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Olaudah Equiano Hardships

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Can you imagine being kidnapped from your home and sold during the slave trade? Can you imagine living on a planation being mistreated, beaten, and basically treated like an animal? You will read about such events in Olaudah Equiano autobiography “The interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African”. He wasn’t the first African slave, however the first former slave to share his experience.
Equiano demonstrates his narrative by expressing with readers a look into his life from a child being kidnapped and becoming a slave and working towards a free man again. Just a young child being ripped away from everything his home, everything he owned, and even being stripped from the little human rights he has. An …show more content…

Many a time we were near suffocation from the want of fresh air, which we were often without for whole days together” (Equiano, 2004). In this quote, Equiano shares detail of the conditions of Africans as they were shipped across the sea. Slaves were chained in shackles that prevent them body movement. There was no privacy for anybody they were so packed in the cargo area there wasn’t even room to even breathe fresh air. Slaves were suffocating breathing in harmful toxins. Through the journey Slaves were barely fed. The slave capturers would capture fish along the sea and eat them. Then they would give the slaves the straps, the little food and water they did provide was not enough to survive a few slave didn’t make it. Due to the fact of the horrible conditions slave were in some slaves would die and the slave capturers would just throw them over ship. The second topic is Equiano described that slaves were treated better than free former slaves. Once he traveled and witnesses other slave being sold during the slave trade, Equiano has also been sold off to other slave owners until he was sold off to his last owner. He was treated well from his former slave owners. Even though he witness the beatings and slave being sold, Equiano comparatively lived a decent life. During his time in slavery he was able to learn to read, write, …show more content…

In this situation is it surprising that slaves, when mildly treated, should prefer even the misery of slavery to such a mockery of freedom?” (Equiano O. , 2014). As a reader you would believe that Equiano buying himself out of slavery is awesome, did he would slaves that time was impossible. Equiano release from slavery was the most substantial moment in his story. However, after reading this quotes readers get to see the difficulties he tolerated once he became a free man again. Even though, I know freedom for former slaves would not be easy. The thing that really caught my attention is freedom can be taken away from former slaves quick and they can go right back into slavery. This is because there are no laws or regulations that can protect them from enslavement

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In the documents “Considering the Evidence: Voices from the Slave Trade” it shows how the Atlantic slave trade was an enormous enterprise and enormously significant in modern world history. In document 15.1 - The Journey to Slavery it talks about the voice of an individual victim of the slave trade known as Olaudah Equiano. Equiano was taken from his home and sold into the slave trade. He worked for three different families while in the slave trade but what is different about him is that he learned to read and write while being a slave. He traveled extensively as a seaman aboard one of his masters' ships, and was allowed to buy his freedom in 1766.

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Equiano shows that freedom for slaves in the Atlantic ended up being a new kind of persecution because of the color of their skin. Throughout Equiano, prejudice is evident everywhere towards people of color. Because of this prejudice, Equiano sometimes thinks enslaved Africans were better off than freed slaves. Any slave or freed slave had no rights, but a slave had a master that would look out for him because he was the master’s property.

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1987 Words | 8 Pages

King gave Equiano permission to get his papers from the Register Office to obtain his freedom. Equiano was overcome with happiness, got his papers and hurried back to obtain King’s signature. King signed the papers and gave Equiano his freedom (Equiano, 101). Equiano wrote, “so that, before night, I who had been a slave in the morning, trembling at the will of another, now became my own master, and completely free” (Equiano, 102). Although Equiano was now free, he knew that life was harder for a free black man.

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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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541 Words | 3 Pages

On the other hand, Equino’s situation and attitude deteriorate as he is moved into ever stranger and more dehumanizing circumstances. Both captives were allowed to earn money: in fact, Equiano eventually earned enough to buy his freedom. Mary, too, was eventually freed when her ransom was

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964 Words | 4 Pages

Olaudah was a very well-articulated man in his autobiography and he had many thoughts expressed as an enslaved man towards the colonies and Philadelphia. Olaudah Equiano has been enslaved for many years after being taken from his homeland of Essaka. He wasn’t always in Philadelphia or in the colonies because of his master’s travels to many diverse places like the West Indies, Pennsylvania, London, England, Georgia, Louis borough Caribbean, and South Carolina. Olaudah was a very vigilant man in seeing the condition and treatment of his fellow brethren slaves in different places around the world. The more he saw the unkind treatment of slaves, the more and more he detests it.

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679 Words | 3 Pages

For example, when he told of his arrival in Virginia when he was the last of his group left at a plantation with no one to talk to and no way to understand those around him. To the British readers, who thrived in their own daily social interactions, the thought of such a lonely situation created feelings of pity and understanding. Equiano thought that he was “worse off than any of the rest” of his companions and “was constantly grieving and pining,” because of his loneliness. The British readers related to his emotional distress and allowed themselves to see him as a person. Therefore, they were more open to his ideas on slavery as a whole, because they could relate to Equiano's

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For Equiano to be able to make the readers see the reversal of perceptions about white people, Equiano needs to separate himself and produce this sense of exceptionalism through first person pronouns. Once he establishes himself

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861 Words | 4 Pages

Olaudah Equiano and Slavery in the 18th Century Olaudah Equiano’s autobiography was, at its time of publication, an invaluable account of the dark realities of the slave trade. However, to a reader living in the 21st century, Equiano’s insight may seemingly lose some of its value.

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1194 Words | 5 Pages

At the beginning of their slavery, the unfortunate Africans were thrown onto unsanitary slave ships that were so overcrowded slaves were often piled on top of one another. Europeans did not treat the slaves like humans, who deserve and need their own space, they abused them and heaped them together in unsanitary piles. The fullness of these ships is depicted in the picture of a slave ship in Document 5 that shows how the bodies were sorted together. The close proximity and the unsanitary conditions, that resulted from the neglect of slave traders, lead to disease and sickness that broke their internal body and often stole their lives. Many slave traders tried to hide a slaves sickness in order to sell them at a market.

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1515 Words | 7 Pages

Such stories were regularly utilized as promulgation or propaganda: accordingly, Europeans frequently stereotyped Native Americans as merciless and whites started to see subjugation of African-Americans as detestable. The purpose of this essay is to compare and contrast the two narratives which are A Narrative of the Captivity and The interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equianoa. A Narrative of Captivity by Mary Rowlandson and The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano by Olaudah Equiano are two generally read imprisonment accounts , which, individually, relate the encounters of a grown-up white lady caught by Indians and an eleven-year-old Black male caught for the American slave market. Looking at these two accounts uncovers fascinating similitudes and contrasts and in addition in the encounters and responses of these two prisoners.

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1161 Words | 5 Pages

Due to the conditions “This produced copious perspirations, so that the air soon became unfit for respiration from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought sickness among the slaves, of which many died,” (25) They were chained and packed which ultimately lead to

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935 Words | 4 Pages

An American Slave,” Douglass discusses the horrors of being enslaved and a fugitive slave. Through Douglass’s use of figurative language, diction and repetition he emphasizes the cruelty he experiences thus allowing readers to under-stand his feelings of happiness, fear and isolation upon escaping slavery. Figurative language allocates emotions such as excitement, dread and seclusion. As a slave you have no rights, identity or home. Escaping slavery is the only hope of establishing a sense of self and humanity.

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Olaudah Equiano was one of the most famous black men in the history of slavery who was lucky enough to purchase his freedom by himself. Equiano was highly popular for his autobiography named The interesting narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African. This is an interesting autobiographywhich was published in 1789 and it emphasized various aspects of slavery throughout the entire book. In The Interesting Narrative, Olaudah Equiano uses poetic diction and tone ( sadistic) to illustrate his perspective as a slave by portraying the cruality and brutality of slavery. Equiano was very disappointed with his master’s betrayal.

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1133 Words | 5 Pages

Both stories begin with shocking horrors, although much of Equiano’s narrative was based on these horrific scenes. Equiano’s survival of his involuntary journey to America, being enslaved as a child, and witnessing torture in Virginia, should be of aid towards the disapproval of the brutality of slavery. After buying his own freedom, Equiano became a front-runner in the abolitionist movement representing those who stood against slavery. Now in the 21st century we still fight for the freedom and self-respect we find in Equiano’s narrative. Rowlandson’s and Equiano’s narratives each represent a different characteristic of what it means to be part of the American nation.

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