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
Results 1-5 of 47
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... Vassa / 89 Frontispiece , Interesting Narrative , vol . 2 / 125 Racehorse muster list / 149 View of the Racehorse and Carcass , Phipps expedition / 154 Hogarth , Credulity , Superstition and Fanaticism / 169 Dance , Granville Sharp ...
... Vassa / 89 Frontispiece , Interesting Narrative , vol . 2 / 125 Racehorse muster list / 149 View of the Racehorse and Carcass , Phipps expedition / 154 Hogarth , Credulity , Superstition and Fanaticism / 169 Dance , Granville Sharp ...
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... Vassa , the African . Written by Himself ( London , 1789 ) , Equiano was born in 1745 in what is now southeastern Nigeria . There , he says , he was enslaved at the age of eleven and sold to English slave traders , who took him on the ...
... Vassa , the African . Written by Himself ( London , 1789 ) , Equiano was born in 1745 in what is now southeastern Nigeria . There , he says , he was enslaved at the age of eleven and sold to English slave traders , who took him on the ...
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... Vassa the African " on the newly discovered gravestone of his only child who survived to adulthood . But after 1857 Equiano and his Interesting Narrative seem to have been forgotten on both sides of the Atlantic for more than a century ...
... Vassa the African " on the newly discovered gravestone of his only child who survived to adulthood . But after 1857 Equiano and his Interesting Narrative seem to have been forgotten on both sides of the Atlantic for more than a century ...
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... Vassa , the African , was . Recent biographical discoveries have cast doubt on Equiano's story of his birth and early years . The available evidence suggests that the author of The Interesting Narrative may have invented rather than ...
... Vassa , the African , was . Recent biographical discoveries have cast doubt on Equiano's story of his birth and early years . The available evidence suggests that the author of The Interesting Narrative may have invented rather than ...
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... Vassa , the slave name Pascal gave him , from 1754 to 1788 ; and again as Olaudah Equiano from 1788 until his death in 1797 , the period during which he publicly either reclaimed or assumed the identity of a nativeborn African . I ...
... Vassa , the slave name Pascal gave him , from 1754 to 1788 ; and again as Olaudah Equiano from 1788 until his death in 1797 , the period during which he publicly either reclaimed or assumed the identity of a nativeborn African . I ...
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