OLAUDAH EQUIANO

Published in London in 1789, The Interesting Life of Olaudah

Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African may be the first American slave or

ex-slave narrative. According to the introduction in your anthology:

No black person before the abolitionist Frederick Douglass . . . spoke

so movingly to American readers about the inhumanity of slavery,

and no work before Douglass’s Narrative had such an impact on the

antislavery movement. Incorporating the vocabulary and ideals of

the Enlightenment – particularly the belief that sentiment linked all

human beings and thus provided a basis for universal claims to

human rights – Equiano made a powerful case for the countless

disenfranchised and exploited [enslaved] workers whose labor fueled

the new mercantilism. In American literature, replete with self-made

figures who voyage from innocence to experience, Equiano’s story is

in a class by itself both for the challenges he faced and for the

transformations he experienced. (731-732)

Equiano’s Narrative is very different from most ex-slave narratives; it is

considered a hybrid text – a combination captivity narrative, abolitionist

treatise, sea adventure, and coming-of age story or Bildungsroman.

Equiano’s primary goal or intent is to use his narrative to petition for

the abolition of slavery by demonstrating the equal humanity of Africans.

Recurring themes:

African humanity, intelligence, and self-actualization.

The diversity of African peoples.

Difference between African slavery and New World slavery.

Idyllic depiction of Ibo life and culture.

Savagery of the Middle Passage.

Moral outrage at the atrocities of chattel or New World slavery.

Argument for immediate and categorical abolition of slavery.

Physical and psychological transition from self as person to self as property

to self as property owner.

Equiano’s conversion to Christianity.

Blacks’ ability to assimilate into white society and culture.

Black people's capacity for successful economic development.

Your text also notes that Equiano did not define himself as African

American nor Anglo African. “He came to exemplify the Atlantic Rim,

presenting himself as someone who at various times called Africa, the

Americas, and Europe his home” (732). Put another way, Equiano has

come to exemplify the Black Atlantic diaspora. Diaspora means

“scattering” and in this case refers to those taken from their African

homelands, shipped across the Atlantic through what was called the Middle

Passage, and sold into slavery in the Americas. As the introduction notes,

Equiano bought his freedom in 1766: “Having gained his liberty by paying

forty pounds – money earned by carrying on his own business while

managing King’s – he never set foot on American soil again” (732).

Until 2018, Equiano’s Narrative was the only narrative in which the

writer documented his personal experience of the deeply traumatic Middle

Passage. See the link below.*

In 2005, scholar Vincent Caretta published an article claiming that

Equiano was actually born in South Carolina and that instead of writing an

autobiographical account, Equiano invented an African identity and

combined stories he had heard from actual “saltwater” slaves to create his

narrative. Saltwater slaves refers to those people born in Africa who were

captured, enslaved, and brought to the Americas in contrast to “Creole”

slaves who were born into slavery in the Americas. Carnetta’s claim has

not been proven or disproven. And Carnetta has never produced compelling evidence to support his claim. Your introduction notes that

given the possibility that Equiano’s narrative is a composite rather than

solely a personal account, the narrative “can be understood as an example

of a witness narrative . . . the testimony of someone from a marginalized

group who speaks in the first person for the entire group’s history. To

make his life appear more representative, Equiano may have merged his

experiences

with those of the voiceless Africans who endured the horrors of the Middle

Passage” (732).

Literary scholar Demetrius Eudell observes that if elements of

Equiano’s account are historical fiction, it demonstrates the power of

literature to recover and convey lost histories, for the narrative powerfully

captures and analyzes the experience of saltwater slaves. Equiano’s

narrative depicts the change in consciousness that occurs in those captured

Africans who went from Being Human — persons with family, nation,

culture, spiritual beliefs and practices — to being legally designated a

commodity – a thing bought and sold in the marketplace with no legal

standing: “Equiano’s narrative could also be analyzed in terms of the

powerful effects that it would have on the interpretation of a new

experience and reality . . . reflecting a new model of identity, of Being

Human, one that had been at the time only recently brought into existence”

(230). In other words, Equiano’s narrative and other ex-slave narratives

tell the story of what it was like to live the “American distinction of slaves

being not only physically subordinated but also conceptually imagined out

of the human species” (231).

Clearly there is quite a bit to process in studying a type of narrative that

may be unfamiliar to you. Consider the following summary points:

1.) The Atlantic or triangular slave trade was foundational to global

capitalism and to the economies of England, France, Portugal and the

United States in particular. It was a thriving economic enterprise for 3

centuries with the 18th century or 1700s being the height of the slave trade.

2.) The Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in England in 1807 and in the

United States in 1808. Equiano’s Narrative had a significant impact on the

fight to outlaw the slave trade as his account leaves no doubt as to his

intelligence and full humanity.

3.) Through the account of his experiences, Equiano shows the CRITICAL

DIFFERENCE between African slavery and slavery in the Americas. Before

the international slave trade, one could be enslaved as punishment for a

crime or if captured in battle between rival ethnic groups or tribes. Most

significant difference – slaves were not dehumanized and could

be incorporated into families they had entered as slaves.

4.) The international slave trade was a very lucrative business.

Enslaved people were no longer a byproduct of battle; acquiring

slaves to sell to the Europeans became the point of battles

between tribes. Some tribes became quite wealthy as consistent

suppliers of slaves to the booming New World market.

5.) It is estimated that between 15 and 50 million people were taken from

mostly West Africa and shipped as cargo to the Americas. The wide

variation is because slave ships often falsified their records so that they

could get insurance coverage for what was a very risky business. They

would pack more people into the ships than insurance companies

considered “safe” so that they could receive the coverage.

6.) Pay particular attention to Equiano’s description of his reaction to being

brought aboard a slave ship (740). This is THE turning point in the

narrative. He sees the white men on board the ship as savages and fears

that they are cannibals who plan to eat him. Note that he sees them this

way because of how they are treating him, NOT because of some

preconceived prejudice about white people. Equiano provides a first person

narrative of what it was like to be “cargo” on a slave ship. He details the

matter-of-fact brutality in the treatment of Africans as well as the treatment

of the ship’s crew.

7.) Note the powerful impact becoming a Christian has on Equiano.

Despite the challenges he faces once he reaches the Americas, he

continually describes himself as favored by Providence. Note also how he

uses supposedly shared Christian beliefs to condemn a slave trade

conducted by those who claimed to be Christians:

O, ye nominal Christians! Might not an African ask you – Learned

you this from your God, who says unto you, Do unto all men as you

would men should do unto you? Is it not enough that we are torn

from our country and friends, to toil for your luxury and lust of gain?

Must every tender feeling be likewise sacrificed to your avarice? Are

the dearest friends and relations, now rendered more dear by their

separation from their kindred, still to be parted from each other, and

thus prevented from cheering the gloom of slavery, with the small

comfort of being together, and mingling their sufferings and sorrows?

Why are parents to lose their children, brothers their sisters, or

husbands their wives? Surely, this is a new refinement in cruelty,

which, while it has no advantage to atone for it, thus aggravates

distress, and adds fresh horrors even to the wretchedness of slavery.

(744)

8.) Throughout the narrative, we note Equiano’s strong sense of self.

Captured at 11, his identity and sense of self had already been formed based

on his experiences as an Ibo living in West Africa. He was enslaved as a

pre-teen rather than being subjected to slavery from birth. In the midst of

his experiences as an enslaved person, Equiano is able to maintain a very

strong sense of possibility for himself as a free person. In other words, he aspired. Enslavers considered aspiration among enslaved people very dangerous and they worked very hard to destroy squelch it. Aspiration means the desire to be more than you presently are, to do more than you presently do. Among enslaved people this could lead to slave revolts, escape, sabotage of the workings of the plantation, etc. Aspiration means that you are human. Equiano’s clear depiction of a self that preceded

enslavement is a primary reason why I believe that in the Narrative,

Equiano is relating a personal experience. He avoids the most vicious indoctrination that most enslaved people were subjected to, as he repeatedly relates. Equiano never sees himself as "a slave." Slavery is an unfortunate circumstance for him. This is because he has been someone else and because as a seaman, he has a range of experiences that most people have not had. This is foundational to his mentality and awareness of other possibilities. Someone born in to slavery would likely not have the

swagger and security that comes with being taught to see yourself as a

significant person in the world at an early age.

* https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/5/17/17352238/zora-neale-hurston-

barracoon-review

Eudell, Demetrius. “’Come on Kid, Let’s go Get the Thing’: The Sociogenic

Principle and the Being of Being Black/ Human.” In Sylvia Wynter:

On Being Human as Praxis. Ed. Katherine McKittrick, Duke

University Press, 2015. 226-248.