Equiano Slave Summary

This article tells the story of a slave, named Equiano, and the extreme cruelties he witnessed, when he was aboard a ship, during the slave trade. During this time many Africans were taken from their native country (either directly captured by slave traders, or sold by their own people), and shipped across the Atlantic Ocean to the new world. The slaves were taken to produce cheap labor in the new world, but many of them died on the journey. This article explains in detail the type of treatment Equiano and his people received, and how the slave trade leads to commercial prosperity of Europe at this time. When Equiano (nothing more than a piece of cargo) boarded the ship for the new world, he had no idea what his future had to hold. Equiano was one of many men, children, and women who had been sold to slave traders by others of his kind. Those who were lucky died before reaching the new world, while others underwent unthinkable cruelties. Equiano was able to spend much of the voyage out on the deck, but many of his friends weren’t so lucky. The slaves were crammed under deck thousands at a time. There was little to no air flow, and they were so close together that there was barely …show more content…
Slavery goes way back, even before the slave trade there was slavery in Africa. I related the man that Equiano spoke to when he was first boarding the ship, to a discussion we had in class about Africans selling their own people in the slave trade. The man that was talking to Equiano and boarding him on the ship was one of his own people. We also spoke about how some of the slaves were actually captured, but that the majority of them were sold by other Africans. I also noticed that Equiano had a similar reaction when he met the white men, as the Indians did in the article I read about Christopher Columbus. Like the Indians, Equiano was amazed by the white men, and thought that they must be