The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African by Olaudah Equiano

First published: 1789

Type of work: Slave narrative

Time of work: c. 1750-1789

Locale: West Africa; Virginia; the Atlantic Ocean

Principal Personages:

• Olaudah Equiano, an African kidnapped into slavery
• Richard Baker, a fifteen-year-old American sailor
• Daniel Queen, a well-educated sailor about forty years of age
• Thomas Farmer, a benevolent English captain

Form and Content

The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African is considered the first major slave autobiography in English literature. It served as the prototype for the numerous fugitive slave narratives used in the fight against slavery by the abolitionist groups during the period prior to the Civil War.

In the mid-1750’s in West Africa, the eleven-year-old Olaudah Equiano and his sister are kidnapped and sold into bondage. After serving for a short time as a slave in Africa and being separated from his sister, he is purchased by European slave dealers. Equiano undergoes the worst terrors of the Atlantic crossing known as the Middle Passage, an experience shared by countless Africans tightly packed in slave ships sailing to the New World and to a life of cruel servitude.

The slave ship takes Equiano to Barbados, where he is put up for sale. He is not purchased there, however, and soon the frightened and bewildered youth is sent to Virginia. Eventually, a British Royal Navy captain purchases Equiano and puts him aboard a trading vessel.

Equiano is called Gustavus Vassa, the name of a Swedish freedom fighter, and the young slave spends the next ten years working on various ships plying the Atlantic between England and the Americas. Thus, he is spared a crueler existence on a Caribbean or an American colonial plantation. He is befriended by two sailors, Richard Baker and Daniel Queen, who introduce him to religion and reading. Queen provides fatherly instruction and arouses Equiano’s desire for freedom. Of the several captains Equiano must serve, he becomes closest to Thomas Farmer, and it is Farmer who urges Equiano’s master to allow the young slave to purchase his freedom.

Because of his enterprising activities, Equiano saves enough money to buy his liberty on July 10, 1766. Thereafter, he works as a free man on commercial vessels and at times sails on scientific expeditions to regions in the Arctic and in Central America. He also becomes a Christian convert and learns how to read and write. Finally, he settles in England, where he becomes involved in the controversial and disastrous plan to transport poor black men and women to the African colony of Sierra Leone. In the late 1780’s, the crusade to abolish the slave trade begins in Great Britain, and Equiano decides to write his two-volume autobiography, a harsh indictment of the institution of slavery.

Critical Context

When Olaudah Equiano’s two-volume autobiography was published in 1789 in Great Britain, it was presented to members of Parliament and leaders of the anti-abolitionist movement. The great founder of Methodism, John Wesley, had it read to him on his deathbed. Many of the important personages in England were listed as subscribers to the former slave’s work, which is believed to have played a major part in the eventual abolition of the British slave trade. The remarkable narrative was published in the United States in 1791 and soon became a popular autobiography on both sides of the Atlantic. It was translated into several European languages and ran through many editions until well into the nineteenth century.

Equiano’s work is the prototype of the slave narrative, which became the chief instrument of the antislavery crusade. The former slave created a new literary genre when he combined the form of the spiritual autobiography with the story of the slave’s escape from bondage. This pattern can be observed in the fugitive-slave works of the nineteenth century. The most notable are Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845) and Harriet Ann Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861). Influences of the design also can be seen in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s fictional slave book Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) and in many nonfiction and fiction works of twentieth century literature such as Richard Wright’s Black Boy (1945), The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965), and Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987).

Critics see Equiano’s narrative as following not only a spiritual but also a secular pattern of autobiographical writing. The secular manner was popularized by Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography (1791), in which the emphasis is on character development and material success. In like manner, Equiano is careful to make his point that a black person can develop and become materially successful through personal enterprise. Equiano, however, also stresses the fact that spiritual, personal, or material achievement can only be realized when a man or woman is given the freedom to accomplish all of this.

Bibliography

Andrews, William L. “Voices of the First Fifty Years, 1760-1810.” In To Tell a Free Story: The First Century of Afro-American Autobiography, 1760-1865. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986. Explains how Equiano’s unique slave experience permitted him to lead a bicultural life as a person who belonged to two worlds. Because Equiano understood the realities of both the Western and African ways of life, he was able to force the reader to examine cultural values concerning race and morals.

Costanzo, Angelo. “The Spiritual Autobiography and Slave Narrative of Olaudah Equiano.” In Surprizing Narrative: Olaudah Equiano and the Beginnings of Black Autobiography. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1987. Analyzes the text’s position in the tradition of spiritual and secular autobiographical writing. Demonstrates how Equiano employs many of the literary devices that autobiographers use, such as the creation of a strong character type, the before-and-after contrast of an individual’s life, and the journey motif, which depicts a person undergoing experiences on the road from innocence to maturity.

Edwards, Paul. “Three West African Writers of the 1780’s.” In The Slave’s Narrative, edited by Charles T. Davis and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. Discusses the importance and popularity of Equiano’s autobiography and explains the difficulties that the former slave encountered in his experiences with the white society. Describes how even a few members of the British abolitionist group revealed their racist attitudes toward Equiano when he assumed a significant position in the political struggle to end the slave trade.

Foster, Frances Smith. Witnessing Slavery: The Development of Ante-bellum Slave Narratives. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979. A useful study of the development of the slave-narrative genre.

Williams, Kenny J. They Also Spoke: An Essay on Negro Literature in America, 1787-1930. Nashville, Tenn.: Townsend Press, 1970. A history of African American literature from Equiano’s time through the Harlem Renaissance.