Olaudah Equiano
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Olaudah Equiano (c.1745-1797) was an Eighteenth Century African writer. He was born in what is now Nigeria, but as a child, he was taken as a slave to the New World and sold first to a captain in the Royal Navy, and later to a Quaker merchant. The Quaker taught him to read and write, and educated him in the Christian faith. Equiano bought his freedom by careful trading and saving and became a seaman, travelling widely over the world. In London, he became involved in the abolitionist movement, which led to him writing and publishing The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa the African (1789), a book that not only furthered the abolitionist cause, but also made Equiano's fortune. It is one of the earliest known examples of writing by black British writers. Its first hand account of slavery (from the slave's perspective) and of the experiences of an Eighteenth Century black immigrant in Britain are very rare.
External links
- Olaudah Equiano, or, Gustavus Vassa, the African (http://www.brycchancarey.com/equiano/index.htm)
- Africans in America - Olaudah Equiano (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1p276.html)
- Black Britain's political founding father - Olaudah Equiano (http://www.100greatblackbritons.com/bios/olaudah_equiano.html)