Olaudah Equiano - African, slave, sailor, writer, Englishman, Christian, abolitionist

BORN NAME
Olaudah Equiano
GIVEN NAME
Gustavus Vassa
BIRTH DATE
1745
BIRTH PLACE
Nigeria
OCCUPATION
writer,abolitionist
DIED
London 1797

"May the time come . . . when the sable people shall gratefully commemorate the auspicious era of extensive freedom."
The Interesting Life
of Olaudah Equiano

Olaudah Equiano[o-lah-oo-day ek-wee-ah-no], called Gustavus Vassa by his white masters, became a legend through his words. In 1788 England published his autobiographical work, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, which set the precedent for anti-slavery literature written by former slaves themselves, which would have a profound impact on the abolition movements in the eighteenth century.

Born in 1745 in a small village in modern-day Nigeria, Equiano would travel far before his death in 1797. African slave traders tore him from his family when he was eleven. Thus began a series of worldly experiences not matched by many of the most cosmopolitan people -- let alone of an oppressed young black man.

Equiano offers unique perspective not found in the later works of African-American freedmen, like Frederick Douglass, for he remembers his native African community before enslavement. Equiano writes of his struggle to assimilate to the many cultures he became a part of, often by force: as Ibo, slave, sailor, Englishman, and Christian. His vivid descriptions and faithful telling of tales allow readers to relate closely to the troubled spirit of one man attempting to forge identity and gain self-empowerment in an adverse world.

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