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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... Royal Navy who renamed him Gustavus Vassa and brought him to London . With Pascal , Equiano saw military action on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean during the Seven Years ' War . In 1762 , at the end of the conflict , Pascal shocked ...
... Royal Navy who renamed him Gustavus Vassa and brought him to London . With Pascal , Equiano saw military action on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean during the Seven Years ' War . In 1762 , at the end of the conflict , Pascal shocked ...
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... Royal Navy his account of his subsequent life is remarkably consistent with the historical record . Equiano was certainly African by descent . The circumstantial evidence that Equiano was also African American by birth and African ...
... Royal Navy his account of his subsequent life is remarkably consistent with the historical record . Equiano was certainly African by descent . The circumstantial evidence that Equiano was also African American by birth and African ...
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... Royal Navy rendered him too valuable to be used for the dangerous and backbreaking labor most slaves endured . Service at sea on royal naval and commercial vessels gave him an extraordinary vantage point from which to observe the world ...
... Royal Navy rendered him too valuable to be used for the dangerous and backbreaking labor most slaves endured . Service at sea on royal naval and commercial vessels gave him an extraordinary vantage point from which to observe the world ...
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... Royal Adventurers into Africa . ) Each British colony issued its own local paper currency . A colonial pound was worth less than a pound sterling , with the conversion rates for the currencies of the various colonies fluctuating ...
... Royal Adventurers into Africa . ) Each British colony issued its own local paper currency . A colonial pound was worth less than a pound sterling , with the conversion rates for the currencies of the various colonies fluctuating ...
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... royal assent to , a law Sir William Dolben had proposed to regulate some of the conditions on overcrowded slave ships . During the following session of Parliament the House of Commons began to hear testimony on the slave trade . Much of ...
... royal assent to , a law Sir William Dolben had proposed to regulate some of the conditions on overcrowded slave ships . During the following session of Parliament the House of Commons began to hear testimony on the slave trade . Much of ...
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