Summary: The Interesting Narrative Of The Life Of Olaudah Equiano

In The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Olaudah Equiano writes about his experiences as a slave. Beginning with his childhood, he tells of how he was kidnapped and traveled through the Bermuda Triangle, bought by his first white owner, and eventually gained his freedom. Although Equiano still considers himself an African at the end of his text, the text tells a different story about his transformation from an African to a British man. Considered to be a slave narrative by many critics because of its true stories about slavery, there are many issues with Equiano’s argument against slavery: Rather than asking that Britain completely rid of slavery, Equiano actually suggests that they create a new form of slavery which would allow Africans to assimilate to the white men through economic reforms such as paying the Africans for their work and using their land for production.

3 Before his capture, he was supposed to lead the village as chief when he became older. After being enslaved Equiano didn’t suffer in the households he was sold to; however, after boarding his first slave ship he soon learned about the harsh and cruel reality of being a slave. His last master was a lieutenant from the Royal Navy called Michael Henry Pascal and as a result it led him to sail around the world, move to England, and educated himself. 3 After becoming a free man Equiano became a Christian and follows the career as an active abolitionist that spoke out against slave-owners.

In the documents “Considering the Evidence: Voices from the Slave Trade” it shows how the Atlantic slave trade was an enormous enterprise and enormously significant in modern world history. In document 15.1 - The Journey to Slavery it talks about the voice of an individual victim of the slave trade known as Olaudah Equiano. Equiano was taken from his home and sold into the slave trade. He worked for three different families while in the slave trade but what is different about him is that he learned to read and write while being a slave. He traveled extensively as a seaman aboard one of his masters' ships, and was allowed to buy his freedom in 1766.

Writers like Olaudah Equiano and Frederick Douglass were different from other slaves in the sense that they were educated and used it as a tool to talk about the horrors of slavery. These writers approached their predominantly white readership by narrating their experiences as slaves and how they were negatively impacted by it. For example, Frederick Douglass never knew his mother nor his presumably white father. And because children had to follow the condition of the mother, he was meant to be a slave for life. In his writing, he also described how initially his mistress was teaching him how to read and write, however she stopped after his master told her not to. Suddenly, her attitude towards him learning became even worse than his master’s.

On page seventy-eight, Equiano uses first person pronouns like 'I', 'my', and 'me' to separate himself from the other African people and whites around him. This separation that Equiano creates demonstrates his exceptionalism as an African slave. For Equiano to be able to make the readers see the reversal of perceptions about white people, Equiano needs to separate himself and produce this sense of exceptionalism through first person pronouns. Once he establishes himself

In Chapter 1 and 2 of “Creating Black Americans,” author Nell Irvin Painter addresses an imperative issue in which African history and the lives of Africans are often dismissed (2) and continue to be perceived in a negative light (1). This book gives the author the chance to revive the history of Africa, being this a sacred place to provide readers with a “history of their own.” (Painter 4)

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.

Within all major societies of the world exists a power struggle between the majority and the minority, the disenfranchised and the coddled. But no power struggle has achieved the same notoriety as the black slave’s plight in the Western world. From England to the West Indies and the Americas, black slaves suffered insurmountable trauma and subjugation. One of these slaves, Olaudah Equiano, recounts his experiences, both triumphant and pitiful, within the Americas and England to affect change in his audience and in the world. In his The Life of Olaudah Equiano, he utilizes specific rhetorical strategies to affect this change and to accomplish his goal. With his inclusion of himself as an irreplaceable character, his analysis of the hypocrisy of Christian slavers, and his analysis of the economic benefits of well-treated slaves, Equiano crafts his autobiography as a work of rhetoric that rivals any proponent of the slave trade.

David Walker acknowledged that slavery had long been practiced in Africa, but he charged white Christian slaveholders with greater crimes against humanity and greater hypocrisy in justifying those crimes than any prior slave system had been guilty of. Twentieth century scholarship has lent much support to the contentions of Walker’s and others in the African American antislavery vanguard that slavery as perpetrated by the European colonizers of Africa and the Americas brought man’s inhumanity to man to a level of technological efficiency unimagined by previous generations.

Many changes occurred during the long 18th century which were highly influenced by the Enlightenment era. A written work called The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olauda Equiano by Olauda Equiano states the difficulties Africans went through during the 18th century that made the Enlightenment era. While writing his novel during the Age of Reason, Equiano employed logical appeal, emotional appeal, and focused on making a call for social improvements, which were typical aspects in writing from this period.

The autobiographical tale of Equiano Travels by Olaudah Equiano is a powerful look at one of the most prolific and interesting men of color. The narrative allows readers to get to see the world through Equiano's own personal experiences. In the book, Equiano recounts his happy childhood in Eboe his and sister's kidnapping when he was eleven. He later recounts his early time as a slave in Africa being forced to endure a torturous journey across Africa. Than being separated from his sister, and never seeing her or his family again being whisked farther away from them and into the slave trade by boat where he remained enslaved for several more years. The main purpose of Equiano book was to provide the European government with a compelling narrative to end slavery and abolish

The Trans-Atlantic slave trade was responsible for the forced migration of between 12 to 15 million people. From Africa to the Western Hemisphere, the slave trade not only displaced millions of Africans to a life of exploitation, but also a painful death. Nobody knew the total number of people who died during slavery in Africa. The Atlantic slave trade Many died a slowly painful death during transportation and imprisonment, or in horrendous conditions during the Middle Passage. The voyage from Africa to the Americas was horrifying and painful for the slaves so many slaves considered suicide as an option. The African Kingdoms were kidnapping slaves from other Africans Kingdoms and trading them with Europeans. In the 15th century some enslaved

17.1 Captivity and Enslavement, Olaudah Equiano, the interesting Narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano written by himself

Even if you fall on your face, you’re still moving forward (Kiam, Victor). Sometimes it may seem as though you aren’t not moving forward in life, but in actuality you are always moving. Olaudah Equiano describes the trip him and many other slaves took across the ocean. Many of the slaves on the boat were kidnapped. This means that they were not slaves before this (page 171). In The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano by Olaudah Equiano, he voices many hardships that him and many of the slaves faced on the journey.

Over twelve million Africans were captured and taken against their will by Europeans in the Atlantic slave trade from about 1525-1866. The experience that the slaves endured was horrendous, unsanitary and overall the worst time of their lives. The middle passage was where the slaves were taken from Africa to the Americas via ships. After they arrived in the Americas, they were sold and forced to work for their new owners. Due to strong European force, slaves experienced dehumanization through being captured from their villages and tortured, living with awful conditions on ships, and being sold against their will to Americans.