Point Of View Of Olaudah Equiano On Slavery

The primary source, “Olaudah Equiano on Slavery (1789)” reveals to its audience a first point of view of a child who undergoes the process of enslavement. Gustavus Vassa or better known as Olaudah Equiano was a mere child when he was abducted from his village; he describes his journey to the unknown with a flood of different emotions “[A]stonishment, which was soon converted into terror…[E]veryone of their countenances expressing dejection and sorrow” indicates how African people were not fully aware of the situation of the outside world. Therefore, it was valid to say that Africans on board of a slave ship visualize the worse possible outcome, which in Equiano’s case was the anxiety of being devour by the white men.
The journey as described by Equiano was inhumane, disgusting, and horrifying. The conditions of a slave ship in the colonial-slave era was compared to a slaughter house. Equiano illustrates, “The shrieks of the women, and the groans of dying, rendered the whole scene of horror almost inconceivable” which gives readers a glimpse of the desperation and brutally that he mostly experienced and watched throughout his “middle passage” across the Atlantic to the

3 Before his capture, he was supposed to lead the village as chief when he became older. After being enslaved Equiano didn’t suffer in the households he was sold to; however, after boarding his first slave ship he soon learned about the harsh and cruel reality of being a slave. His last master was a lieutenant from the Royal Navy called Michael Henry Pascal and as a result it led him to sail around the world, move to England, and educated himself. 3 After becoming a free man Equiano became a Christian and follows the career as an active abolitionist that spoke out against slave-owners.