Olaudah Equiano Slavery

Emily Costello

AFS 101 Reflection #1

Slavery is defined as being owned by another or as being someone’s property. The slave has to do as told by their owner and can be sold when they are no longer needed or wanted by their owner. There are many different reasons why people in Africa became slaves that may not be race-based. For example, captured by armies or slave hunters. In the reading for this chapter Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa who is an African, was kidnapped into slavery and put onto an unsafe slave ship.

Olaudah Equiano lived in a part of Africa called Guinea. The women and men dress similar in this city because equality was important and women and men were not treated differently or shown differently by anyone. “The clothes

they wore consisted of muslin or calico which wrapped around their bodies” (Bracey and Sinha 4). Since both genders are seen more equally, they were both taught to use weapons and even the women were taught to march and fight with the men. “They have a plain life with scarce luxuries and simple foods such as goats, bullocks and poultry as their protein. Their land is rich and therefore they eat vegetables such as eadas, yams, Indian corn, and beans. Their city is particular in being clean and they have a certain ceremonies before dinner to bless their food in order for it to be safe for eating. Then lastly, this city practices circumcision. Olaudah was circumcised at birth and given this name to signify one favored” (Bracey and Sinha 5-9). As quickly explained, this is what West Africa was like. Guinea customs may have been different than certain other African cities, due to the fact that this city was Americanized. The Spanish and Portuguese tried to take over West Africa for their slaves, and consequently, their culture was Americanized. Also, their lifestyles were different then compared to different places because they always had the danger and risk of being taken at any point of the day by kidnappers.
As a part of this community in Guinea, young males and females are taught to protect.

They are taught this in preparation to protect their community from kidnappers. “These kids climb up in a tree to look out for an attackers, while their parents are in the fields doing labor. Olaudah has experienced a time where he saw an intruder. He rang the alarm and certain men came and captured the intruder. He was safe, thankfully this time. Unfortunately, the next time he was not safe. Olaudah was with his sister one day in their house when their parents were out working and two men and a woman climbed over their walls and kidnapped them both. As explained in the book, Oulaudah said there was no way to scream or try to escape” (Bracey and Sinha 10-12). He was forced to be quiet and not to move by them closing his mouth and forcing his hands to be wrapped together. Olaudah was in protest and said “I did not eat anything but what they forced into my mouth” (Bracey and Sinha 12). Try thinking of enjoying the young teen years with your family one day, then the next being kidnapped when you thought you were safe in your house. The fact that Olaudah was trying to starve himself showed the fact that he would have rather died then to be a slave. Starving to death is probably one of the most painful ways to die. This is sickening and sad to read about. These slaves would rather die than be forced to live their life tortured. Young children are supposed to be surrounded by their family with

love and go to school in order to learn and be successful in life. Olaudah did not have an opportunity to have a life. He and his sister were so young when they were kidnapped. I honestly do not know what I would do if I got kidnapped. That is one of the scariest things to think about. “Olaudah traveled to a chieftain’s house with his kidnappers where this man, who purchased him, had two wives and a couple children. Then he was sold as his owner became sick and to his surprise met up with his sister again. He traveled many miles all over Africa and somehow ended up seeing his sister again. Unfortunately this did not last long. His sister and him were sold again. He ended up in a town called Tinmah. He stayed there for about two or three days and then was bought from a merchant. After two months, Olaudah was taken in a canoe and traveled many miles to be kidnapped into a slave-ship” (Bracey and Sinha 12-19). Olaudah has a story like most slaves which unfortunately is not a very good one. He was not sold to just one slave owner but to multiple. He traveled hundreds of miles all over Africa and although he reunited with his sister once, they were torn from each other again. It is unfortunate to hear that as Olaudah gained a little loyalty from his owner, he was then quickly sold again. After his teen years, he never again had a family and most likely was not taught to read or write. He was taken places where he did not even know the languages the people around him were saying. He eventually learned a couple languages, but for a while he did not understand the people around him. Slavery is an evil thing that consisted around much of America. Olaudah is just one specific example of how awful slaves had their lives, whether they were born into it or kidnapped into it.
Olaudah after being sold to many different slave owners arrived onto a slave-ship. These slaves were brought on this ship in handcuffs and directed into two different apartments between the docks. One was for the men and one was for the women. These apartments were cramped and there was not much space or air. “There were windows in their rooms for them to breath but when a storm was coming, they had to shut these windows” (Bracey and Sinha 22-23). Which left minimal air for these slaves and a very hot room to have multiple people in. They could not all lie down, but instead had to sit on each other or sit really close to each other. The food they were given was minimal and they were not fed three times a day, which a human needs. Instead, “there are commonly fed twice a day” while “consisting chiefly of horse-beans, boiled to the consistence of a pulp; of boiled yams and rice, and sometimes of a small quantity of beef and pork. Some were not even allowed to use spoons and were forced to eat with their hands. If they refused to eat they were punished. They would either eat the food given to them or forced to eat hot coal that would burn their insides” (Bracey and Sinha 23-24). Due to people being sea sick or in general sick, there would be throw-up in their rooms that stayed there for a couple days or weeks without anyone cleaning it up. Overall, there was minimal air, space, food, cleanliness, and too much heat. People were getting sick and the ship was not a safe environment. It is horrible to hear about this because my life has always been very privileged and I could not imagine living in conditions like these slaves had to. But not only did they live in harsh conditions, they were not treated as humans. These slaves were unsafe on this ship and were dehumanized.
Slavery and life in West Africa is not an easy topic to talk about because truly no one can full understand the pain they went through, unless you were yourself a slave.

In my house or in my neighborhood, there is a minimal chance of me being taken. Unfortunately, Olaudah’s community always had that threat at every time of the day. Certain slaves had it worse than the ones that were semi-treated well. But no slave was seen as an equal to his owner. This is shameful because no human has the right to say he or she is better depending on his or her physical appearance or genes. By being a slave, one is stripped of their humanity. These slaves had to do what their owners wanted or they would be potentially killed. Teenagers today can barely even listen to their parents; there is no way a slave could just easily do whatever their owner wanted. I hope by people understanding what happened in the past, our world could make it a better future. There may not be full equality in the world today in different countries and continents or even states, but I hope one day there will be. I believe everyone is equal and no one should be treated this

horribly.

Work Cited:
Bracey, John H., and Manisha Sinha. "Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World: The African Slave Trade and the Middle Passage." African American Mosaic: A Documentary History from the Slave Trade to the Twenty-first Century. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2004. 3-47. Print.