Essay On Olaudah Equiano

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Olaudah Equiano was a freed slave living in London who made it his life person to abolish the British slave trade. His knowledge and training of the English language allowed him to grow into one of the key figures in the movement to abolish the slave trade in England. Although many scholars acknowledge his incredible talent, there has been evidence in the recent years that may question his reliability as a first-hand account. There is evidence to support that Equiano may have been born in South Carolina. This evidence does not make him a valid source of information about the slave trade and leads his audience to question his statements. Olaudah Equiano claims that his sister and him were kidnapped in Africa and brought to the colonies at the …show more content…

This would lead him to a fantasy about what life would have been life back in Africa based on freedom. Equiano longed for freedom and suffered a traumatic experience (being enslaved) at a young age which may lead him to romanticize a different life. He believed that he would find his paradise in Africa. This can lead to a more favorable and positive view of Africa. He paints Africa as a place free of harm making him an unreliable source. By juxtaposing his freedom in Africa with his captivity in the colonies; he creates a biased image of his respective homeland. His reliability is questioned because he has no previous knowledge about life in Africa and only knows how it is described to him. His romanticized version of Africa gives a dynamic in his writing that negative towards the …show more content…

He is not a reliable author if he was born in South Carolina because his experience on the middle passage is not authentic. He cannot accurately describe the smells and situations because he did not experience it. If he was not taken from Africa, he cannot claim a firsthand account of the situation. He does not know any other life than his life in the colonies and by claiming to do so makes him an unreliable author. Although, his autobiography may be based on facts, he cannot claim they are his experiences because they are not; they are a retelling of experiences based off of what other people have told

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