Olaudah Equiano

 

Olaudah Equiano, also known as Gustavus Vassa, was very involved in the British movement for abolition of the slave trade. Enslaved at age 11 in Nigeria, he lost his sister was was haunted for all of his life by his fears of what had happened to her, and his inability to save her. However, he did purchase his own freedom, and worked as an author, merchant, and explorer in South America, the Caribbean, the Artic, the American colonies, and finally, the United Kingdom, where he settled by 1792. He then married an English woman, Susan Cullen, and fathered two daughters. He is said to have died 5 years later, in 1797. He is famous for his autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, which depicts the horrors of slavery (also called Gustavus Vassa the African). It also influenced the enactment of the Slave Trade Act of 1807. Although he did not live to see the abolition of slavery in Britain or in the United States, his work as a writer and as a speaker added to the fight which eventually would lead to emancipation in both countries in the next century.

Equiano, in his autobiography, uses a lot of description, and really lays out the whole situation for the reader, but he doesn't include as much of his emotion. He just details his day to day journeys and horrors, as we see on page 396, where he describes being sold. "On a signal given (as the beat of a drum), the buyers rush at once into the yard where the slaves are confined and make choice of that parcel they like best. The noise and clamor with which this is attended and the eagerness visible in the countenances of the buyers serve not a little to increase the apprehension of terrified Africans, who may well be supposed to consider them as the ministers of that destruction to which they think themselves devoted. In this manner, without scruple, are relations and friends separated, most of them never to see each other again." This is obviously a huge event, and it has to be very traumatizing, but rather than express his own feelings towards being sold, he tells it simply as it is, with the only descriptions being used to describe everyone in his place. His almost detachment from what he's feeling at some points makes the depiction of the agony of the slaves even stronger. It is not about one man, but about a people.

However, he does use a lot of descriptive words and very vivid imagery. We can see this on page 393, where he talks about looking around on the ship. "When I looked round the ship too, and saw a large furnace of copper boiling and a multitude of black people of every description chained together, every one of their countenances expressing dejection and sorrow, I no longer doubted of my fate; and, quite overpowered with horror and anguish, I fell motionlesson the deck and fainted." He uses words like loathsome, despair, abandoned, unmercifully, cruelty, and horror to tell his stories. He paints a picture of everything he sees and perhaps it is because of his vast descriptions that his book about slavery was among the first to really get people's attention, and bring attention to the need for change.