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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... autobiography , The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano , or Gustavus Vassa , the African . Written by Himself ( London , 1789 ) , Equiano was born in 1745 in what is now southeastern Nigeria . There , he says , he was ...
... autobiography , The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano , or Gustavus Vassa , the African . Written by Himself ( London , 1789 ) , Equiano was born in 1745 in what is now southeastern Nigeria . There , he says , he was ...
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... autobiography are now available . The literary status of The Interesting Narrative has been acknowledged by its inclusion in the Penguin Classics series . It is universally accepted as the fundamental text in the genre of the slave ...
... autobiography are now available . The literary status of The Interesting Narrative has been acknowledged by its inclusion in the Penguin Classics series . It is universally accepted as the fundamental text in the genre of the slave ...
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... autobiography in a bookstore near the University of Maryland when I came across a copy of Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s then recently published anthology entitled The Classic Slave Narratives . It includes an 1814 edition of The Interesting ...
... autobiography in a bookstore near the University of Maryland when I came across a copy of Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s then recently published anthology entitled The Classic Slave Narratives . It includes an 1814 edition of The Interesting ...
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... autobiography differs from unpublished letters we know to be his . As far as I know , no one during Equiano's lifetime charged that the writer of his unpublished letters could not have written his autobiography , though some ...
... autobiography differs from unpublished letters we know to be his . As far as I know , no one during Equiano's lifetime charged that the writer of his unpublished letters could not have written his autobiography , though some ...
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... autobiography , the author of The Interesting Narrative almost never called himself Equiano . He retained Gustavus Vassa as his legal name , and it appears on his baptismal , naval , and marriage records as well as in his will . In all ...
... autobiography , the author of The Interesting Narrative almost never called himself Equiano . He retained Gustavus Vassa as his legal name , and it appears on his baptismal , naval , and marriage records as well as in his will . In all ...
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