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Olaudah Equiano Sparknotes

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In his book, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, African author Olaudah Equiano wrote about his life and experiences after being sold into the slave trade. Equiano used his writing to expose the horrors of slavery and the agony he and other slaves faced. He wrote with the hope that by exposing the horrors that slaves endure, people would realize how wicked slavery was and put an end to it.

Equiano spoke about his encounters with white men in the Middle Passage and how he was terrified of them in chapter two of his book. As they examined him when he initially boarded the ship, he described how he was terrified: "I was immediately handled and tossed up to see if I were sound by some of the crew; and I was now persuaded that I had gotten into a world of bad spirits, and that they were going to kill me." As time on the ship passed, he learned more about the …show more content…

He talks about how white men offered him a drink soon after he boarded the ship, but he was too terrified to accept it until a black man handed it to him. He describes this incident by saying, "one of the crew brought me a small portion of spirituous liquor in a wine glass; but, being afraid of him, I would not take it out of his hand. One of the blacks therefore took it from him and gave it to me, and I took a little down my palate" As time passed, he grew to perceive the blacks around him as "his countrymen," people in the same horrific situation as him. In his book, he describes how the predicament they were all in as a result of white people and slavery drove two of his countrymen to commit suicide, saying, "two of my wearied countrymen who were chained together (I was near them at the time), preferring death to such a life of misery, somehow made through the nettings and jumped into the sea"

His passages show that he thinks of his fellow Africans as people he can

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