Baldwin's Stating In The Race Horse

Equiano wrote to help show society the evils that lie in slavery. He used writing, to tell the truth of conditions of life for slaves, making readers feel every word he used through their senses: “The stench of the hold, while we were on the coast, was so intolerably loathsome, that it was dangerous to remain there for anytime” (Equiano 364). While they both wrote with different purposes in mind, Rowlandson and Equiano managed to paint a picture so vivid that it invoked emotions that edified society.

"I believe there are few events in my life which have not happened to many; it is true the incidents of it are numerous, and, did I consider myself an European, I might say my sufferings were great; but when I compare my lot with that of most of my countrymen, I regard myself as a particular favorite of heaven, and acknowledge the mercies of Providence in every occurrence of my life." Olaudah Equiano lived the life as a slave like many black people of the 18th century. He was born free but soon was forced into slavery which took him all around the world. From his accounts he has written down, he shows his life as a slave. Equiano had been bought and sold throughout the Americas and Europe; he showed the

The author, Olaudah Equiano, was born in African Providence of Eboe. Eboe was a small providence of the Kingdom of Benin. Up until 1756, Equiano had never encountered a white individual. In 1756 at the age of 11, Olaudah Equiano and his sister were kidnapped and taken to serve as slaves within Africa. After serving many years as a slave in Africa, he traveled across the continent to the African coast. He was packed into a large vessel with hundreds of other slaves and here his life changing journey out of Africa began.

Equiano’s rhetorical devices which include ethos, pathos, and logos abet to define and accomplish his rhetorical purpose. His ethos, or ethical assurance, is conveyed in his level of education portrayed by his sentence structure and high diction. Furthermore, as proven in historical documents, Equiano was a slave aboard one of the many slave ships. With this, the reader can accredit Equiano’s narrative to be a reliable and first-hand source to the journey of the “Middle Passage.”

One of the most interesting arguments that modern apologists makes for the practice of race-based slavery in the Americas is the fact that slavery existed in Africa during that time period and that Africans were complicit in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. What is fascinating about Olaudah Equiano's discussion of the Middle Passage is that, as a man who had been enslaved in Africa prior to being shipped as a slave to the Americas, he was in a unique position to describe slavery in Africa with his introduction to European-influenced slavery in North America. His perception was that the immense brutality of the Middle Passage foreshadowed the dehumanization of slaves in the Americas, which was more inhumane than the treatment he had received as a slave while in Africa. Furthermore, he did not suggest that this brutality was linked to the race of the traders, though that seemed to have been his initial impression, but to the nature of the Trans-Atlantic trade. Therefore, Equiano's writings suggest that shipping Africans across the ocean for slavery was part of the dehumanizing process that helped fuel the practice of slavery in America.

Another detail that Equiano incorporated within his writing, is the meaning of his name. As he says in the text “I was named Olaudah, which, in our language, signifies vicissitude or fortune also, one favoured, and having a loud voice and well spoken” (Gates Jr. & Smith 121). Equiano was a man who was the youngest born son to village leaders who owned slaves, became a captive of slavery himself, briefly worked in the fields as a slave before following his master overseas and ultimately buying his own freedom. What’s most profound throughout that, is the fact that he used his voice to help others who are stuck where he was able to break free. PBS has an article where

Anthony Johnson, previously known as Antonio, was an African caught in the Portuguese slave trading net, eventually landing in Virginia in 1621. Once in Virginia, he was purchased by a man named Richard Bennett. He spent

Anthony Johnson was a black man who arrived in Virginia around 1621 and was purchased to work as a slave in the tobacco fields of the Bennett Plantation. At that time he was merely known as “Antonio a Negro”, as it wasn’t common for black slaves to have last names. On March 22nd, 1622, an Indian attack on the Bennett plantation left only 12 surviving slaves, one of them being Anthony. In that same year a woman named Mary arrived at the plantation. Being that she was the only woman living at the Bennett plantation in 1625, Anthony could be considered fortunate to have received her as his wife. Together they had at least four children. It isn’t known how Anthony received his full name of Anthony Johnson, but the

Equiano’s luck soon shifted when he was once again kidnapped and sold as a slave, this time he would have to endure the notoriously dreadful journey across the sea to America. Knowing that this was a pivotal point in his life and that he would become a gudgeon to the harshness of slavery, Equiano attempted to prepare himself for what lay ahead. However, the sight of the inhumane acts he witnessed on the African coast, while being transported, were new to Equiano and instilled fear into his consciousness.

The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The African, Written by Himself is a narrative novel written by Olaudah Equiano in 1789 that explores his life as a young African American slave. At an early age, Equiano is taken away from his home and is forced to take part in an injustice system created by older white males. During his time as a slave, he faces several challenges, such as impulsive attacks toward him and other African Americans by his white masters, which causes him to have mental and physical problems. However, within the entirety of the harsh experiences he faces, Equiano also comes to meet Christianity, a new, fascinating religion that provides him hope for survival and an identity in the cruel

In 1745, Olaudah Equiano was born in Eboe, which is now Nigeria. When he was about eleven years old, he was kidnapped and sold to slave traders heading to the West Indies. Though he spent a short time in the state of Virginia, much of his time in slavery was spent serving the captains of slave ships and British navy vessels. One of his masters, Henry Pascal, the captain of a British trading vessel, gave him the name Gustavas Vassa, which he hardly used throughout his life. Paul Lovejoy, Canada Research Chair in African Diaspora History stated:

The story of Equiano was a very interesting look into the life of a slave. This narrative was particularly interesting because he told his story all the way from the beginning. The reader gets to follow his journey from when he was a small boy who is kidnapped all the way up to adulthood. I don’t think anyone can really imagine what his life must have been like during these events. He does paint a picture of the harshness and how scary many things he encountered were for him. Being a young child with no one to turn to thrust into the world of a rough and harrowing sea voyage is horrible, but add the cruelty and the inhuman conditions that the slaves were faced with and the narrative becomes a down right atrocity. It is amazing to me that

In the historical narrative, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, the narrator is unreliable. In the narrative, Equiano explains his tough journey through slavery and talks about the terrible conditions he went through to make it out of slavery. He states that he was born in Nigeria, but many sources show that he was born in South Carolina. English professor Vincent Carretta found that, “Equiano’s 1759 baptismal records from a London church listed his birthplace as South Carolina, and later uncovered a ship’s muster list from 1773 that also noted Equiano was born in South Carolina” (Carretta 2005). This shows that Equiano was in fact, born in South Carolina. This changes the affect the narrative has on a reader. It shows

Equiano remembers being kidnapped along with his sister at the age of eleven. After spending time with multiple different masters in Africa, he was separated from his sister and brought to the coast. He saw a slave ship for the first time and was astonished by the cramped, unclean, inhuman condition on the ships. He was intrigued and terrified, by the strange machinery of the ship. He was mostly terrified of the white men directing the ship, he was afraid they were going to eat them. After a long, torturous voyage, they reached Barbados, where Equiano observed families being separated. The white people didn’t have any thought of the pain and distress this caused. He was taken to Virginia, where he was isolated on a plantation. He spoke little English and had almost no one to talk to.

When he was about six or seven years old his mothers old master died which lead to all the saves being divided between the children. He was sent to his father's wife's brother-in-law; this separated him from his mother. The way they were divided was that different names of the slave's were