Olaudah Equiano Research Paper

Olaudah Equiano was born on year 1745 in Essaka: (Equiano, 32). As Abyssinia (modern day Ethiopia) was divided into small provinces, all the small provinces had Chiefs and elders to run government. Olaudah father was one of the chiefs in the village. So growing up as a child was good. Until he was kidnapped at the age of eleven along with his sister. After being kidnapped he was hiked across part of Africa and then was loaded onto a ship. While travelling to Barbados he and his countrymen were subjected to many horrors anyone could hardly imagine. He was taken from his African home and thrown into a western world which was completely foreign to him. During his ten years of slavery he aspired lots of traits and customs of western thinking. He …show more content…
However, he is not able to forget his African culture and values. His way of thinking, his moral values, do and don’ts are all shattered after he was kidnapped. Europeans displayed cruel behavior on both Africans and on their own people. When Equiano witnesses a white man died their fellow friend tossed him over the side as they did to black people (Equiano, 57). This view made him very afraid and disturbed as it was against his African ideals. Likewise, on Virginia plantation during his enslavement he witnesses a black women slave who was made to wear an iron muzzle. The women could neither speak properly nor eat or drink (Equiano, 63). By seeing this savagery he related it with the practice from his African community. He talks about the African girls, the way they are treated during pregnancy. He state that there is no consequences for the rapist. He also talks about a black man who was beaten severely for making connection with a white woman (Equiano, 104). In this point in narration he talks about the injustices of the slave trade, relating it with the required number i.e. 20,000 Negroes annually to fill up only in West Indies for the dead salves (Equiano, 106). He was honest and easily gullible who believed that he was striving economically towards freedom as he thought his master would set him free he used to spend most of his earning buying tobacco and sugar for his master to keep in happy. As he believed that his master Lieutenant Pascal would be the key to his freedom. However, while reaching on the Thames the lieutenant tried to sell him. And then he felt “so stuck with the unexpectedness of this proceeding, that for some time I did not make a reply …” (Equiano, 93). Equiano was shocked by the thought if treachery. In this way his African value were