The interesting life of olaudah equiano ebook

Robert J. Allison Editor. Widely admired for its vivid accounts of the slave trade, Olaudah Equiano's autobiography -- the first slave narrative to attract a significant readership -- reveals many aspects of the eighteenth-century Western world through the experiences of one individual. The second edition reproduces the original London printing, supervised by Equiano in Allison's in Widely admired for its vivid accounts of the slave trade, Olaudah Equiano's autobiography -- the first slave narrative to attract a significant readership -- reveals many aspects of the eighteenth-century Western world through the experiences of one individual.

Allison's introduction, which places Equiano's narrative in the context of the Atlantic slave trade, has been revised and updated to reflect the heated controversy surrounding Equiano's birthplace, as well as the latest scholarship on Atlantic history and the history of slavery.

Improved pedagogical features include contemporary illustrations with expanded captions and a map showing Equiano's travels in greater detail. Helpful footnotes provide guidance throughout the eighteenth-century text, and a chronology and an up-to-date bibliography aid students in their study of this thought-provoking narrative.

Get A Copy. Paperback , pages. Martin's first published More Details Original Title. Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. How the crew probably viewed them? Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Generally regarded as one of the best slave narratives ever written, the book is Equiano describing his life, beginning with how he was kidnapped in Africa at age 11 and sold into slavery.

The interesting thing about this book is that Equiano doesn't just survive the Middle Passage, but actually crosses the Atlantic multiple times, traveling from South America to England to the American Colonies to the Caribbean to the Middle East, all while trying to win his freedom.

It's a passionate anti-slav Generally regarded as one of the best slave narratives ever written, the book is Equiano describing his life, beginning with how he was kidnapped in Africa at age 11 and sold into slavery.

It's a passionate anti-slavery message, with Equiano unflinchingly recounting the horrors of the slave trade to make his readers cringe I defy you to read his account of the Middle Passage, or how he mentions seeing 9 year old African girls raped by white men, without wanting to throw up and making reasoned arguments against it.

Whether or not the account is fully non-fiction and I'll get to that , the fact remains that this is a very affecting story. So many negative reviews of this book on Goodreads! I'm a little surprised, actually. Yes, it drags on for long stretches at a time while Equiano regales us with boring naval stories and tells us everything about his spiritual conversion, but what people are missing, I think, is that he's including these stories for a reason.

He was writing for a white, male, upper-class audience in the 18th century, and those readers probably wouldn't have been too interested in reading pages on why slavery is wrong and they're total assholes for supporting it. So Equiano throws in all the seafaring crap to keep his audience interested, and also prove what a loyal British subject he is. The religion aspect is the same thing: no one wants to listen to a heathen, so Equiano makes it clear that he's a devout Christian, and then uses scripture and Christian doctrine to support his arguments against slavery.

All the boring parts are, in fact, a calculated effort to get more people to read his book and listen to what he has to say. There is a record of this baptism, but this is what it says: "Gustavus Vassa - a Black born in Carolina 12 years old.

Weston" or "Gust. Feston" of "S. This very flimsy, in my opinion piece of evidence has been enough for some people to disregard the book entirely, because if Equiano is a liar then why should we listen to anything he has to say?

At the risk of editorializing, these people are idiots. My class read a very good, very angry article by Cathy Davidson where she rips this argument apart, and basically boils it down to three main points: 1 Equiano's master might have had a very good reason for saying that he was born in the colonies rather than Africa, so they wrote that on the baptism record; similarly, it may have been easier for Equiano to say that he was born in South Carolina.

Thousands of immigrants have done similar things, and it doesn't make them liars. In fact, it gives the book even greater significance because it means that the first American novelist was black. That fact alone means that this book should not be disregarded because it might not be entirely factual - whether or not Equiano was entirely truthful in his book is not the point at all. Read for: Colonial Imagination View 1 comment.

Jul 10, Alex rated it liked it Shelves: slave-narratives , africa , My wife was so excited when she found out I was reading this, because she says she now knows the worst possible answer to "What are you into? Worst Tinder profile ever. Anyway, so I'm pretty into 18th-century slave narratives, specifically this one book, the first major slave narrative, which was a ginormous success when it was published in , going to eight editions and remaining continuously in My wife was so excited when she found out I was reading this, because she says she now knows the worst possible answer to "What are you into?

Anyway, so I'm pretty into 18th-century slave narratives, specifically this one book, the first major slave narrative, which was a ginormous success when it was published in , going to eight editions and remaining continuously in print for a century, and helping to bring about the end of slavery in Britain. I'm also into 19th-century slave narratives!

And Olaudah Equiano's story has it all. Naval warfare! Arctic exploration! It's so action-packed that it feels wildly improbable, but Equiano was a public figure, a leading abolitionist, and most of his story is thoroughly documented.

There's some pedantic debate about whether he was born in Africa or South Carolina. The book begins in Africa and follows his capture and passage to the Indies. The rest of it definitely happened. The more unfortunate thing is that it's wildly boring.

Equiano has a fascinating story, but he's a horrendous storyteller. Here's a story: Just as our ship was under sail, I went down under the cabin, to do some business, and had a lighted candle in my hand, which, in my hurry, without thinking, I held in a barrel of gunpowder. It remained in the powder, until it was near catching fire, when fortunately, I observed it. That's incredible, right? I'm almost impressed at his ability to make such a great story that boring.

Wait 'til he starts talking about God, it's dire. So this is sort of the Castle of Otranto of slave narratives: it's an inventor of the genre, and responsible for codifying many of its rules, but in itself it's not great literature.

As slave narratives became a popular genre in the 19th century, they followed Equiano's three-act blueprint: - The horrors of slavery are described - There is a dramatic escape - The author becomes a productive member of society. The details here are unique, mostly due to Equiano's extensive naval career, but the basic arc is in place. More gifted writers - notably Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs and Solomon Northup - would make better literature with it in the coming century.

Olaudah Equiano's book is important but not terrifically well-told; I can only really recommend it if, say, you're already pretty into 18th-century slave narratives. View all 10 comments.

On a British stamp This dry but affecting autobiography is an important progenitor of what would later become known, especially in American contexts, as the slave narrative. Born somewhere among the Igbo peoples of West Africa, he was kidnapped by black slavers when he was eight or nine, taken to the coast, and sold to a British slave ship, which carried him On a British stamp This dry but affecting autobiography is an important progenitor of what would later become known, especially in American contexts, as the slave narrative.

Born somewhere among the Igbo peoples of West Africa, he was kidnapped by black slavers when he was eight or nine, taken to the coast, and sold to a British slave ship, which carried him first to Barbados and then to Virginia.

Bought by a British officer, he served in the Royal Navy during the Seven Years War, and was later resold to a Quaker merchant from Philadelphia, who put him to work on a variety of his trading vessels and plantations in the American states and the Caribbean. Eventually, Equiano amassed enough money to purchase his freedom.

He settled in London and continued to travel intermittently as a professional ship's steward, ultimately becoming a prominent voice in the abolitionist movement at the end of the eighteenth century. This memoir was published in , a few days before Parliament began debating ending the British slave trade. There are some acutely distressing scenes in here of the conditions of the Middle Passage and the treatment of slaves on the sugar islands; but the overwhelming effect is a more general one, of the profound degradation of living always according to the arbitrary control of another man.

This comes across, if anything, even more powerfully because his owners for the most part are not sadists, but comparatively reasonable people who simply find it completely unremarkable to own another person.

By his own admission, he is no great writer, and although one obviously doesn't read this for its literary qualities per se, it is still a bit frustrating to see what should be amazing incidents or anecdotes thrown away in the midst of a paragraph. In Savannah, Georgia, for instance, he casually mentions: I used to go for the cargo up the rivers in boats; and on this business I have been frequently beset by alligators, which were very numerous on that coast, and I have shot many of them when they have been near getting into our boats; which we have with great difficulty sometimes prevented, and have been very much frightened at them.

Some of the early passages, about his childhood in Africa, are clearly modelled, or even lifted, from contemporary travel literature, and there has been much scholarly debate over where Equiano was actually born his greatest modern biographer, Vincent Carretta, concludes that he was probably born in South Carolina, which is what he told at least two clerks during his lifetime.

Personally, given Equiano's deep religious commitment to honesty — and the fact that he doesn't strike me as a writer with much flair for making things up — I find it more reasonable to assume, per Occam's razor, that what he says here is substantially correct. But what do I know. The religious conviction was an important part of Equiano's life: much of his book reads a lot like a conventional spiritual autobiography, with a lot of anxiety over the fate of his soul and many heartfelt Biblical quotations.

As a modern reader, and not a religious one, I found these passages both tiresome and creepy. To me, his religious outlook just seems like one more imposition of Europeans on his inner life — and not even one of the easier ones to excuse, given that it is, mostly, the cause of a great deal of torment for him as he feels sure that he will be punished everlastingly after he dies. But for Equiano and, presumably, many of his contemporary readers, his Protestant faith was one of his most essential and significant qualities, and abolition was often couched in religious terms.

As a free sailor, he sometimes helped buy slaves himself. The publication of this book was, among other things, a political weapon in the abolitionist fight, which by the late s had most of the public on its side though not many went as far as Anna Laetitia Barbauld, who stopped taking sugar in her tea. Unfortunately, the conservative backlash in Britain to the French Revolution took abolition off the table, and it wasn't till after the French were defeated at Trafalgar that the slave trade was finally made illegal in Equiano had died ten years previously — but his legacy had helped set the framework for the whole debate.

Random sidenote: in the film Amazing Grace which is pretty good , he is played by, of all people, the singer Youssou N'Dour. Shelves: books , slavery , read-in Olaudah Equiano and his interesting narrative provide an insight into a time and situation that few people survived to record or recall, and those that did survive were rarely ever literate.

For this reason, and so many others, Equiano or Gustavus Vassa as he was later christened has a unique story to tell. Kidnapped from his home in an Ibo village Nigeria ,Equiano is enslaved by people of his own race and traded between tribal groups for over nine months before he finally makes it to the coas Olaudah Equiano and his interesting narrative provide an insight into a time and situation that few people survived to record or recall, and those that did survive were rarely ever literate.

Kidnapped from his home in an Ibo village Nigeria ,Equiano is enslaved by people of his own race and traded between tribal groups for over nine months before he finally makes it to the coast where he is put on board a slave ship and forced to endure the horrors of what was known as the middle passage the journey at the centre of the slavery triangle from Africa to the Americas.

The mere fact that he survived this journey when millions of others died is a testament to his will to survive from the very beginning. Following this he was passed between many masters some who Equino says "used him well" and others who treated him with cruelty and tyranical violence.

Having learned english, converted to christianity and befriended his master a ships Captain , Equiano becomes a capable hand before the mast. He travels on numerous barques, sloops and brigs, making journeys from England to Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Jamaica, Georgia, Barbados and the Mosquito coast before savvy trading allows him to save enough money to purchase his deeds of manumission essentially he bought his own freedom.

However, life as a free man is not simple in the late 18th century and life as a freed slave is even more difficult. Equiano spends half of his time being ripped off by treacherous white traders, ships captains and merchants and more than a few of the people he meets try to press gang him onto boats or sell him on as a runaway slave.

Depsite these set backs Equiano, ever the optimist, maintains an outlook which constantly sees the best in everyone. From the point of view of a maritime archaeologist who lives in works in Liverpool, I found this book interesting for a number of reasons; Equiano visit Liverpool but provides no description aside from mentioning that he sails from here to Dublin.

At this time Liverpool was at its peak of involvement in the slave trade and yet despite visiting Wales, London and even the Midlands, he never make a proper visit to the city where many of the Guineamen slave ships were berthed. It might be that the reputation of sailors town on the waterfront precluded a long stay; press ganging, abduction and murder were not uncommon here. Equiano provides an excellent record of the ships he sails on, noting their type, their names and sometimes their captains or owners.

It is interesting to note that near the beginning of his story most of the vessels plying their trade across the Atlantic are of 50 or 60 tons, however as his narrative progresses the vessels have increased in size and now exceed tons.

This is indicative of the wealth of the British Merchant fleets as well as advances in Maritime and ship building technology. This kind of increase in size can also be seen in records such as Gomer Williams' History of the Liverpool Privateers - Furthermore he rarely questions how any benevolent god can exist when millions of enslaved Africans are dying.

Equiano, as a free man, actively participates in the slave trade. He works on board boats which carry slaves and even goes to market on behalf of his employer to purchase slaves himself. At no point in his narrative does he express remorse for his part in the trade which was responsible for his own displacement or reflect on his new role at the other end of the perspective yet he chastises himself for swearing and thus being ungodly.

He even mentions that when buying slaves he preferentially selects his own countrymen. Later events in the narrative indicate that this was his way of ensuring that they were better treated and well fed; he knows that this is one way in which he can make their lives tolerable as it is not within his power to assure their comfort or safety in any other way.

Equiano also does a fantastic job of highlighting the perils of seafaring. He made dozens of voyages where some men were lucky to survive more than two or three and his narrative is full of near drownings, wreckings and head on collisions with other boats. Collisions with other vessels are in fact surprisingly numerous which is amazing when you consider the size of the Atlantic Ocean and the lack of formalised shipping lanes at this time!

A brilliant narrative and one that provides a first hand account of the slave trade - this book became a core part of the abolitionist literature when it was published. Well deserving of a place on the books list and unique in many ways. View all 6 comments. Artist for this review is English painter J. Of course, it is a fairly significant book and will always be vitally important for a number of reasons, but it is also horribly jejune.

The narrative is repor [36th book of The narrative is reported without much emotion and the paragraphs are long and bland. On the very first page, Equiano says, …and, did I consider myself an European, [sic] I might say my sufferings were great: but when I compare my lot with that of most of my countrymen, I regard myself as a particular favourite of Heaven, and acknowledge the mercies of Providence in every occurrence of my life. I found this one of the most poignant lines in the book. There are shocking reports from Equiano about what he saw, the treatments and punishments, and indeed, punishments he himself received.

There are descriptions of great violence: the snipping of ears, the staking to the ground, the hangings, the burnings, the brandings. I think it is all these. There is a vast amount of travelling in it, Equiano seemingly travelled the entire world. He learns to read and write, after learning English, first he states, in the beginning, I had never heard of white men or Europeans. His inquisitiveness is presented fairly early on: I had often seen my master and Dick employed in reading; and I had a great curiosity to talk to the books, as I thought they did, and so to learn how all things had a beginning; for that purpose I have often taken up a book, and have talked to it, and then put my ears to I, when alone, in hopes it would answer me; and I have been very much concerned when I found it remained silent.

And he finds God, but those later pages and pages of his finding God were the most boring parts of the book. It falls into many genres. Equiano states at one point his desire to return to England and his affinity for it. Through the horror of the autobiography there are also moments of beauty. Olaudah Equiano wrote his memoir in as a two-volume work. Following the publication of his book, he traveled throughout Great Britain as an abolitionist and author. He married Susanna Collen in , and had two daughters.

Equiano died in London in Olaudah Equiano and his interesting narrative provide an insight into a time and situation that few people survived to record or recall, and those that did survive were rarely ever literate. For this reason, and so many others, Equiano or Gustavus Vassa as he was later christened has a unique stor.

Generally regarded as one of the best slave narratives ever written, the book is Equiano describing his life, beginning with how he was kidnapped in Africa at age 11 and sold into slavery. The interesting thing about this book is that Equiano doesn't just survive the Middle Passage, but actually cro.

I went through a variety of stages while reading this book. First, I was very interested. The opening 40 pages drew me in. I was taken with this small boy being ripped from everything he knew. Then, Gustavus Vassa's interesting life got really boring.

The story itself was riveting, but the writing w. How does All You Can Books work? Book Excerpt:. To add more books, click here. Welcome back. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. Allison Editor 3. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars. Want to Read saving… Error rating book. Sold as a Slave by Olaudah Equiano 3. I by Olaudah Equiano 3. Written by Himself: Volume 2 by Olaudah Equiano 3. Allison Editor , Johanna M.

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