This young man was Olaudah Equiano. He and many other Africans, both male and female, were loaded on ships that took them to the British colonies, where they were sold as slaves. Hundreds of people were packed into the lower decks with barely enough room to move during a journey that took at least six weeks.
Many died, but Equiano survived. Equiano traveled the world as a slave to a ship captain and merchant. In he was able to purchase his own freedom. Written by Himself. London: Author, []. Olaudah Equiano was born in in Eboe, in what is now Nigeria. When he was about eleven, Equiano was kidnapped and sold to slave traders headed to the West Indies.
Though he spent a brief period in the state of Virginia, much of Equiano's time in slavery was spent serving the captains of slave ships and British navy vessels. One of his masters, Henry Pascal, the captain of a British trading vessel, gave Equiano the name Gustavas Vassa, which he used throughout his life, though he published his autobiography under his African name.
He was purchased in by Robert King, a Quaker merchant from Philadelphia, for whom he served as a clerk. He also worked on King's trading sloops.
Equiano, who was allowed to engage in his own minor trade exchanges, was able to save enough money to purchase his freedom in He settled in England in , attending school and working as an assistant to scientist Dr.
Charles Irving. Equiano continued to travel, making several voyages aboard trading vessels to Turkey, Portugal, Italy, Jamaica, Grenada, and North America. In he accompanied Irving on a polar expedition in search of a northeast passage from Europe to Asia.
It went through one American and eight British editions during his lifetime. Less than two weeks after his arrival, he was shipped off to the English colony of Virginia, where he was purchased and put to work. Less than a month later, he had a new master -- Michael Henry Pascal, a lieutenant in the Royal Navy.
Under this master, who owned Equiano for the next seven years, Equiano would move to England, educate himself, and travel the world on ships under Pascal's command. In , Equiano bought his freedom. He found work in the trade business in the West Indies, then in London. In , he took part in an expedition to try to discover the Northwest Passage, a route through the arctic to the Pacific Ocean.
Back in England, Equiano became an active abolitionist. He lectured against the cruelty of British slaveowners. Often did I think many of the inhabitants of the deep much more happy than myself; I envied them the freedom they enjoyed, and as often wished I could change my condition for theirs. Every circumstance I met with served only to render my state more painful, and heighten my apprehensions, and my opinion of the cruelty of the whites.
One day they had taken a number of fishes; and when they had killed and satisfied themselves with as many as they thought fit, to our astonishment who were on the deck, rather than give any of them to us to eat, as we expected, they tossed the remaining fish into the sea again, although we begged and prayed for some as well we cold, but in vain; and some of my countrymen, being pressed by hunger, took an opportunity, when they thought no one saw them, of trying to get a little privately; but they were discovered, and the attempt procured them some very severe floggings.
Those of us that were the most active were, in a moment, put down under the deck; and there was such a noise and confusion amongst the people of the ship as I never heard before, to stop her, and get the boat to go out after the slaves.
However, two of the wretches were drowned, but they got the other, and afterwards flogged him unmercifully, for thus attempting to prefer death to slavery. In this manner we continued to undergo more hardships than I can now relate; hardships which are inseparable from this accursed trade.
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