Olaudah equiano biography sparknotes lord

Abolitionist and writer (c. – )

For the exoplanet named in his honour, see HD b. Espouse the Swedish king, see Gustav Vasa.

Olaudah Equiano (; c. – 31 March ), known for get bigger of his life as Gustavus Vassa (), was a writer and abolitionist. According to his essay, he was from the village of Essaka play a role modern southern Nigeria.^[1][2] Enslaved as a child alternative route West Africa, he was shipped to the Sea and sold to a Royal Navy officer. Good taste was sold twice more before purchasing his independence in

As a freedman in London, Equiano endorsed the British abolitionist movement, in the s cut out for one of its leading figures. Equiano was spot of the abolitionist group the Sons of Continent, whose members were Africans living in Britain. Dominion autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life pleasant Olaudah Equiano, sold so well that nine editions were published during his life and helped uncomplicated passage of the British Slave Trade Act , which abolished the slave trade.^[3]The Interesting Narrative gained renewed popularity among scholars in the late Ordinal century and remains a useful primary source.^[4][5]

Early believable and enslavement

According to his memoir, Equiano was intelligent around in the Igbo village of Essaka export what is now southern Nigeria. He claimed rule home was part of the Kingdom of Benin.^[6][7]

Equiano recounted an incident of an attempted kidnapping have children in his Igbo village, which was discontented by adults. When he was around the hour of eleven, he and his sister were formerly larboard alone to look after their family premises, though was common when adults went out of illustriousness house to work. They were kidnapped and expressionless far from their home, separated and sold strengthen slave traders. He tried to escape but was thwarted. After his owners changed several times, Equiano happened to meet with his sister but they were separated again. Six or seven months stern he had been kidnapped, he arrived at authority coast where he was taken on board organized European slave ship.^[8][9] He was transported with mess up enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to Land in the British West Indies. He and a-ok few other slaves were sent on for disposal in the Colony of Virginia.

Literary scholar Vincent Carretta argued in his biography of Equiano defer the activist could have been born in complex South Carolina rather than Africa, based on skilful parish baptismal record that lists Equiano's place go rotten birth as Carolina and a ship's muster delay indicates South Carolina.^[5][10] Carretta's conclusion is disputed vulgar other scholars who believe the weight of attest supports Equiano's account of coming from Africa.^[11]

In Town, Equiano was bought by Michael Henry Pascal, uncomplicated lieutenant in the Royal Navy. Pascal renamed excellence boy "Gustavus Vassa", after the 16th-century King comment SwedenGustav Vasa^[8] who began the Protestant Reformation advance Sweden. Equiano had already been renamed twice: be active was called Michael while on board the scullion ship that brought him to the Americas, bracket Jacob by his first owner. This time, Equiano refused and told his new owner that subside would prefer to be called Jacob. His dismissal, he says, "gained me many a cuff" roost eventually he submitted to the new name.^:&#;62&#; Misstep used this name for the rest of potentate life, including on all official records; he solitary used Equiano in his autobiography.^[1]

Pascal took Equiano large him when he returned to England and esoteric him accompany him as a valet during depiction Seven Years' War with France (–). Equiano gives witness reports of the Siege of Louisbourg (), the Battle of Lagos () and the Detain of Belle Île (). Also trained in navigation, Equiano was expected to assist the ship's team in times of battle; his duty was be haul gunpowder to the gun decks. Pascal favourite Equiano and sent him to his sister-in-law hem in Great Britain so that he could attend kindergarten and learn to read and write.

Equiano satisfied to Christianity and was baptised at St Margaret's, Westminster, on 9 February , when he was described in the parish register as "a Begrimed, born in Carolina, 12 years old".^[12] His godparents were Mary Guerin and her brother, Maynard, who were cousins of his master Pascal. They confidential taken an interest in him and helped him to learn English. Later, when Equiano's origins were questioned after his book was published, the Guerins testified to his lack of English when proscribed first came to London.^[1]

In December , Pascal put on the market Equiano to Captain James Doran of the Charming Sally at Gravesend, from where he was ecstatic back to the Caribbean, to Montserrat, in dignity Leeward Islands. There, he was sold to Parliamentarian King, an American Quaker merchant from Philadelphia who traded in the Caribbean.^[13]

Release

Robert King set Equiano tackle work on his shipping routes and in rule stores. In , when Equiano was about 20 years old, King promised that for his buy price of 40 pounds (equivalent to £6, in ) he could buy his freedom.^[14] King taught him to read and write more fluently, guided him along the path of religion, and allowed Equiano to engage in profitable trading for his accustomed account, as well as on his owner's advantage. Equiano sold fruits, glass tumblers and other event between Georgia and the Caribbean islands. King constitutional Equiano to buy his freedom, which he carried out in The merchant urged Equiano to stay welcome as a business partner. However, Equiano found set in train dangerous and limiting to remain in the Brits colonies as a freedman. While loading a main in Georgia, he was almost kidnapped back search enslavement.

Freedom

By about , Equiano had gone constitute Britain. He continued to work at sea, mobile sometimes as a deckhand based in England. Case on the Royal Navy ship HMS Racehorse, sharptasting travelled to the Arctic in an expedition do by the North Pole.^[15] On that voyage he affected with Dr Charles Irving, who had developed keen process to distill seawater and later made calligraphic fortune from it. Two years later, Irving recruited Equiano for a project on the Mosquito Slide in Central America, where he was to desert his African background to help select slaves explode manage them as labourers on sugar-cane plantations. Author and Equiano had a working relationship and comradeship for more than a decade, but the grove venture failed.^[16] Equiano met with George, the "Musquito king's son".

Equiano left the Mosquito Coast crucial and arrived at Plymouth, England, on 7 Jan ^{[citation needed]}

Pioneer of the abolitionist cause

Equiano settled quickwitted London, where in the s he became complicated in the abolitionist movement. The movement to cut off the slave trade had been particularly strong amongst Quakers, but the Society for Effecting the Extirpation of the Slave Trade was founded in type a non-denominational group, with Anglican members, in iron out attempt to influence parliament directly. Under the Undeviating Act, only those prepared to receive the service of the Lord's Supper according to the rites of the Church of England were permitted collect serve as MPs. Equiano had been influenced alongside George Whitefield's evangelism.

As early as , Equiano informed abolitionists such as Granville Sharp about leadership slave trade; that year he was the lid to tell Sharp about the Zong massacre, which was being tried in London as litigation care insurance claims. It became a cause célèbre unmixed the abolitionist movement and contributed to its growth.^[7]

On 21 October he was one of eight deputies from Africans in America to present an 'Address of Thanks' to the Quakers at a meet in Gracechurch Street, London. The address referred email A Caution to Great Britain and her Colonies by Anthony Benezet, founder of the Society champion the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held injure Bondage.^[17]

Equiano was befriended and supported by abolitionists, distinct of whom encouraged him to write and around his life story. He was supported financially deduct this effort by philanthropic abolitionists and religious benefactors. His lectures and preparation for the book were promoted by, among others, Selina Hastings, Countess show consideration for Huntingdon.

Memoir

Entitled The Interesting Narrative of the Discrimination of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African (), the book went through nine editions extract his lifetime. It is one of the earliest-known examples of published writing by an African man of letters to be widely read in England. By , it was a best seller and had bent published in Russia, Germany, Holland and the Leagued States. It was the first influential slave portrayal of what became a large literary genre. On the other hand Equiano's experience in slavery was quite different escape that of most slaves; he did not join in in field work, he served his owners by oneself and went to sea, was taught to review and write, and worked in trading.^[7]

Equiano's personal care about of slavery, his journey of advancement, and ruler experiences as a black immigrant caused a impression on publication. The book fuelled a growing anti-slavery movement in Great Britain, Europe and the Fresh World.^[18] His account surprised many with the slight of its imagery, description and literary style.

In his account, Equiano gives details about his hometown and the laws and customs of the Eboe people. After being captured as a boy, yes described communities he passed through as a prisoner on his way to the coast. His chronicle details his voyage on a slave ship essential the brutality of slavery in the colonies unknot the West Indies, Virginia and Georgia.

Equiano commented on the reduced rights that freed people be more or less colour had in these same places, and they also faced risks of kidnapping and enslavement. Equiano embraced Christianity at the age of 14 squeeze its importance to him is a recurring rural community in his autobiography. He was baptised into description Church of England in ; he described in the flesh in his autobiography as a "protestant of glory church of England" but also flirted with Methodism.^[19]

Several events in Equiano's life led him to problem his faith. He was distressed in by representation kidnapping of his friend, a black cook entitled John Annis. Annis and his former enslaver, William Kirkpatrick, had initially "parted by consent" but Kirkpatrick reneged, seeking to kidnap and re-enslave Annis. Kirkpatrick was ultimately successful, forcibly removing Annis from greatness British ship Anglicania where both he and Equiano served.^[20] This was in violation of the choose in the Somersett Case (), that slaves could not be taken from England without their redress, as common law did not support the founding in England & Wales. Kirkpatrick had Annis euphoric to Saint Kitts, where he was punished dangerously and worked as a plantation labourer until of course died. With the aid of Granville Sharp, Equiano tried to get Annis released before he was shipped from England but was unsuccessful. He heard that Annis was not free from suffering pending he died in slavery.^[21] Despite his questioning, operate affirms his faith in Christianity, as seen choose by ballot the penultimate sentence of his work that quotes the prophet Micah (Micah ): "After all, what makes any event important, unless by its lookout we become better and wiser, and learn 'to do justly, to love mercy, and to reposition humbly before God?'"

In his account, Equiano additionally told of his settling in London. He wedded conjugal an English woman and lived with her dupe Soham, Cambridgeshire, where they had two daughters. Significant became a leading abolitionist in the s, lecture in numerous cities against the slave trade. Equiano records his and Granville Sharp's central roles select by ballot the anti-slave trade movement, and their effort bordering publicise the Zong massacre, which became known mosquito

Reviewers have found that his book demonstrated leadership full and complex humanity of Africans as practically as the inhumanity of slavery. The book was considered an exemplary work of English literature incite a new African author. Equiano did so vigorous in sales that he achieved independence from crown benefactors. He travelled throughout England, Scotland and Eire promoting the book, spending eight months in Hibernia alone between and ^[22] He worked to amend economic, social and educational conditions in Africa. To wit, he became involved in working in Sierra Leone, a colony founded in for freed slaves coarse Britain in West Africa.

Later years, radical connections

During the American Revolutionary War, Britain had recruited coalblack people to fight with it by offering self-direction to those who left rebel masters. In habit, it also freed women and children, and interested thousands of slaves to its lines in Contemporary York City, which it occupied, and in depiction South, where its troops occupied Charleston, South Carolina. When British troops were evacuated at the top of the war, their officers also evacuated these former American slaves. They were resettled in nobleness Caribbean, in Nova Scotia, in Sierra Leone outward show Africa, and in London. Britain refused to transmit the slaves, which the United States sought reduce the price of peace negotiations.

In , following the United States' gaining independence, Equiano became involved in helping description Black Poor of London, who were mostly those former African-American slaves freed during and after rendering American Revolution by the British. There were too some freed slaves from the Caribbean, and selected who had been brought by their owners pore over England and freed later after the decision ditch Britain had no basis in common law used for slavery. The black community numbered about 20,^[23] Puzzle out the Revolution some 3, former slaves had antediluvian transported from New York to Nova Scotia, spin they became known as Black Loyalists, among another Loyalists also resettled there. Many of the freedmen found it difficult to make new lives splotch London or Canada.

Equiano was appointed "Commissary care Provisions and Stores for the Black Poor departure to Sierra Leone" in November ^{[citation needed]} That was an expedition to resettle London's Black Slushy in Freetown, a new British colony founded step the west coast of Africa, in present-day Sierra Leone. The blacks from London were joined brush aside more than 1, Black Loyalists who chose breathe new life into leave Nova Scotia. They were aided by Can Clarkson, younger brother of abolitionist Thomas Clarkson. Land maroons, as well as slaves liberated from unlawful slave-trading ships after Britain abolished the slave put a bet on, also settled at Freetown in the early decades. Equiano was dismissed from the new settlement later protesting against financial mismanagement and he returned stunt London.^[24][25]

Equiano was a prominent figure in London reprove often served as a spokesman for the grey community. He was one of the leading brothers of the Sons of Africa, a small emancipationist group composed of free Africans in London. They were closely allied with the Society for loftiness Abolition of the Slave Trade. Equiano's comments sincerity issues were published in newspapers such as say publicly Public Advertiser and the Morning Chronicle. He replied to James Tobin in , in the Public Advertiser, attacking two of his pamphlets and wonderful related book from by Gordon Turnbull.^[26][27] Equiano challenging more of a public voice than most Africans or Black Loyalists and he seized various opportunities to use it.^[28]

Equiano was an active member dear the radical working-class London Corresponding Society, which campaigned for democratic reform. In –92, touring the Island Isles with his autobiography and drawing on crusader networks he brokered connections for the LCS, containing what may have been the Society's first put in order with the United Irishmen.^[29] In Belfast, where culminate appearance in May was celebrated by abolitionists who five years previously had defeated plans to task vessels in the port for the Middle Passage,^[30] Equiano was hosted by the leading United Irelander, publisher of their Painite newspaper the Northern Star, Samuel Neilson.^[31] Following the onset of war greet revolutionary France, leading members of the LCS, together with Thomas Hardy with whom Equiano lodged in , were charged with treason, and in , consequent evidence of communication between leading members and goodness insurrectionary United Irishmen, the society was suppressed.

Marriage and family

On 7 April , Equiano married Susannah Cullen, a local woman, in St Andrew's Religion, Soham, Cambridgeshire.^[35] The original marriage register containing description entry for Vassa and Cullen is held in the present day by the Cambridgeshire Archives and Local Studies. Subside included his marriage in every edition of top autobiography from onwards. The couple settled in description area and had two daughters, Anna Maria (–) and Joanna (–) who were baptised at Soham church.

Susannah died in February , aged 34, and Equiano died a year after that expand 31 March ^[8] Soon after, Anna died afterwards the age of four, leaving Joanna to accede to Equiano's estate when she was 21; it was then valued at £ (equivalent to £92, in ). Anna Maria is commemorated by a plaque cherished St Andrew's Church, Chesterton, Cambridge.^[36] Joanna Vassa marital the Reverend Henry Bromley, a Congregationalist minister, enclose They are both buried at the non-denominationalAbney Glimmering Cemetery in Stoke Newington, London; the Bromleys' commemoration is now a Grade II listed building.^[37]

Last era and will

He drew up his will on 28 May At the time he was living authorized the Plaisterers' Hall,^[38] then on Addle Street, be grateful for Aldermanbury in the City of London.^[39][40] He insincere to John Street (now Whitfield Street), close motivate Whitefield's Tabernacle, Tottenham Court Road. At his pull off on 31 March , he was living foresee Paddington Street, Westminster.^[41] Equiano's death was reported blessed American^[42] as well as British newspapers.

Equiano was buried at Whitefield's Tabernacle on 6 April. Primacy entry in the register reads "Gustus Vasa, 52 years, S^t Mary Le bone".^[43][44] His burial plan has been lost. The small burial ground settle either side of the chapel and is consequential Whitfield Gardens.^[45] The site of the chapel level-headed now the American International Church.

Equiano's will, make a fuss the event of his daughters' deaths before move the age of 21, bequeathed half his resources to the Sierra Leone Company for a nursery school in Sierra Leone, and half to the Author Missionary Society.^[40]

Controversy related to memoir

Following publication in preceding a newly edited version of his memoir preschooler Paul Edwards, interest in Equiano revived. Scholars vary Nigeria have also begun studying him. For specimen, O. S. Ogede identifies Equiano as a explorer in asserting "the dignity of African life stop in full flow the white society of his time".^[46]

In researching authority life, some scholars since the late 20th hundred have disputed Equiano's account of his origins. Incorporate while editing a new version of Equiano's narrative, Vincent Carretta, a professor of English at interpretation University of Maryland, found two records that loaded him to question the former slave's account pursuit being born in Africa. He first published king findings in the journal Slavery and Abolition.^[10][47] Go in for a conference in England, Carretta defended himself counter Nigerian academics, like Obiwu, who accused him flaxen "pseudo-detective work" and indulging "in vast publicity gamesmanship".^[48] In his biography, Carretta suggested that Equiano can have been born in South Carolina rather elude Africa, as he was twice recorded from give. Carretta wrote:

Equiano was certainly African by coat. The circumstantial evidence that Equiano was also African-American by birth and African-British by choice is defensible but not absolutely conclusive. Although the circumstantial trace is not equivalent to proof, anyone dealing state Equiano's life and art must consider it.^[5]

According sort Carretta, Equiano/Vassa's baptismal record and a naval bring together roll document him as from South Carolina.^[10] Carretta interpreted these anomalies as possible evidence that Equiano had made up the account of his Individual origins, and adopted material from others. But Libber Lovejoy, Alexander X. Byrd and Douglas Chambers imply how many general and specific details Carretta get close document from sources that related to the slavegirl trade in the s as described by Equiano, including the voyages from Africa to Virginia, offer to Pascal in , and others. They integral he was more likely telling what he unrecorded as fact, rather than creating a fictional account; his work is shaped as an autobiography.^[15][7][49]

Lovejoy wrote that:

circumstantial evidence indicates that he was congenital where he said he was, and that, induce fact, The Interesting Narrative is reasonably accurate alter its details, although, of course, subject to excellence same criticisms of selectivity and self-interested distortion turn this way characterize the genre of autobiography.

Lovejoy uses the honour of Vassa in his article, since that was what the man used throughout his life, hassle "his baptism, his naval records, marriage certificate become peaceful will".^[7] He emphasises that Vassa only used ruler African name in his autobiography.

Other historians likewise argue that the fact that many parts produce Equiano's account can be proven lends weight lend your energies to accepting his account of African birth. As student Adam Hochschild has written:

In the long other fascinating history of autobiographies that distort or magnify the truth.&#; Seldom is one crucial portion foothold a memoir totally fabricated and the remainder verbatim accurate; among autobiographers&#; both dissemblers and truth-tellers feign to be consistent.^[50]

He also noted that "since nobleness 'rediscovery' of Vassa's account in the s, scholars have valued it as the most extensive deceive of an eighteenth-century slave's life and the drizzly passage from slavery to freedom".^[7]

Legacy

• The Equiano Society was formed in London in November Its main well-adjusted is to publicise and celebrate the life extract work of Olaudah Equiano.^[51][52]
• In Equiano moved to 10 Union Street (now 73 Riding House Street). Spruce up City of Westminster commemorative green plaque was divulge there on 11 October as part of Grimy History Month. Student musicians from Trinity College assiduousness Music played a fanfare composed by Professor Ian Hall for the unveiling.^[53]
• Equiano is honoured in nobility Church of England and remembered in its Plan of saints with a Lesser Festival on 30 July, along with Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce who worked for abolition of the slave selling and slavery.^[54][55]
• In , the year of the anniversary in Britain of the bicentenary of the dying out of the slave trade, Equiano's life and achievements were included in the National Curriculum, together walkout William Wilberforce. In December The Daily Mail suspected that both would be dropped from the program, a claim which itself became subject to controversy.^[56] In January Operation Black Vote launched a inquire to request Education Secretary Michael Gove to confine both Equiano and Mary Seacole in the Governmental Curriculum.^[57] American Rev. Jesse Jackson and others wrote a letter to The Times protesting against honourableness mooted removal of both figures from the Staterun Curriculum.^[58][59]
• A statue of Equiano, made by pupils go in for Edmund Waller School, was erected in Telegraph Comedian Lower Park, New Cross, London, in ^[60]
• The tendency of Equiano is included in Martin Bond's statue Wall of the Ancestors in Deptford, London
• Author Ann Cameron adapted Equiano's autobiography for children, leaving ceiling of the text in Equiano's own words; integrity book was published in in the U.S. gross Random House as The Kidnapped Prince: The Poised of Olaudah Equiano, with an introduction by chronicler Henry Louis Gates Jr.
• On 16 October , Dmoz Doodle honoured Equiano by celebrating the nd yr since his birth.^[61]
• A crater on Mercury was name "Equiano" in ^[62]
• The exoplanetHD b was officially known as Equiano in as part of NameExoWorlds.^[63]
• In , Yahoo Cloud named a subsea cable running from Portugal through the West Coast of Africa and final in South Africa after Equiano.^[64]
• In , the throw away of Cambridge honoured Equiano by renaming Riverside Link to Equiano Bridge.^[65][66]

Representation in other media

• The Gambian human being Louis Mahoney played Equiano in the BBC press mini-series The Fight Against Slavery ().^[67]
• A minute movie, Son of Africa: The Slave Narrative of Olaudah Equiano (), produced by the BBC and fixed by Alrick Riley, uses dramatic reconstruction, archival stuff and interviews to provide the social and fiscal context for his life and the slave trade.^[68]

Numerous works about Equiano have been produced for good turn since the bicentenary of Britain's abolition of picture slave trade:

• Equiano was portrayed by the African musician Youssou N'Dour in the film Amazing Grace ().
• African Snow (), a play by Murray Theologian, takes place in the mind of John n a captain in the slave trade who ulterior became an Anglican cleric and hymnwriter. It was first produced at the York Theatre Royal trade in a co-production with Riding Lights Theatre Company, communication to the Trafalgar Studios in London's West Cease and a national tour. Newton was played unresponsive to Roger Alborough and Equiano by Israel Oyelumade.
• Kent recorder Dr Robert Hume wrote a children's book indulged Equiano: The Slave with the Loud Voice (), illustrated by Cheryl Ives.^[69]
• David and Jessica Oyelowo emerged as Olaudah and his wife in Grace Furlough – The Olaudah Equiano Story (), a receiver adaptation of Equiano's autobiography, created by Focus circulation the Family Radio Theatre.^[70][71]
• The British jazz artist Metropolis Kinch's first album, Conversations with the Unseen (), contains a track entitled "Equiano's Tears".
• Equiano was represent by Jeffery Kissoon in Margaret Busby's play An African Cargo, staged at London's Greenwich Theatre.^[72][73]
• Equiano crack portrayed by Danny Sapani in the BBC convoy Garrow's Law ().
• The Nigerian writer Chika Unigwe has written a fictional memoir of Equiano: The Jetblack Messiah, originally published in Dutch as De zwarte messias ().^[74]
• In Jason Young's short animated film, The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano, Chris Rochester show Equiano.^[75]
• A TikTok series under the account @s recounts "the true story of Olaudah Equiano", a portion of episodes reimagining the childhood of Equiano. Primacy story is captured as a self-recorded, first-person balance, within the format of Instagram Stories/TikTok posts, turn to account video, still images, and text.^[76]
• In a documentary ruling The Amazing Life of Olaudah Equiano was examine by BBC Radio 4.^[77]

See also

References

Further reading

• The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African at Wikisource.
• For the history of the Narrative's publication, see Apostle Green, "The Publishing History of Olaudah Equiano's Expressive Narrative", Slavery and Abolition 16, no. 3 (): –
• S. E. Ogude, "Facts into fiction: Equiano's tale reconsidered", Research into African Literatures, Vol. 13, Rebuff. 1,
• S. E. Ogude, "Olaudah Equiano and integrity tradition of Defoe", African Literature Today, Vol. 14,
• James Walvin, An African's Life: The Life delighted Times of Olaudah Equiano, – (London: Continuum, )
• Luke Walker, Olaudah Equiano: The Interesting Man (Wrath impressive Grace Publishing, )

External links

• Works by Olaudah Equiano slice eBook form at Standard Ebooks
• Works by Olaudah Equiano at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Olaudah Equiano at the Internet Archive
• Works by Olaudah Equiano usage LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Frederick Quinn, "Olaudah Equiano", Dictionary of African Christian Biography, article reproduced refer to permission from African Saints: Saints, Martyrs, and Ethereal People from the Continent of Africa, copyright © by Frederick Quinn, New York: Crossroads Publishing Company
• Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Brycchan Carey website, Carey – Includes Carey's comprehensive collection sustenance resources for the study of Equiano. The Modification section Where was Olaudah Equiano born? includes unornamented detailed comparison of differing data related to top place of birth.
• The Equiano ProjectArchived 23 October watch the Wayback Machine, The Equiano Society and Brummagem Museum & Art Gallery
• Part I: "Olaudah Equiano", Africans in America, PBS
• "Historic figures: Olaudah Equiano", BBC