Brief Summary: The Life Of Olaudah Equiano

Equiano was a victim of this Triangular Trade enterprise and was taken away from everything he had ever known at the young age of 11. He was traded from tribe to tribe and in most cases was treated just like any other child of the village. He is labeled as a slave, though the treatment he receives does not fall under the stereotypical conditions of a slave. He was allowed to play with other children and was treated like a

Equiano, one moment was free and the next was being kidnapped and taken into this world where he felt he did not belong. Slavery is something that now is thought about in hate and disgust, but was the “it thing” back in the 1800s. Equiano started his slave life in Africa, however the difference between his experiences throughout Africa and his experiences through the New World are completely different. Equiano was young when he was kidnapped, therefore he started his slave life has a young man who had years of slavery ahead of him.

After watching that preview of Equiano experience of a young boy captured by traders and brought to a slave ship. I had to look up in my textbook more about Equiano’s life and the text states that, “Equiano described during the 1780s how horrible it was living around that time. Also, him describing the white slave traders, with their “horrible looks, red faces, and long hair,” appeared to be savages who acted with a “brutal cruelty” that went beyond anything their victims had previously

Equiano’s initial experience in travelling takes him as unwilling participant into the slave trade. Having grown to the age of 11 in one culture in a singular space, he was very secure in his identity; this first thrust into a new space, one that is purposely hostile, creates anxiety that is only soften because he is sold closer to home. The gradual progression to the coast and ultimately onto a slave ship gives him time to face harsher truths in the West Indies. His Transatlantic journey takes him to Barbados, which he

Captured far from the African coast when he was a boy of eleven, Olaudah Equiano was sold into slavery, and he later acquired his freedom. He wrote a narrative that became known worldwide. Reading this story for the second time, I still believe and think there is no thesis or hypothesis in this narrative. The author is not exactly trying to prove anything. He is taking us back to the past with him and with the memories, he remembers and he shares it with the readers. As time progressed, it seemed, as if the only culture he held on to were the memories, he had as a child. Memories in which his mother and sister were back with him and he would remember his colorful homeland. I think that as Equiano became more educated he assimilated into American

Born in 1745, Equiano was born a member of the Igbo tribe in a village called Essaka in the kingdom of Benin. He describes Essaka as a remote and fertile village where slavery is a part of life. Born into a family of seven, Equiano is the youngest of six sons and the "greatest favourite of his mother." One day, when he and his sister were left to mind their house while their people were gone to their work, they were both kidnapped and enslaved, violating the unwritten rules that slaves should only be acquired as prisoners of war or criminals. This day would change Equiano's life forever and begin his experiences in slavery.

The long individual story of Olaudah Equiano made the slave-account kind in writing. Equiano was an African American that fell into subjection. He was constrained like numerous other African Americans amid the seventeenth and eighteenth century Equiano takes the manifestation of the otherworldly life account that Saint Augustine utilized as a part of his fifth century religious change work Confessions and adds to its example another measurement that of social dissent. The profound change record takes after a three-section structure in depicting a life of sin, a transformation experience, and the rise of another religious personality. In the short anecdote about Olaudah Equiano, it tells about his life and what he experienced being a slave.

In the chapter “The Slave Ship and Its Cargo,” Equiano explains his first day in the slave ship after being captured by the African slavers at age ten. Separated from his sister he is now scared and alone in the slave ship, innocent and ignorant to his surroundings he is scared that the white scary men are going to eat him, after seeing the boiling furnace. I believe that he automatically figures he’s going to be eaten by the white man because on how the way things are set up. Having to be his first time in a

While living with his master, working on slave ships, and working on a plantation, Equiano had seen many practices of slavery in America. The way Americans treated their slaves was very different than the way Africans treated their slaves. For those who survived the slave ship, they were separated and

One way, as I stated previously, is how after the first chapter, he has a more matter-of-fact tone in description of events. He no longer uses any flowery description in his writing and he describes events as they happened, sometimes with little detail. Another stark contradiction exists in his characterization of slavery done by Europeans that is way less brutish than he originally describes. Equiano was "almost caressed by this family, that it often reminded [him] of the treatment [he] had received from [his] little noble African master," (42-43). He is also relieved when he doesn't have to mutilate his face, like a different master in Africa almost forced him to do. This view of the Europeans is largely different to his first view, in which he was actually afraid that they would eat him. Aside from some of his perceptual differences on European and African people, a less dramatic but still significant contradiction in Equiano's character is seen in how he modifies his religious beliefs to be more aligned with the Europeans' Christianity. In chapter ten, he describes the transition that occurred in regards to his faith. Equiano started out being very critical of European Christians. “I found none among the circle of my acquaintance that kept wholly the Ten Commandments,” he states, “So righteous was I in my own eyes, that I was convinced I excelled many of them in that point,

Equiano was born in Nigeria around 1745 as a child he was kidnapped along with his sister by local slave traders. During his life as a slave he was sold ten times and named changed three times by his masters. In his early slave life he was traded with approximately two hundred other African slaves. His first owner was European by the name of Smith after a brief while of being with his master he plotted his escape. Eventually after the master lost his daughter he became very saddened and this is where things took a turn for the best for Equiano. He was sold again to a new master where he finally was able to see the person he hadn’t seen in a while his sister the joy was soon broken when he was once again sold. The trading happened continuously till eventually he landed in a town in Africa known as Tinmah. As he arrived he was sold to a master where he received many

Equiano vividly remembers being kidnapped along with his sister by slave traders at the age of eleven. After spending time with multiple different masters in Africa, he was eventually separated from his sister and brought to the coast. He witnessed a slave ship for the first time and was astonished by the cramped, unclean, even inhuman condition in which they were confined on ships. He was mesmerized and frightened, by the strange machinery of the ship, which seemed to be driven by magic. He was primarily terrified that the white men directing the ship were going to eat them, but the others convinced Equiano that they were being brought across the sea. After a long, torturous voyage, they reached Barbados, where Equiano witnessed 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

To begin, Equiano speaks about the repulsive circumstances he experiences whilst on the ship. Being a miniscule boat, there should be no way that a surplus of slaves could fit...or it there? The Atlantic Slave Trade was famous for the awful living conditions the Africans faced while on the boat for as long as they were. Olaudah explains how, “The

In comparing the cultural aspects of his home country of Africa he says, "We are almost a nation of dancers, musicians, and poets." All joyful occasions are celebrated with great ceremonies of dancing, feasting, and music. The women wear golden jewelry (14), both men and women perfume themselves, and cleanliness is of the utmost importance (15). Neighbors help one another build homes and there are plenty of all natural resources. Equiano states, "we live in a country where nature is prodigal of her favours, our wants are few, and easily supplied" (16). "Our land is uncommonly rich and fruitful, and produces all kinds of vegetable in great abundance" (17). Equiano's opinion of America is not as positive. In America he must deal with the frustration of not being able to speak the same language as fellow slaves. He is introduced to many new, frightening and curious contraptions. For example, he witnesses a female slave in an iron muzzle, he sees a picture of a man on a wall that frightens him, and he discovers a clock for the first time. Equiano, who was fanning his master while he slept, kept a watchful eye on the clock and "was afraid it would tell the gentleman anything [he] might do amiss." Equiano also must suffer the disrespect of not being able to keep his own name. During his time en route to Virginia, and once there, he bears the name of Michael, Jacob, and finally Gustavus Vassa (39-40). But it is the

In the beginning of the narrative, Equiano informs the reader about how early life in Africa, before being kidnapped at the age of twelve along with his sister, was. He discusses his native country’s manners and customs in a way very dear to him (Chapter 1). After being kidnapped and encountering the European man, he continued to question their culture and manners compared to his own. But as he became assimilated more, he becomes blinded by the desire to want to become more like the European man, while forgetting about this African culture. In chapter four of his narrative, he even admits that he