Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The publication of The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African in 1789 created an instant sensation in London and contributed significantly to the movement to abolish the British slave trade . Though not the first of its kind, the narrative of Equiano's experiences of being captured and sold into slavery, along with the eloquence of the expression, provided definitive proof of the intellectual capacity of the African. Equiano embarked on an extensive book tour throughout the British Isles that both established his personal fortune and brought awareness of the movement to abolish the slave trade to the remote parts of the kingdom. According to his narrative, Equiano spent the early part of his life in Guinea in an area he called the “Eboe.” At the age of 11, he and his sister were captured and sold into slavery. The harrowing description of the march to the coast and the middle passage aimed “to excite … a sense of compassion for the miseries which the slave trade has entailed” ( Equiano 2003 ) and may or may not have been true. Recent scholarship has called into question the validity of Equiano's recounting of his African childhood based on a baptismal record and a naval roll muster that state his place of birth as Carolina ( Carretta 2005 ). The details he recounts could have been garnered from his own participation in the slave trade ... log in or subscribe to read full text