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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... forced him to recognize that he might be doomed to eternal damnation . He resolved his spiritual crisis by embracing Methodism in 1774. Later he became an outspoken opponent of the slave trade , first in his letters to newspapers and ...
... forced him to recognize that he might be doomed to eternal damnation . He resolved his spiritual crisis by embracing Methodism in 1774. Later he became an outspoken opponent of the slave trade , first in his letters to newspapers and ...
Page 17
... two small children had begun the first stage of the forced journey on land and sea that constituted what , in 1784 , Equiano's friend James Ramsay called the " Middle Passage ” from freedom in Africa Chapter Two. The Middle Passage.
... two small children had begun the first stage of the forced journey on land and sea that constituted what , in 1784 , Equiano's friend James Ramsay called the " Middle Passage ” from freedom in Africa Chapter Two. The Middle Passage.
Page 18
... forced migration in history – the African diaspora of the transatlantic slave trade . To most Europeans and Euro - Americans the slave trade was a necessary part of the economic system that provided pleasures of life such as sugar and ...
... forced migration in history – the African diaspora of the transatlantic slave trade . To most Europeans and Euro - Americans the slave trade was a necessary part of the economic system that provided pleasures of life such as sugar and ...
Page 19
... forced across the Atlantic reached around sixty thousand between 1740 and 1760 and peaked during the 1780s at about eighty thousand , more than half of them on British ships based in Bristol , Liverpool , and London . Enslaved Africans ...
... forced across the Atlantic reached around sixty thousand between 1740 and 1760 and peaked during the 1780s at about eighty thousand , more than half of them on British ships based in Bristol , Liverpool , and London . Enslaved Africans ...
Page 23
... forced to suffer what has been aptly called " social death . " " 11 Equiano and his sister , of course , had no idea what the world of chattel slavery they were being forced into would be like . They left a society with slaves , in ...
... forced to suffer what has been aptly called " social death . " " 11 Equiano and his sister , of course , had no idea what the world of chattel slavery they were being forced into would be like . They left a society with slaves , in ...
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