How Is Olaudah Equiano Inhumanity Of Slavery

Olaudah Equiano, a slave in the 1700’s, wrote about his trials throughout his many years of slavery. Equiano experiences many of these brutal times through the eyes of a young boy who has been kidnapped, separated from his family, and sold and resold into slavery. He first stays in multiple regions of Africa and then is transported to parts of Europe and America quoting, "sometimes by land, sometimes by water, through different countries and various nations, till . . . I arrived at the sea coast". (695) His tribulations seem to take him from coast to coast and continent to continent. There is never a shortage of men who want to profit at the expense of others. Equiano in his autobiography, “The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano” illustrates the inhumanity of slavery across the globe during a dark period of western world history.

He is particularly traumatized by the loss of his mother and then later his sister. As a human, how could someone tear a child away form his own family and then sell the child into a life of hardship and sorrow; this deed is inhumane. However, Equiano presents it as a disturbingly common practice in Africa. Men from other tribes came and kidnapped children so frequently that someone had to serve as a lookout all of the time. According to the text, even far inland away from the coast slavery seemed to be profitable and widespread. Equiano then describes the extreme and harsh conditions of his experience in what has come to be known as the “Middle Passage”. Equiano was in a state of shock and disbelief as he had never seen the way Europeans treated and abused African slaves on the way to North America. In spite of all of this Equiano saw a light of positivity and did not lose