Slave Captivity Narrative

According to Heather Andrea Williams, an associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, “Access to the written word, whether scriptural or political, revealed a world beyond bondage in which African Americans could imagine themselves free to think and behave as they chose” (8). This quote reflects on a classic topic utilized within slave captivity narratives. A slave captivity narrative is a variation of narrative that addresses the life of a person held in captivity who manages to find his or her way to liberation. The captivity narratives I have selected to review and compare are those of: The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass which was published in 1845, and The Interesting

Both men are confronted with extreme discrimination, and oppression. The pair is prevented with numerous obstacles that obstruct them from ever reaching their full potential. Heather Andrea Williams in her book Self-Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom references two renowned scholars: Michael W. Apple and Linda K. Christian-Smith as they observe, “Varying and persistent conflicts arose between and among southern blacks, northern blacks, northern whites, and southern whites as each constituency realized that an educated black population could bring about seismic change in the American South” (5). Clearly people everywhere were worried about the significant change that could be brought upon by teaching African-Americans how to read and write. However, one of the greatest strengths and comparisons between Frederick Douglass and Olaudah Equiano, is that they are both strong willed and resilient men. They push to the end and do whatever it takes to accomplish their goals and dreams. In what is estimated to be somewhere around the time of 1760, Equiano stood up to Captain James Doran, and said to him “But I have served him…many years and he has taken all my wages and prize money, for I had only got one six-pence during the war; besides this I have been baptized, and by

While one man, Olaudah Equiano, spent his life serving others on the sea, and the other spent his on land there is no doubt that the two are unique figures. Although neither of the two men were immediately granted their independence, they both served to prove that change is possible. They both are iconographic figures who hold the reputation of demonstrating how vital education was in order to present later strong cases for landmark movements such as abolition. Frederick Douglass later noted in his autobiography: “I look upon the departure from Colonel Lloyd’s plantation as one of the most interesting events of my life. It is possible, and even quite probable, that but for the mere circumstances of being removed from that plantation to Baltimore, I should have to-day, instead of being here seated by my own table, in the enjoyment of freedom and the happiness of home, writing this Narrative, been confined in the galling chains of slavery” (1195). This quote is very powerful, as it demonstrates to the readers that a slave is capable of learning as long as they are presented with the opportunity. Luckily in the cases of Equiano, and Douglass both men were hardy and flexible men capable of utilizing education to pursue and secure brighter