Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa

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Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa

It was in 1758 when Olaudah Equiano was kidnapped from his home in Southeastern Nigeria and sold into slavery. Equiano was just eleven years old at the time and was forced to leave his Ibo religion, his family, and all else familiar. His account of being introduced to the Europeans which forced him into slavery is especially powerful, for Equiano had never laid sight on a white man before.

...I was carried on board. I was immediately handled and tossed up to see if I was sound, by some of the crew; and I was now persuaded that I had got into a world of bad spirits, and that they were going to kill me. Their complexions too, differing so much from ours, their long hair, and the language they spoke, which was very different from any I had ever heard, united me to confirm in this belief.*(33)

Equiano was seemingly shocked into becoming a new man. No longer could his life be woven by the innocence and naivety of childhood, for involuntarily he was thrown into eighteenth-century English and American society. He developed both mentally and physically, torn between his Ibo origin and the "civilized" society which introduced an entirely different culture.

The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African is Equiano's autobiography in which he reflects upon his life as one of "few events...which have not happened to many. It is true the incidents are numerous; and did I consider myself a European, I might say my sufferings were great but when I compare my lot with that of most of my countrymen, I regard myself as a particular favourite of Heaven, and acknowledge the mercies of Providence in every occurence of my life."*(12) However, Equiano's life is one wh...

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... he was declared a free man that his spiritual being was free as well. Freedom indefinitely casted his state of mind, for he was now entitled to go where he pleased and indulge in Christianity as he wished. His religious development, salvation, and sense of identity are important themes of his narrative, as is his emergence out of slavery and into a world where he was able to follow God's teachings and educate others about the inhumanity of slavery.

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Olaudah Equiano, "The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African," in The Classic Slave Narratives, ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (New York: Penguin Books, 1987)

**Angelo Costanzo, Surprizing Narrative: Olaudah Equiano and the Beginnings of Black Autobiography. (New York: Greenwood Press,1987.)

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