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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... appeared , in altered and often abridged form , during the twenty years after his death in 1797. Thereafter , he was briefly cited and sometimes quoted by British and American opponents of slavery throughout the first half of the ...
... appeared , in altered and often abridged form , during the twenty years after his death in 1797. Thereafter , he was briefly cited and sometimes quoted by British and American opponents of slavery throughout the first half of the ...
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... appeared during the author's lifetime , the last in 1794. But I found that a ninth edition had also appeared in 1794 and , even more unexpectedly , that the University of Maryland owned one of only three copies of it then known to exist ...
... appeared during the author's lifetime , the last in 1794. But I found that a ninth edition had also appeared in 1794 and , even more unexpectedly , that the University of Maryland owned one of only three copies of it then known to exist ...
Page 1
... appeared three months before the beginning of the French Revolution , its author had publicly used only his legal name , Gustavus Vassa , the slave name he had been given thirty - five years earlier . He had , ironically , been named ...
... appeared three months before the beginning of the French Revolution , its author had publicly used only his legal name , Gustavus Vassa , the slave name he had been given thirty - five years earlier . He had , ironically , been named ...
Page 5
... appeared in expensive collections that were republished in enlarged editions throughout the century . More modest collections of travelers ' accounts and geographical surveys published from midcentury on reflected the widening audience ...
... appeared in expensive collections that were republished in enlarged editions throughout the century . More modest collections of travelers ' accounts and geographical surveys published from midcentury on reflected the widening audience ...
Page 13
... a man's family members and slaves are sufficiently numerous , his dwellings " present the appearance of a village " ( 36 ) . All adults share responsibility for defending the village they have built together EQUIANO'S AFRICA 13.
... a man's family members and slaves are sufficiently numerous , his dwellings " present the appearance of a village " ( 36 ) . All adults share responsibility for defending the village they have built together EQUIANO'S AFRICA 13.
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