Biography of Olaudah Equiano

OLAUDAH EQUIANO
(1745- 1797)

The interesting narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vasa tells a richly detailed story of seagoing adventure, spiritual enlightenment, and economic success in England and the Americas. Equiano’s autobiography was the most influential work of English prose by an African American in the eighteenth century. He was the first to write the story of his life himself, without the aid or direction of white ghostwriters or editors, such as his predecessors in the slave narrative relied on. Although Equiano made much of his conversation to Christianity, he made clear his dedication to social change be venting his moral outrage toward slavery and his structuring his story so that freedom, not the consolations of religion, emerges as the top priority of his life in slavery.
Chapter 1:
He starts off by saying that people generally think those memoirs only worthy to be read or remembered which abound in great or striking events, th...