Equiano, the African: Biography of a Self-Made ManThis definitive biography tells the story of the former slave Olaudah Equiano (1745?–1797), who in his day was the English-speaking world’s most renowned person of African descent. Equiano’s greatest legacy is his classic 1789 autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself. A key document of the early movement to ban the slave trade, as well as the fundamental text in the genre of the African American slave narrative, it includes the earliest known purported firsthand description by an enslaved victim of the horrific Middle Passage from Africa to the Americas. Equiano, the African is filled with fresh revelations about this many-sided figure. |
From inside the book
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... March 1797 he was probably the wealthiest and certainly the most famous person of African descent in the Atlantic world . Over the past thirty - five years historians , literary critics , and the general public have come to recognize ...
... March 1797 he was probably the wealthiest and certainly the most famous person of African descent in the Atlantic world . Over the past thirty - five years historians , literary critics , and the general public have come to recognize ...
Page 4
... March , to Lord Hawkesbury , president of the Board of Trade.5 He also had it printed in the Public Advertiser on 31 March . Neither time did he invoke personal experience to support his argument that " a commercial Intercourse with ...
... March , to Lord Hawkesbury , president of the Board of Trade.5 He also had it printed in the Public Advertiser on 31 March . Neither time did he invoke personal experience to support his argument that " a commercial Intercourse with ...
Page 14
... march boldly out to fight along with the men . Our whole district is a kind of militia " ( 39 ) . The image of a militia as the first line of domestic defense was reassuring to Equiano's readers who shared the widespread British ...
... march boldly out to fight along with the men . Our whole district is a kind of militia " ( 39 ) . The image of a militia as the first line of domestic defense was reassuring to Equiano's readers who shared the widespread British ...
Page 28
... march in coffles - chained together in column - caravans - to the coast as quickly as possible . 16 Few slaves , though , would have received the consideration he says he was shown : " The people I was sold to used to carry me very ...
... march in coffles - chained together in column - caravans - to the coast as quickly as possible . 16 Few slaves , though , would have received the consideration he says he was shown : " The people I was sold to used to carry me very ...
Page 33
... March 1754 with about three hundred slaves , headed for the sugar colonies of the West Indies , the destination for 80 percent of enslaved Africans . By 1789 the horrors of the coerced Atlantic crossing had already been widely reported ...
... March 1754 with about three hundred slaves , headed for the sugar colonies of the West Indies , the destination for 80 percent of enslaved Africans . By 1789 the horrors of the coerced Atlantic crossing had already been widely reported ...
Contents
1 | |
17 | |
39 | |
Chapter Four Freedom Denied | 71 |
Chapter Five Bearing Witness | 92 |
Chapter Six Freedom of a Sort | 119 |
Chapter Seven Toward the North Pole | 135 |
Chapter Eight Born Again | 161 |
Chapter Ten The Black Poor | 202 |
Chapter Eleven Turning against the Slave Trade | 236 |
Chapter Twelve Making a Life | 270 |
Chapter Thirteen The Art of the Book | 303 |
Chapter Fourteen A SelfMade Man | 330 |
Notes | 369 |
Bibliography | 395 |
Index | 419 |
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Common terms and phrases
Abolition abolitionist African British African descent America appeared Atlantic autobiography Benezet Bight of Biafra black poor boat Britain British called captain century Christian Church Clarkson coast colonies command crew Cugoano death deck Eboe edition eighteenth eighteenth-century England English enslaved Africans European Farmer freedom French frontispiece George Granville Sharp Guinea Gustavus Vassa History House of Commons human identity Igbo Ignatius Sancho Indian Interesting Narrative Irving island Jamaica James John King land letter London Lord Mansfield master Middle Passage Montserrat Morning Post Mosquito Mosquito Coast muster list naval Negroes never North Norwich Olaudah Equiano owners Pascal passage Phipps Pitt planters Public Advertiser published Quakers Ramsay readers Royal Navy sailed Sancho seamen servant ship Sierra Leone slavery Society sold soon subscribers Thomas thought tion told transatlantic slave trade Vasa vessel voyage West Indies William writing