The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself

A best seller of its time, Olaudah Equiano’s story of his life as a slave in the second half of the eighteenth century continues to this day to aid our understanding of the Atlantic slave trade and our fight against modern slavery.

   According to his memoir, eleven-year old Equiano and his sister were kidnapped from their village (in what is now southern Nigeria) by African slavers. He changed owners several times before being taken to the coast and forced aboard a slave ship destined for Barbados, ending up working for three different slave masters in journeys that took him around the West Indies and across the Atlantic.

   Although slavery was part of the culture of many African tribes, including his own, the Eboes, what incensed Equiano more than anything was the heartless cruelty of the transatlantic slavers. His Christian conversion also later prompted him to abhor the institution of slavery itself no matter where it was practised.

   Equiano bought his freedom after some 20 years in servitude and, many travels later, settled in England where, as a British citizen, he joined with white and black abolitionists to campaign for the end of slavery in Britain’s colonies.