Olaudah Equiano at the tender age of eleven, experienced astonishment and terror as he was isolated from the only safe place he kenned, his habitation Igbo Land (present day Nigeria) by slave traders. His encounters with the slave trade was essentially filled with anguish, vexation, and dolefulness as he was stripped far from his family, particularly his sister, and the people that he bonded with on the ship heading to the various destinations. To describe his slave experience, he composed an extensive book from the perspective of the enslaved. Therefore, his book was instituted as the best artistic work of the abolitionist movement, and recently has turned into history 's most well known portrayal of the slave trade and the Middle Passage. …show more content…
He belonged to an affluent and prosperous family in which his father was a well-reverenced man in the community who made decisions for the village. His father had many slaves as well but Equiano denoted that these slaves were treated like family as compared to the evil system of slavery that Europeans controlled. In Equiano’s society, everyone collaborated and the land flourished. The land was fruitful and benevolent, the soil was opulent and agriculture was productive. Many crops were cultivated, and everyone had a concrete part in society such as women spinning cotton and making garments. (Rediker 111)
However, even though life was good for Equiano, by the time he was eleven years old, slave-trading assaulting in Igbo had already grown extensive in many ways. For security, the adults in the village would take arms if there should arise an occurrence of an assault. For the children that were left home, the adults made special arrangements for them, bringing them together in a single place with instructions that they keep a lookout. (Rediker