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Olaudah Equiano Anti Slavery

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Although Olaudah Equiano appears as a strong and intelligent man throughout his narrative that did not stop him from being abducted from his culturally rich home and shipped away to a country where he was forced into slavery because of the color of his skin. The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano served as an anti-slavery piece because Equiano shares his personal story about slavery that invokes strong emotions. Throughout the narrative Olaudah Equiano was given multiple names by his slave masters in an attempt to take away his self-identity. Furthermore, he was held as a slave because of the color of his skin, not because he was a criminal or a prisoner of war. Lastly and most obvious, Olaudah Equiano served as an eye witness to the …show more content…

The first horrible act was when Equiano was kidnapped with his sister in chapter one, when “two men and a woman” (Equiano 12) stole them away and took them to the woods. Olaudah Equiano “cried and grieved continually” (Equiano 12) when he and his sister, the only family or comfort he had left was taken away from him. To think of all the children separated from their families during the slave trade, one can only imagine the heart break and emotional wreckage this caused. Another example of the horrors of slavery was in chapter three, however this example of cruelty was more physical. While on a plantation, Olaudah Equiano was sent inside the estate to fan his ill master and when he walked in he saw a black woman which had on an iron muzzle that “locked her mouth so fast that she could scarcely speak; and could not eat or drink” (Equiano 21). Further along in Equiano’s narrative he wrote about another instance of physical abuse in chapter five, he said he saw a black man who was “beaten til some of his bones were broken” (Equiano 46) just for letting a pot boil over. Today treatment like this would be deemed completely illegal, unethical, and unacceptable and yet this is only a handful of examples from his text that prove this to be an anti-slavery

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389 Words | 2 Pages

Thus, we can see how each story of the captives help reveal the different feelings one might have while being held and dehumanized like Equiano and Rowlandson were. This is important because both rowlandson and Equiano were subject to torture, humiliation, and slavery. So, how would you react if you had someone you loved being subject to all these horrible, abusive

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1144 Words | 5 Pages

There is no captivity novel that contains nothing but pleasure and comfort. In other words, every captivity novel contains a large amount of sorrow. In the narratives, Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano both experienced massive amounts of misfortune during their periods of captivity. For example, Rowlandson writes of her daughter dying from wounds she sustained during the mass kidnapping, murder, and pillage

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915 Words | 4 Pages

Olaudah Equiano had a much different life than Jarena Lee. As a child, Olaudah Equiano was kidnapped from Africa and sold into slavery. Equiano spent much of his life on warships and trading vessels at sea. Olaudah Equiano was bought and sold numerous times. This is how he gained much experience as a slave.

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803 Words | 4 Pages

The Interesting Narrative of The Life of Olaudah Equiano, Chapter II This document was written as an autobiography by a former slave, Olaudah Equiano. This was the first slave narrative to reveal such detailed effects on one victim of the slave trade and provides an interesting insight into a time where few people survived to give an account of their experiences. Olaudah is a skilled and bright young man who wrote this as a way for the world to be aware of the horrors of the slave trade. This source is a interesting historical account of the Atlantic slave trade Through his writing, Equiano is appealing to the British government in a bid to plead his case for the release of slaves.

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336 Words | 2 Pages

Equiano’s narrative not only open doors to ending slavery, but also gives us some clear insight about the many struggles the slaves had endured. Equiano Olaudah, who was born in 1745, was a member of the Eboe tribe who came from a village in Essaka (Benin) which is now southeastern Nigeria, West Africa. Part of his culture, was having a mark placed on a certain part of his body, which was significant to his culture. According to Equiano, “This mark conferred on the person entitled to it, by cutting the skin across at the top of the forehead, and drawing it down to the eyebrows; and while it is in this situation applying a warm hand, and rubbing it until it shrinks up into a thick weal across the lower part of the forehead” ( Equiano p. 5-6).

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1405 Words | 6 Pages

17.1 Captivity and Enslavement, Olaudah Equiano, the interesting Narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano written by himself 1. What are Equiano’s impressions of the white men on the ship and their treatment of the slaves? How does this treatment reflect the slave traders’ primary concerns? Equiano’s first impression of these white men is a feeling of uncertainty and sorrow for the future. As his story goes on Equiano is afraid of these white men, but also he is wishing to end it all because of the conditions and treatment of the slaves.

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679 Words | 3 Pages

The trade of African slaves in the 17th century was perceived as so commonplace that a good deal of the world's population gave it little or no thought. British involvement with slavery became unavoidable at the end of the 17th century, when abolitionist literature gained public attention. The first hand account of life as a slave in Olaudah Equiano's auto-biography was like no other piece of abolitionist literature at the time. The three methods of persuasion in his writing are ethical appealing ethos, logic engaging logos, and his most effective of emotional appealing pathos. Equiano's use of pathos in his auto-biography was effective in persuading the British that slavery is wrong, because of the emotional effects, such as misery, sympathy,

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732 Words | 3 Pages

Throughout the narrative, the author includes his personal stories about experiencing the violence of slavery first-hand. For example, on page 20, he writes about the first time he witnessed a slave, his own aunt, getting the whip. “The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest…I remember the first time I ever witnessed this horrible exhibition… It struck me with awful force. It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery…” The author including his experience of his aunts whipping, in detail, appeals to the emotions of the reader.

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683 Words | 3 Pages

In Equiano's personal slave narrative, "The Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African", Equiano flips the idea that the African people are backwards and barbaric, thus ripe for slavery, by demonstrating his personal exceptionalism through his literacy to show that it is truly the white people who are backwards and barbaric through their own hypocrisy. This reversal that Equiano demonstrates in his slave narrative shows that the savagery of African people exists as a misconception and makes the reader fully grasp the need to abolish slavery and any inequality present. On page seventy-eight, Equiano uses first person pronouns like 'I', 'my', and 'me' to separate himself from the other African people and whites around him. This separation that Equiano creates demonstrates his exceptionalism as an African slave.

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1621 Words | 7 Pages

This is a reflection of slavery being a system of power because Equiano and his sister had just been brutally kidnapped. The people who kidnapped them were very aware what they were doing was wrong, but who cared because they had the power over Equiano and his sister who were crying out. Soon after the kidnapping, Equiano faced another horrible event. As stated in the text, “We forgot out misfortunes in the joy of being together; but even this small comfort was soon to have an end; for scarcely had the fatal morning appeared, when she was again torn from me forever! I was now more miserable, if possible, than before.”

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195 Words | 1 Pages

As a young boy, Olaudah Equiano was captured from his home and taken to Barbados. In the autobiography,"The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano,” Olaudah talks to us about his experiences as a slave. When Equiano was eleven years old, he was kidnapped and sold to the(owner) of the slave ship, as he goes on to describe the Middle Passage, his descriptions of difficult situations and desperate conditions are emphasized by his astonishment at new sights and experiences. Equiano purchased his freedom and became active in the British anti-slavery movement. “...I thought, in so savage manner; for i have never seen among any people such instances of brutal cruelty…”.

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1340 Words | 6 Pages

Equiano was born in 1745 in Eboe, which was in Africa, and is now known as Nigeria. At the age of eleven him and his sister were kidnapped and sold to slave traders in the West Indies. Him and his sister got separated during the slave trade while trying their best not to. Equiano talks about the culture of the people in Africa. He was purchased by a Navy Lieutenant by Michael Pascal.

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996 Words | 4 Pages

She'll get it whether I give it to her or not.” This shows his obvious disregard to see her as a human being. To him, she's hardly even human and doesn’t even deserve a second thought. Another example of a slave being treated inhumanely would be in the part of the story describing a slave, “Weylin called her a good breeder, and he never whipped her.

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1080 Words | 5 Pages

In “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, Douglass narrates in detail the oppressions he went through as a slave before winning his freedom. In the narrative, Douglass gives a picture about the humiliation, brutality, and pain that slaves go through. We can evidently see that Douglass does not want to describe only his life, but he uses his personal experiences and life story as a tool to rise against slavery. He uses his personal life story to argue against common myths that were used to justify the act of slavery. Douglass invalidated common justification for slavery like religion, economic argument and color with his life story through his experiences torture, separation, and illiteracy, and he urged for the end of slavery.

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658 Words | 3 Pages

The autobiography primarily taken place in Great Britain known as, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavas Vassa, the African, Written by Himself authored by Olaudah Equiano. This narrative characterized as a slavery narrative, as he discloses his journey as an African American reconstructing from a life of slavery to freedom. Throughout history, most African Americans endure barbarous punishment from white masters. Equiano was deprived from his life and thrown into slavery, during this time it was a prevailing condition for many. He hastily discovered he must conduct everything the masters commanded of him to survive or for outcome of freedom.

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