for respiration, from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought on a sickness among the…
Equiano experienced life as a slave on several continents. He endured the torment of the Middle Passage and the various physical and emotional insults and tortures, which came as a result of bondage to another individual. These descriptions are important in establishing the primary players in the slave game. The first is the African player and the other is the White player represented by both Europeans and Americans.…
The Olaudah Equiano’s recount of the horror of slavery is one of the most detailed, and one of the best document that really show us the brutality of the transatlantic slave trade. Olaudah Equiano was an African slave from west Africa, who is according to the document was kidnapped from his homeland Benin at the age of 10, and was sold as slave. After being sold many time in Europe, Equiano was shipped to Barbados and then Virginia, and then after he gained his freedom, Equiano wrote a book solely based on his experience across the atlantic.…
“The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano”, by Olaudah Equiano, is a narrative about a slave going to the new world. Olaudah Equiano was kidnapped by slave traders to be sent to the New World to be sold to other slave owners. This slave trade between Africa and North America was from 1619-1807 and carried hundreds of African men, women, and children in one tightly packed ship. In “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano”, Equiano describes the horrible conditions slaves were forced to endure on the voyage to the new world. Equiano wrote this slave narrative, a literary work that exposes the horrors of slavery through the first hand experience of the writer, to help abolish slavery. To assist in persuading the…
If you know of great abolitionists, you may know of the names Frederick Douglass and Olaudah Equiano. These two men went beyond the odds, becoming famous writers even through slavery’s drastic conditions. Looking at their narratives, “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,” and “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African,” we learn how each of them were brought up through the pains of American Slavery. Frederick Douglass was born a slave and a master, quickly taken away from his mother to only know her as a stranger. Equiano, however, was stolen from his native country, forced to face a treacherous expedition to America.…
The autobiography ‘Kidnapped’, by Equiano is his point of view on the journey on slave ships to America. The story shows first hand the conditions on the ship and the treatment he received by the white slave owners. One time that shows just how cruel the owners were, they went fishing, ate the fish that were caught, and then threw the leftovers back into the ocean therefore wasting them.…
Olaudah Equiano was born in the year 1745 in an area called 'Eboe' in Guinea. Almost everything we know about Equiano's life we find from Equiano's own account in The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, published in 1789. At the age of eleven he and his sister were kidnapped while out playing, and were carried through the night to a cabin and then put on board a slave ship. It sounds like Olaudah is writing in the document. The document is in first person, Olaudah is talking about his experience on the middle passage. Equiano tells us that “When I looked around the ship too, and saw a large furnace of copper boiling, and a multitude of black people of every description chained together, every…
Both these autobiographies tell personal accounts of slavelife to strike a nerve in Americans to see the horrible nature of slavery. However, they are written completely differently to reach seperate audiences. Although both are very affective and successful, it is obvious that Douglass is a male writer, with the objective of reaching a male audience, and Jacobs is a female writer, reaching a female audience. People respond to different approaches in differnent ways. I…
Olaudah Equiano and Christopher Columbus had many differences including the conditions they were under. These kinds if differences are going to be the key points of this essay. The differences will be huge since the stories or writings differ a lot from one another. Though there are similarities between the writings, we will not be focusing on those.…
Olaudah Equiano’s story made much more of an impact on me than any of the other stories. Equiano plays on people’s sentiments and morals by using rhetorical devices: ethos and pathos. His story appeals to me because I cannot conceive what it would be like to be persecuted and enslaved just because of the color of one’s skin, a trait that they cannot help. Because of the well-executed practice of rhetorical devices, I can imagine the trip of the Middle Passage, aboard the ship myself.…
Many years later Equiano wrote a biography about the treatment of slaves in Virginia. His descriptions of the punishments and humiliations that slaves had to endure were the first published account of an autobiography of an African slave. Equiano’s writings on slavery and its suffering were a factor in the enactment of the Slave Trade Act of 1807. I feel that Equiano was an extraordinary individual who patiently bought his own freedom and became an effective advocate for abolition.…
As enslaved Africans, Equiano and Douglass have multiple masters and are therefore imposed to change. At a young age, Equiano and his sister are kidnapped from their hometown and sold to slave traders. Equiano’s time in slavery is mainly spent on slave ships and British navy vessels, where he is eager to “engage in new adventures, and to see fresh wonders” (89). His amazement however is opposed by the culture shock he experiences from the European treatment of slaves. Equiano describes the air in the lower deck of the slave ship as “unfit for respiration,” the “galling of the chains” as “insupportable”, and the “groans of the dying” as horrid (60). Slave ships are evidently no place to call home. Equiano travels farther and farther from home exchanging masters along the way. Much like the osu, Equiano finds comfort and a sense of belonging in the church. He is “wonderfully surprised to see the laws and rules” of his country “written almost exactly” in the Bible (96). By finding connections to his home in the Bible and adopting Christianity, Equiano holds onto a piece of home. Douglass however, is deprived from everything that “ordinarily bind children to their homes” (360). His home was a place where he witnessed his brethren beaten and oppressed. His home was not his…