Olaudah Equiano Document Analysis

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. Equiano’s document tell us many things, including how the people viewed the society and the morality of the public at that time. This document also show us how far we have come, as a society, as the whole world, from the time of brutality, time of savage, to the time of peace, and sociality. This document still has effect on our society even to this day, because even to this day, the discrimination against a group of people because of their race, religions, or nationality still exist. This document reveal how the slaves were treated, how slaves were nothing but a property, and how the Africans view the european.
In the first paragraph of the document, Equiano stated,(1) “....
I was now persuaded that I had gotten into a world of bad spirits, and that they were going to kill me. Their complexions too differing so much from ours…”, Equiano saw the european for the first time and assume their criminality, because of their difference appearance. Even to this day, there are many cases where people assume someone’s criminality, just because of their race, skin color and nationality. Then again in the second paragraph, Equiao assume the european to be savages, (2)“I asked them if we were not to be eaten by those white men with horrible looks, red faces, and loose
hair”. In the third paragraph, Equiao tell us the different between slavery in his homeland and the situation he was in on the ship,(3) “I even wished for my former slavery in preference to my present situation, which was filled with horrors of every kind”. Equiano describe how hard it was, as a slave on the ship, he stated that it was too horrible that he would rather died,(4) “I now wished for the last friend, death, to relieve me”. This document inform us how hard the transatlantic slave trade was, and what kind of suffering a slave went through. The purpose of this document is to let the world know how cruel, and inhuman slavery was; Equiano described every detail, all the cruel thing that happen, because he want to let us know how serious it actually was. Equiano described how inhumanely they were treated, how they were not even consider as a person, but goods that will be transport to the land across the atlantic. They were nothing but goods that was packed together on a ship, as much as possible,(5) “but now that the whole ship’s cargo were confined together, it became absolutely pestilential. The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself”. In the eyes of the world, they were nothing, was not even consider as a person, they were someone’s belonging, they were imported goods from Africa.