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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... probably the wealthiest and certainly the most famous person of African descent in the Atlantic world . Over the past thirty - five years historians , literary critics , and the general public have come to recognize the author of The ...
... probably the wealthiest and certainly the most famous person of African descent in the Atlantic world . Over the past thirty - five years historians , literary critics , and the general public have come to recognize the author of The ...
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... that the accounts of Africa and the Middle Passage in The Interesting Narrative were constructed – and carefully so - rather than actually expe rienced and that the author probably invented an African identity xiv PREFACE.
... that the accounts of Africa and the Middle Passage in The Interesting Narrative were constructed – and carefully so - rather than actually expe rienced and that the author probably invented an African identity xiv PREFACE.
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Biography of a Self-Made Man Vincent Carretta. rienced and that the author probably invented an African identity . But we must remember that reasonable doubt is not the same as conviction . We will probably never know the truth about the ...
Biography of a Self-Made Man Vincent Carretta. rienced and that the author probably invented an African identity . But we must remember that reasonable doubt is not the same as conviction . We will probably never know the truth about the ...
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... probably fictitious , accounts of his early years in Africa and his experience of the Middle Passage . Since Equiano's is the only story available for this period of his life , I have chosen to treat it in the following pages as if it ...
... probably fictitious , accounts of his early years in Africa and his experience of the Middle Passage . Since Equiano's is the only story available for this period of his life , I have chosen to treat it in the following pages as if it ...
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... Though destined for distinction in Africa , the child Equiano shows us was unusually sensitive and vulnerable so much so , in fact , that were he actually as old as eleven he would probably strike most EQUIANO'S AFRICA □ 9.
... Though destined for distinction in Africa , the child Equiano shows us was unusually sensitive and vulnerable so much so , in fact , that were he actually as old as eleven he would probably strike most EQUIANO'S AFRICA □ 9.
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