Olaudah Equiano Thesis

Olaudah Equiano, a victim to the malicious slave trade, gives vivid detail and insight into the world of slavery from a slave’s point of view. The article studied was written by Equiano himself, an Ibo prince who was seized from his homeland of Africa and thrust into a cruel life of bondage at the age of only eleven. Equiano writes of the hardship of his voyage overseas in the late years of the seventeenth century. Part of his story is shared in this article, the story of an African male going from slavery to freedom. He records and shares his story in 1789 as he worked to further the Church of England after purchasing his freedom from a Quaker merchant. Sadly, Equiano was not the only man to face such hardships, as the slave trade was highly profitable across the entire Western Hemisphere. This, in turn, caused millions of Africans to suffer a similar fate.
For a slave, the trek abroad, as depicted by victim Equiano, was nothing short of brutal. Sickness, stench, and suffering filled the air amongst the passengers, nearly suffocating those who fell prey …show more content…
For a human being to be treated as nothing but product displays an evil that will not soon be suppressed at this time in history, but instead will grow and worsen. This article paints a resplendent image of just how poorly the Africans were treated. This wretched mistreatment also creates a spark for what, in the future, will be a total division of a developing country. This shows that the slaves were rightful in their want for freedom. Who would want to live a life where they are ripped away from the ones they love and the homes they’ve hailed from, and forced to succumb to a life of toil, sickness, and sadness? Without Equiano’s brave retelling of his treacherous crossing to the New World, the world may have never known how truly insidious the slave trade was, causing the possibility of its continuation in the world