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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, and then his ears Cut off bit by bit" (206). Equiano, a converted Christian, stresses the departure from true Christian values in these actions by whites. He implies that his Christianity is a gift to him, but because white slavery is a betrayal of such values white cruelty is therefore even more horrifying a moral betrayal.
The lessons of what slavery was like, the mechanisms of the slave trade, and the particularly barbaric forms of slavery in the West Indies are striking -- as well as slavery's commonness, as it was practiced by Africans against their own people. But perhaps most shocking to his contemporary readers was how even good white men and women who were fond of Equiano and respected him did not see a profound contradiction between the institution and their feeling of fellow humanity for the property they 'owned.' Equiano was seen as a financial asset to his masters for his mind, not simply how hard his body could work. He "had the good fortune to please my master in every department in which he employed me; and there was scarcely...
I often supplied the place of a clerk...I became very useful to my master; and saved him, as he used to acknowledge, above a hundred pounds a year. Nor did he scruple to say I was of more advantage to him than any of his clerks; though their usual wages in the West Indies are from sixty to a hundred pounds current a year" (202-203).
White slavery is thus shown to be worse than any other previous form of slavery because it is inflicted upon another people, destroying African's native culture, because it is morally hypocritical, and intellectually hypocritical. Equiano does the work of a white clerk, yet is supposed to be 'property' because of his innate inferiority. Equiano makes a persuasive case for the institution's abolishment. And always, Equiano's evident consciousness of his audience must be kept in the mind of the modern reader. Always he stresses how he years to be free, and that God's providence set him free -- with a healthy does of hard work on his part, and luck. His autobiography remains a fascinating cultural document of the many contradictions inherent to the institution of slavery, and how former slaves used their own narratives to lobby for slavery's abolition.
Works Cited
Equiano, Olaudah "The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano." http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/equiano1/equiano1.html#p227
Works Cited
Equiano, Olaudah "The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano." http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/equiano1/equiano1.html#p227
..really believe[d] the people could not have been saved" (Carretta, p. 129). In conclusion, this is a fascinating man who was put into slavery and later became an educated, respected writer in his own time. And yet, even after publishing his book, the Interesting Narrative, critics in London doubted that he could have written it himself. A black man with such narrative skill was obviously a rarity. In the Monthly Review,
Equiano and Slavery Equiano's main purpose in writing this Narrative was to inspire Parliament to abolish the African slave trade, which he stated at the beginning when he presented it in 1789. Part of his strategy was to describe himself as a humble "unlettered African" grateful to the West for obtaining knowledge of Christianity, liberalism, and humanitarian principles who is petitioning on behalf of his "suffering countryman" (p. 2). For the
5). Although the author was far from being fortunate to have been sold and bought and sold again, his ability to survive the sea passage that killed so many of his brethren testifies as much to his luck as to his mental and physical strength. Moreover, Equiano was young enough when he was first sold to the British to have still retained the fear of a child that might
(Olaudah Equiano: A Critical Biography) In the final analysis while there may be some controversy about various details and dates, the narrative in the book is generally accepted to be authentic and reveals a man's search for meaning and freedom. 3. Conclusion The autobiography of Olaudah Equiano is a testament to the search for human freedom and a firm indictment of the practice of slavery. Whatever the debate it about its
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
NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF OLAUDAH EQUIANO tells the tale of an educated slave. In this tale, the author wrote about his experiences in the New World as a kept man. The interesting thing about this story is that, while the author talks about the horrific treatment of slaves, he also describes the good experiences he had during this time. Equiano was born in 1745 in an Ibo village in