Who Is Olaudah Equiano

The Life of Olaudah Equiano Olaudah Equiano was a former enslaved African, seaman and merchant. He contributed immensely to the abolishment of the slave trade by writing an autobiography entitled " The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano", that depicted the horrors caused by slavery.
From the story of Olaudah Equiano, Africa is represented as a land that uncommonly rich and fruitful, by bearing all kinds of vegetables in abundance. The people were farmers where the people grew plenty of Indian corn and a vast quantity of cotton and tobacco. He depicts that pineapples grew on the culture and to the size of the largest sugar loaf which is finely flavoured. The people of Africa at that time embraced agriculture as their sole …show more content…
He highlights their morals and manners to be straightforward and unassuming. He claims that they were just because they only enslaved criminals or prisoners of war as opposed to the Europeans who just captured people to enslave them. They had strict gender roles that created order socially in the villages. They were individuals who liked celebrations by embracing music bu at the same time undermining luxuries and decadence. The one trait that comes out evidently as portrayed by Olaudah Equiano is their emphasis on cleanliness. He argues that this lifestyle produced healthy and generous individuals. He depicts the Africans to be religious people by stating that they even believed in one creator, although they leaned on the spirit world than the Europeans did. He compares them to the Europeans who he portrays them to have an image of being bloodthirsty and …show more content…
This is because some explorers described the Africans to be very naive and people who did weird things ranging from human sacrifice and even some writers of historical literature depict the African sat that time to have practised cannibalism. But Olaudah Equiano Tries to prove that the Africans were people who were virtuous mostly when they were isolated from the foreign influence. Also contrary to the literature that slaves were going through a lot of trouble as compared to the free blacks, Olaudah Equiano depicts that the free blacks had more difficulties than the slaves. He portrays this when he states that in West Indies, he met a free negro named Joseph Clipson, who made him realize the world had a different notion just like him. This is because Clipson was free but was accosted by a Bermuda captain who claimed Clipson was a slave just like the others. Hence, he was entitled to orders of taking him to Jamaica. Clipson tried to protest that he was not a slave but was given no hearing and was forced to board the captain ‘s ship despite him having physical evidence of freedom. The freedom of the free blacks was nominal, and they lived in the fear of being re-enslaved or constant abuses to their person and