Olaudah Equiano / Prince Slave Stories
The story of Olaudah Equiano began in Nigeria in 1745, when he was born; by the age of 11 Equiano was a victim of kidnapping and was sold to slave traders. His fate was not to be nearly as harsh as millions of other African natives that were seized and put into bondage, as his own writing reveals. But he was a slave and suffered the indignities that accompany slavery. The remarkable part of this story is the way that he tells his own story, written descriptively and in professional narrative, and what happens to him along the way. This paper references his tale, and also the paper reviews the life of a Muslim Prince who became a slave -- Abdul Rahman Ibrahima (referred to in this paper as The Prince). In summary, the paper will conclude with the writing of Frederick Douglass, which offers perspective on slavery and is in contrast to the lives of Equiano and The Prince.
Equiano's Story
Prior to being sent on a voyage to the Americas, Equiano was taken through many African countries and occasionally he served as a slave to "a chieftain, in a very pleasant country" (Williamson, 2004). Also, he served a "wealthy widow" living in a town called Tinman, that Equiano referred to as "…the most beautiful country I had yet seen in Africa," Williamson writes in the journal Documenting the American South. Eventually Equiano is sold back to the slave traders and he is transported "sometimes by land, sometimes by water, through different countries and various nations…" until finally arriving in the Americas. His Middle Passage narrative is an excellent recounting of a journey that too many African citizens were forced to make in chains and inhuman conditions.
Equiano Recalls the Middle Passage -- 1789
Upon seeing the slave ship "riding at anchor…waiting for its cargo," Equiano believed he was going to be killed by the "bad spirits" he experienced when they "tossed" him up. Typical of his narrative, he writes that if he possessed ten thousand worlds he would have given them all away to have "exchanged my condition with that of the meanest slave in my own country" (Equiano, p. 1). The many Africans on board were "chained together" and their "countenances" expressed what he referred to as "dejection and sorrow"; it was so shocking to him he fainted.
The stench he endured when he got into the hold of the slave ship was unlike anything he had ever experienced. He wished for death and he couldn't eat and when "two of the white men" tried to force him to eat, and he still refused, "…one of them flogged me severely" (p. 2). Of course the slave owners wanted to keep their captives alive because a dead African would bring them no money once they land in the Americas.
He found some comfort in the fact that some of his "own nation" were near him and they explained to him what his fate was to be -- "…carried to these white people's country to work for them" -- but moreover he shuddered with fear because he had never seen any Africans behave in such a "savage a manner" with "brutal cruelty" (p. 2).
Equiano uses words like "pestilential" to describe the powerful and "loathsome" stench in the hold. Beside the human feces and the urine that the chained slaves produced, Equiano noted that the heat and closeness of the chained humans "…produced copious perspirations, so that the air soon became unfit for respiration… and brought sickness among the slaves, of which many died" (p. 2). A reader shudders while reading Equiano's intelligently and literarily brilliant narrative: "The filth of the necessary tubs, into which the children often fell…the shrieks of the women, and the groans of the dying, rendered the whole a scene of horror almost inconceivable" (p. 2).
The author makes note of the fact that his youth allowed him some freedom on board. And when finally arriving at Barbados Equiano still wasn't certain what his fate would be. When white men came aboard and examined the slaves "attentively," making them jump and pointing to the shore, Equiano thought "…we should be eaten by these ugly men" and hence, there was "much dread and trembling" among the passengers (p. 3). When the white men brought other slaves to talk to the new arrivals, they explained that the new slaves would not be eaten, but they were there to go to work.
Once in the West...
Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano The two texts that are very famous for their representation of the Early Black Literature and that have now become a part of the English Literature course in many universities are The Interesting Narrative Of The Life Of Olaudah Equiano also known as Gustavus Vassa, The Africe, Written By Himself published in the year 1794 and The History of Mary Prince, which was
Although Equiano portrays 'good' whites in his narrative, perhaps to make his condemnation of slavery more persuasive to his audience, he is also unsparing in his presentation of its horrors. African girls as young as ten are defiled, and men are branded with their master's initials to prevent them from escaping: "And yet in Montserrat I have seen a negro man staked to the ground, and cut most shockingly,
This is understandable. However, the way the two writers tell their stories is quite different, somehow. Prince's is told from a woman's point-of-view that is more sensitive, more emotional, and "female." She worries more about others, and becomes very emotionally attached to some of her families. Equiano is emotional too, and not afraid to talk about his emotions, but many of his descriptions are less emotional and more full
Discussion The focus of this work has been to answer the questions of: (1) How was the slave trade practiced in Europe and Africa before 1550, in comparison to the slave trade in and between the two regions after 1550?' And (2) 'What were the main differences between the two periods in terms of their origins, motivations and effects on African society?' These two time periods, before 1550 and after 1550 have
Slave Narrative and Black Autobiography - Richard Wright's "Black Boy" and James Weldon Johnson's Autobiography The slave narrative maintains a unique station in modern literature. Unlike any other body of literature, it provides us with a first-hand account of institutional racially-motivated human bondage in an ostensibly democratic society. As a reflection on the author, these narratives were the first expression of humanity by a group of people in a society where
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