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— Harriet Jacobs’s incidents in the life of a slave girl
— Harriet Jacobs’s incidents in the life of a slave girl
Quest for freedom in harriet jacob's incidents of a slave girl
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Just like Harriet Jacob’s story, Equiano’s narrative had many important themes in this story. Identity was a major theme in this story. In this story, a man is allowed no identity if one is a slave, and must earned one despite what is going on in the world. One must work for its identity. As an African slave, Equiano had no identity at all. He was invisible. He had no control over his own movements, his own property, or his even name. Equiano aimed to found out who he was, but slavery had limited the opportunity to found out who is truly is. After Equiano was freed, he was able to found out himself a true identity and discover the real him. He would go on to make his own decisions. He made his own decision on where he wanted to go and what sort of employment he wanted to have. More than anything else, this book is centered on the devastating slave trade. Equiano’s own life tells the truth perspective of how terribly the slave trade harmed everyone involved life. Africans, including children, were kidnapped from their homes and families. The families who had somebody kidnapped would be …show more content…
There were a lot of unnoticeable symbolisms in this story, but there was still some that stood out if the reader could notice it as they read carefully. One small symbolism that stood out in this story was the manumission papers. In this story those papers could be a representation of freedom. The manumission papers could also be a representation of struggle and hardship. Another small symbolism that stood out in the story was the city of the London in England. The city could be seen as symbolism since coming to that city changed Equiano’s life. Coming to the new city can be a representation of hope, educational opportunities, and a new home. London helped found Equiano to found out who he really was due to opportunities and his wisdom he learned from growing up alongside with his
Both, “The Interesting Narrative Life of Olaudah Equiano” and “Amistad” are important stories about slavery in pre-civil war america because they both address the issues of slavery. These gentlemen in the story made a difference in the slave trade. In “The life of Olaudah Equiano”, Olaudah was sold on a slave ship that came to the Barbados. Olaudah worked for his freedom, and in the end became efficient in American language. He worked his way to the free life and in the end it worked out for him, although it leaves scars on his soul. In “Amistad”, Cinque is a slave that leads a revolt on a slave ship after escaping. When they get to america, Baldwin, a lawyer that is representing the slave and the former president Adams helps free the slaves.
Equiano was the youngest of his brothers who enjoyed playing outside throwing javelins enjoying the normal life of a small child. At the beginning of the day, the elders would leave their children at home while they went out into the fields to work. While they were gone, some of the children would get together to play but always took precautions of potential kidnappers. Even with all these precautions, people were still seized from their homes and taken away. Equiano was home one day with his little sister tending to the everyday household needs when out of nowhere they were captured by a couple men who had gotten over the walls. They had no time to resist or scream for help before they found themselves bound, gagged, and being taken away. Equiano had no idea where these people were taking him and they didn’t stop once until nightfall where they stayed until dawn. He tells us about how they traveled for many days and nights not having any clue where they were going or when they would get there. Slaves traveled by land and by sea, but Equiano’s journey was by sea. He tells us how he was carried aboard and immediately chained to other African Americans that were already on the ship. Once the ship halted on land, Equiano along with many other slaves were sent to the merchant’s yard where they would be herded together and bought by the
2 John Bowe, author of Nobodies: Modern Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy said if he could sum up what his book was about it would be “we all seek control. Control equals power. Power corrupts. Corruption makes us blind, tyrannical, and desperate to justify our behavior” (268). He is writing about the slave trade happening in our own Land of the Free. He wants Americans to be aware of the slave trade and recognize that it is not only happening in other countries, but effects items we use in our everyday lives, like the clothes we wear and the food we eat. As he is an immersion reporter, he visits three different sites of slavery: Florida, Tulsa, and Saipan. The stories and facts in this book are all from people who experienced some aspect of the abuses he writes about, whether a victim, a lawyer, or just a witness to the heinous crimes. He is not satisfied with half truths, which seem to fly at him, especially from those who did the abusing he was talking about, he does his research well and I appreciated that while reading this book.
Document One The Journey to Slavery is about the life of Olaudah Equiano. Equiano was born in what is now Nigeria in 1745. At the age of 11 Equiano and his younger sister were taken from their home, drug though the woods, sold, and was then separated from one another. Equiano’s experience was considered very rare. Throughout his life as a slave he had three different owners. Equiano went from one master to the other till he ended up in a pleasant country in the hands of a leader with children and two wives. He describes how his owners treated him like he was part of the family. They spoke he same
One of the major questions asked about the slave trade is ‘how could so Europeans enslave so many millions of Africans?” Many documents exist and show historians what the slave trade was like. We use these stories to piece together what it must have been to be a slave or a slaver. John Barbot told the story of the slave trade from the perspective of a slaver in his “A Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea.” Barbot describes the life of African slaves before they entered the slave trade.
Equiano argues and presses the reader and his audience to recognize that the African slave and the white slave owner are not as different as his audience may believe. In order to proclaim and showcase this idea of the value and worth of African slaves, Equiano uses the Christian religion to develop and sustain his argument. In many cases during Equiano’s time period, and for a while afterwards, Christianity and the Bible were used in defense of slavery, and this fact makes Equiano’s claim more powerful and groundbreaking. One of the key attributes of the novel is Equiano’s spiritual conversion and religious revelations. I believe that Equiano’s Christianity serves to connect him with his audience, increases his credibility as an author, and ultimately proclaims the disparity between the views of the slaves’ worth as merely economical, and the assumed Christian morality of the slave traders and his audience....
The fight for racial equality is one of the most prominent issues Americans have faced throughout history and even today; as the idea that enslaving individuals is unethical emerged, many great and innovative authors began writing about the issues that enslaved people had to face. Olaudah Equiano was no exception. In his work The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, he attempts to persuade his readers that the American way of slavery is brutal, inhumane, and unscrupulous. Equiano manages to do this by minimizing the apparent differences between himself and his primarily white audience, mentioning the cruelties that he and many other slaves had to face, and the advantages of treating your slaves correctly.
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.
In 1745, Olaudah Equiano was born in a small village in Isseke,Nigeria. His father was one of the chiefs in the village. At age eleven Equiano and his sister were kidnapped by two men and a woman never to see his home or parents again. After being kidnapped he was hiked across part of Africa untill he arrived at the coast where he was loaded onto a slave ship. While crossing the Atlantic to Barbados onboard the slave ship he and his countrymen were subject to horrors you could hardly imagine. Equiano tells about the horrors and torture slaves face not only on the slave ship but also on plantations and many other aspects of a slave's life. Equiano experienced almost all parts of a slave's existence. He was a slave throughout Africa, England, and the New World. Equiano is bought and sold several times. Religion also played a huge role in Equiano's life and I think that it helped him get through some really hard times. He is bought by a British Naval officer and serves in the British Navy during the Seven Years' War. He is then sold to Robert King where he begins trading goods between islands and eventually makes enough money to buy his freedom. Equiano tells of the joy he feels when he becomes a free man. The rest of his life is devoted to helping slaves and to the cause of abolishing slavery.
Slavery in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries consisted of brutal and completely unjust treatment of African-Americans. Africans were pulled from their families and forced to work for cruel masters under horrendous conditions, oceans away from their homes. While it cannot be denied that slavery everywhere was horrible, the conditions varied greatly and some slaves lived a much more tolerable life than others. Examples of these life styles are vividly depicted in the personal narratives of Olaudah Equiano and Mary Prince. The diversity of slave treatment and conditions was dependent on many different factors that affected a slave’s future. Mary Prince and Olaudah Equiano both faced similar challenges, but their conditions and life styles
The slave trade, yet horrific in it’s inhumanity, became an important aspect of the world’s economy during the eighteenth century. During a time when thousands of Africans were being traded for currency, Olaudah Equiano became one of countless children kidnapped and sold on the black market as a slave. Slavery existed centuries before the birth of Equiano (1745), but strengthened drastically due to an increasing demand for labor in the developing western hemisphere, especially in the Caribbean and Carolinas. Through illogical justification, slave trading became a powerful facet of commerce, regardless of its deliberate mistreatment of human beings by other human beings. Olaudah Equiano was able to overcome this intense adversity and actually accumulate wealth by making the best of certain situations he faced throughout his experiences. Even though he was a victim of the slave trade, he willfully took advantage of the opportunity to see the world and to become a productive individual.
The narrative of Olaudah Equiano is truly a magnificent one. Not only does the reader get to see the world through Equiano's own personal experiences, we get to read a major autobiography that combined the form of a slave narrative with that of a spiritual conversion autobiography. Religion may be viewed as at the heart of the matter in Equiano's long, remarkable journey. Through Equiano's own experiences, the reader uncovers just how massive a role religion played in the part of his Narrative and in that of his own life. More specifically, we learn of how his religious conversion meant a type of freedom as momentous as his own independence from slavery. As one reads his tale, one learns just how dedicated he his to that of his Christian faith; from his constant narration of the scriptures to the way that Equiano feels a growing sense of empowerment from the biblical texts for the oppressed community. However, at the same time, one may question Equiano's own Christian piety. Did Equiano really seek to tell the tale of his soul's spiritual journey, did he really believe God would set him free or was he simply using religion as a ways of manipulating British and American readers to accept him as a credible narrator. Regardless of which of these facts is true, religion is quite possibly the defining feature of his life story.
Equiano way of slavery is differently than that of Jacobs. Equaino was taken from his homeland of Africa. He was apart of what is known as the Middle Passage which was considered a deadly voyage for many slaves that were apart of this voyage across the Atlantic. After his arrival, he experience the hard labor. Jacobs, who was born into slavery was already born in what was considered the "New America". Equiano way of telling his narratives was in more of a chronological way with vivid description of what he was being faced with everyday. Jacobs not only told what slavery was like for her, but also provide more emotion than that of Equiano. She gave stories of others like slave that was previously own by Dr. Flint and fathering of other slave 's children. Unlike Equiano, he was given his other name of Gustavus Vassa by his master, Jacobs wrote her narrative under the name of Linda Bendt and changed names of others in her narrative in order to protect the reputation of those . Although Equiano talks about what woman 's went through during slavery, it was Jacobs he gave more of an in-depth of it with dealing with lust from a master and only being known as the property of her master and her master only. Both authors expressed in their own way that once you fall into slavery, you lose sense of who you are and the morals you were brought up
To understand the desperation of wanting to obtain freedom at any cost, it is necessary to take a look into what the conditions and lives were like of slaves. It is no secret that African-American slaves received cruel and inhumane treatment. Although she wrote of the horrific afflictions experienced by slaves, Linda Brent said, “No pen can give adequate description of the all-pervading corruption produced by slavery." The life of a slave was never a satisfactory one, but it all depended on the plantation that one lived on and the mast...
"The Life of Olaudah Equiano” is a captivating story in which Equiano, the author, reflects on his life from becoming a slave to a freeman during the 19th century. Through his experiences and writing, Equiano paints a vivid picture of the atrocities and cruelties of European slavery. Ultimately through his narrative, Equiano intends to persuade his audience, the British government, to abolish the Atlantic slave trade as well as alert them of the harsh treatment of slaves. He successfully accomplishes his goal by subtly making arguments through the use of character, action, and setting.