Olaudah Equiano: the African author whose memoir helped turn Britain against the slave trade
Kidnapped as a child, he bought his freedom in 1766 and wrote a book that ran to nine editions in his lifetime.
London — In 1789 a formerly enslaved man published his own account of what had been done to him. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano went through nine editions in his lifetime and is credited with helping to shift opinion in favour of Britain's Slave Trade Act of 1807.
Seized at 11
According to the memoir, Equiano was born around 1745 in a village in what is now southern Nigeria. At 11 he and his sister were kidnapped from the family compound and separated. He was shipped to Barbados and then Virginia, where a Royal Navy lieutenant bought him and renamed him Gustavus Vassa. It was the name he used for most of his life.
He was sold twice more in the Caribbean. Allowed to trade on his own account, he bought his freedom in 1766.
The Sons of Africa
In London he became a leading voice in the abolitionist movement and one of the Sons of Africa, a small group of free Africans who spoke against the trade. He lectured in numerous cities, wrote to newspapers and worked with Granville Sharp to publicise the Zong massacre.
In 1786 he was appointed to a scheme to resettle London's black poor in Sierra Leone, but he protested at financial mismanagement and returned to London. He married Susannah Cullen in Soham, Cambridgeshire, and they had two daughters.
He died on 31 March 1797. Scholars rediscovered his book in the late 20th century, and it remains a widely cited primary source.
Background: Wikipedia.
