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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... never seen a copy of his work , and from what I had read about it I assumed that it was a text more appropriate for American literature courses than for the British courses I was teaching at the time . Placing Equiano in the tradition ...
... never seen a copy of his work , and from what I had read about it I assumed that it was a text more appropriate for American literature courses than for the British courses I was teaching at the time . Placing Equiano in the tradition ...
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... never expected , indeed , never wanted to make because they so profoundly challenged my sense of who Olaudah Equiano , or Gustavus Vassa , the African , was . Recent biographical discoveries have cast doubt on Equiano's story of his ...
... never expected , indeed , never wanted to make because they so profoundly challenged my sense of who Olaudah Equiano , or Gustavus Vassa , the African , was . Recent biographical discoveries have cast doubt on Equiano's story of his ...
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... never know the truth about the author's birth and upbringing . The burden of proof , however , is now on those who believe that The Interesting Narrative is a historically accurate piece of nonfiction . Anyone who still contends that ...
... never know the truth about the author's birth and upbringing . The burden of proof , however , is now on those who believe that The Interesting Narrative is a historically accurate piece of nonfiction . Anyone who still contends that ...
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... 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 his writings other than The Interesting Narrative he used Vassa ...
... 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 his writings other than The Interesting Narrative he used Vassa ...
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... never mentioned in his subsequent autobiography . Equiano knew that what the anti - slave - trade movement needed most in 1789 to continue increasing its momentum was precisely the kind of account he supplied , a story that corroborated ...
... never mentioned in his subsequent autobiography . Equiano knew that what the anti - slave - trade movement needed most in 1789 to continue increasing its momentum was precisely the kind of account he supplied , a story that corroborated ...
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