Cugoano Against Slavery

Out of the three leading black figures in 18th-century England (Sancho, Equiano and Cugoano), Ottobah Cugoano is the least well known. He campaigned not just against the slave trade but for a total abolition of slavery. In 1770, at the age of 13, he was sold into slavery forced to work on a plantation in the West Indies. In 1772 Cugoano gained his freedom in England where he wrote to key political figures against the slave trade. Cugoano's passionate rhetoric and reasoned argument make his book a milestone in anti-slavery literature.