Summary: The Interesting Narrative Of The Life Of Olaudah Equiano

Could you imagine being kidnapped and sold into slavery? In the 1500s during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade being kidnapped and sold as a slave was a common occurrence in Africa. Throughout this period of time, Europeans would come to Africa in search of a source of labor, slaves, to send to work on their plantations. In exchange for slaves, African people would receive manufactured goods from the Europeans. The process of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade was a maniac and unsafe affair. Nevertheless, as the demand for slaves grew for the Europeans, African chiefs would organize raids to take people from other societies and frequently launch wars to capture victims for slave trade. People taken right out of their homes, fields, and villages; people’s lives changed instantly. In the book The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Olaudah shows just how frightening, awful, and changing this experience really is for the good and the bad. The book begins with Equiano explaining the history of the place that he was born which is Eboe, a kingdom of Benin, located in Guinea. He tells us about the government, people in control, how people dress, how people lived, and the jobs of people. Equiano also gives incite to the fact that Europe was not the only people participating in slavery, Africa was too. But most of the slaves in Africa were prisoners of war or people that had committed crimes. But Equiano’s journey did not start until at 11 years old when he and his